Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/20/26: Trump leaks Macron Text, Don Lemon Church Protest Debate

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump leaking Macron texts, Don Lemon church protest.   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.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. 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 breaking points.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? We do a lot that is interesting this morning. We had some breaking news overnight. President Trump posting the private text messages that he had with Manuel Macron and others as well as he gets set for Davos. There's some big Greenland updates there. We've also got Don Lemon, now threatened with charges by the administration for doctor. committing an anti-ice protest that disrupted church services.

We've got some new crazy censorship crackdowns on Israel with regard to Israel commentary that you have to see to believe. Josh Shapiro, so the Shapiro in the show bar here is Josh, not Ben, is mad about the VP vetting process. This is a pretty interesting one. Sean Ryan is mad about the White House protecting pedophiles. We've got some Epstein updates for you as well. And Matt Damon and Ben Affleck sounding off on AI. Some pretty interesting comments there from those two guys. Yeah, I know. I mean, look, I love Matt, love Ben.

Together, they're the perfect dynamic duo. Every, like, six months, they just do. Ben, in particular, will just drop, like, immense wisdom in, like, a six-minute period, particularly on AI. And we're like, man, you know, the Goodwill hunting gang. He's had some epic Bill Mar appearances, Ben Affleck, legendary. That's why I just don't, I don't understand how that person can exist in the same body as the tabloid figure of, like, involving all of his J-Lo and all this. I'm like, what is going on? Some guys love a crazy bitch.

You're the goat. He's just the goat. But anyway, we'll talk about it. I have not watched the rip. I will admit, I have not watched it yet. It's supposed to be good, right? I don't know. I haven't seen any of the reviews or anything.

I've unfortunately been out of the game when it comes to film. Thank you to everybody who has been subscribing to our YouTube channel. We have noticed, unfortunately, that many of you who watch our videos do not subscribe. So please hit the subscribe button. And if you are listening to this on a podcast, share an episode with a friend or rate us five. stars. And then finally, if you want to support our work, breakingpoints.com, we could deeply appreciate it. We've got all of the extra premium things that we've got going on. And we're always putting out new shows on five days a week. You get, of course, the AMA benefits, which

we're going to be doing later today. So breakingpoints.com, if you want to become a premium subscriber. So let's go ahead, Crystal, and start with the overnight breaking news, the McCrone tax. It's really not the text that the most important thing. It's the economic fallout as the Greenland crisis, I guess you could call it a continues. Threat the strength of the U.S. dollar and potential economic fallout here in the U.S. Yeah, so let's go ahead and we had a big truth social burst overnight that we woke up to and had to incorporate into the show that is already moving markets. So let's put this up on the screen. Among other things that he posted was this, which the French have now confirmed,

is a legitimate private message that was sent to Trump from French President Emmanuel Macron. He says, my friend, we are totally in line on Syria to do. my French accent. We can do great things on Iran. I do not understand what you're doing on Greenland. Let us try to build great things. Number one, I can set up a G7 meeting after Davos in Paris on Thursday afternoon. I can invite the Ukrainians, the Danish, the Syrians, and the Russians in the margins. Let us have a dinner together in Paris together on Thursday before you go back to the U.S. So pretty interesting. In terms of the tone here, it just shows you behind the scenes how much they all suck up to him.

You also had the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Root, is that how you say his name? In any case, see, we got even more sort of slavishly fawning text messages from him as well. So this is the tone that is being professed to President Trump from the Europeans behind the scenes. The Mark Root one says, Mr. President, dear Donald, what you accomplished in Syria today is incredible. I will use my media engagements in Davos to highlight your work there in Gaza and in Ukraine. I'm committed to finding a way forward on Greenland. Can't wait to see you. Yours, Mark.

Oh, my God. These people are so pathetic. I mean, it's embarrassing for everyone involved. Like, posting the private text messages you're getting from various world leaders is crazy. I mean, that is psychotic behavior from literally anyone, especially from the president of the United States. But this tone from them, I can understand, I guess I did it a little bit more from the Secretary General of NATO because truly his fate is held in the palm of Trump's hands. But, I mean, like Emmanuel Macron, have some self-respect. You're the leader of a sovereign nation, supposedly. That's why I said this yesterday. I cannot stand

the hypocrisy of these people. Can we put the text message? Please black up on the screen. Because look and note what they deal with. We can are totally in line in our al-Qaeda-backed regime in Syria, where, by the way, there are currently literally massacres, where women are having their throat slit on camera. If anybody's interested. We can do great things. things on Iran. Oh, so we can do regime change in Iran. But Greenland, oh, man, this is why all of their worship and all of this is of the UN Charter. They are happy to sponsor these CIA Black Wars that happened in Syria over the last 14 years. They had nothing whatsoever. They basically celebrated turning into an Israeli-Israeli-war state. Perific massacre is happening in Syria right now,

by the way. Ryan and Dropside have been documenting that. I hate to say, I've watched some of these videos, you know, it's, it's like worse than Gaza in some respects, like not, because it's not popular. Like, we're talking about hand-to-hand physical combat and actual, like, torture of people that are happening. Now we have, we can do great things on Iran. So we can do regime change. We can violate the UN charter, international principles, all of that. But again, oh, Greenland, oh, well, you can't have that because that's about European sovereignty. This is where these people are just completely, not only spineless, but it demonstrates that, that, They just want carve-outs for themselves.

They backed the U.S. kidnapping of Maduro. They said that the Venezuelan government was illegitimate. And they just never, and at the very same time, oh, well, it would be a violation of international norms for Russia to invade Ukraine. But, oh, if the United States wants to take Venezuela, we want to do regime change on it, we are totally aligned. We want to take over Gaza and own Gaza. These people are going to take over Gaza, the border of – you know, the only thing

they object to on the board of peace is that we're not colonizing Gaza. the correct way, right? It's like, it's not that they care whenever it comes to self-determination. So they have never understood that if you're going to operate like this, then yes, you will open the door not just to China, Taiwan, or any of the other U.S. average, Russia and Ukraine. Yes, now the United States can come in with the same logic if they, under their, you know, under the way that they operate and be like, okay, we're going to take Greenland. And so this is where you cannot have sympathy for these leaders. They have no self-respect whatsoever. Like you were saying on NATO and Mark, right, it just gives the whole game away. NATO is part of the American Empire, end of story,

period, especially whenever it comes to military power. That's why they're freaking out right now, because they know that if this quote blows up NATO, which again, you know, don't threaten me with a good time, well, what it demonstrates is the farcical nature of like the entire way that they have tried to operate as quasi-independent. And if you're a European watching this, you should be furious with your leaders for allowing you to be in this position. This is why the people I respect the most

are the French and the European right, who are like, listen, that we have completely mortgaged our economic and foreign policy to these Brussels bureaucrats who work on behalf of a block instead of our own national interests. And I will also respect them because they're not sucking up to America,

They're like, no, bitch, we're European. That is not true. They are sucking up to America. No, no, no. AFC and the French right on the Greenland thing are not going along whatsoever. You may be talking a little bit. Yeah, but I mean the AFC, for example,

what I mean is the AFD was 100% sucking up to the American right. The one thing they broke on is Greenland, which is actually not that. But that's not that different from what the liberals are doing at this point, because they suck up to Trump on everything too and are also drawing the line at Greenland. So I don't see their positions as being all that different, to be honest. The reason I take it differently is because they're like, No, we will never allow another country to come in to dictate, like what exactly it means for us as Europeans to have our foreign policy. That is the prime, like, that is the prime principle whenever it comes to being nationalists.

And so fundamentally, like what these people have done is put themselves into a corner where they want to endorse Western imperialism and take over of the globe, except whenever it applies to their own territory. Right. So they have no leg to stand on. I mean, zooming out. Yeah. The deal post-World War II, as we discussed yesterday with Jeffrey Sachs, and I really encourage you guys to listen to that interview, is effectively, okay, we're going to take care of, like, you don't have to spend that much on your defense. You can rely on us for that. And, you know, we're going to do NATO. We're going to have our bases. We're going to count on our nuclear

umbrella. We're going to have Article 5, whatever. We're going to have all of that. And in return, you are going to accept the dollars, the world's reserve currency. Correct. And that is an, an enormous, incalculable benefit to us. So the only really strategic move on the table, there's two possibilities. One is what they're doing, which is basically like has been appeasement. Like, let's see if we can, you know, they talk to this guy also. This is why it's humiliating for Trump too. They talked to him like he's a toddler that you're trying to appease and get to go to bed or, you know, like, oh, if you're a good boy, then we can have a, you know, we can have a nice time tomorrow, whatever. Like, they talk to him like he's a child.

and clearly see him as a psychopathic, like emotionally volatile, insane person that totally comes through in the way, the tenor of the text here. But in any case, can do that, which is what they've been doing. Or you can reach out to the rest of the world, a la what Canada is doing with China. And you can try to, okay, we're not getting that defense part of the deal anymore. Then you're not going to be able to reliably count on us to, you know, follow your policy vis-a-vis China. Like, for example, the UK, at our request, banned Huawei technology in the UK. I mean, okay, so those sorts of things are not going to happen anymore. And they also hold a good bit of our debt, of our treasury debt. Start selling some of that into the market. Like, if you want,

and there is no choice on the board at this point other than to look elsewhere in the world and to try to achieve your own sovereignty at this point. This show contains information. This show contains information subject to but not limited to personal takes, rumors, not so accurate stats, and plenty more. What's up, man? This is your boy, Nav Green, from the Broken Play Podcast. Look, it's the end of the season, the playoffs are here. But guess what?

It ain't the end of your season. You can always tune in with Broken Play Podcast with Nav Green on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Not a team who ain't going to the playoffs. They're cheese. Oh, it's a rap. It's time to rebuild. Who's your MVP right now then? Drake May up there.

She all in up there still. Oh, my boy, Matthew Stafford. Where did he? He's both Knicks at. He ain't too far behind. He did all this talk. What Matthew Stafford is doing statistically, bro, is crazy. Bro, you know I ain't no Josh Allen fan,

but Matthew Stafford got better weapon. Caleb Williams. Hey, he should be in that conversation. In what conversation? He should be in it. Listen to Broken Play with Nav Green from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app.

Apple Podcast or whatever you get your podcast. Let me put M1 up on the screen because we also had this, which Trump posted as well, which is, you know, him with this map that has Canada and Greenland and Venezuela and you pointed out Cuba. Yes. If you zoom in, you can actually see Cuba and Venezuela there. Cuba's very small there as an island. But if you do zoom in, you can see that. Yeah. So all under the American flag. So this is another thing that he posted into your point. You know, the markets are reacting to all of this, including the. you know, the tariff threats and the ramping up the trade war, put M2 up on the screen. Dollar falls sharply. Wall Street stock set for heavy losses after Greenland crisis. You know, at the time of this writing, you've got, let's see, U.S. currency fell 0.7% against the euro.

Futures are tracking the S&P 500 down 1.5% amid increasing transatlantic tensions and threats of a trade war. Tech-focused NASDAQ futures were down 1.9%. Also, the U.S. 10-year treasury bond yields are up, which is a bad thing. That means our debt is more expensive. So a lot of tumult in the markets this morning because of the, you know, the wild actions of the president of the United States and all of the turmoil that that entails. The other thing with these, you know, the trade thing is like the EU and the UK thought they had these trade deals. And Kier Starrmer, who was pathetic and unpopular. I mean, most of these leaders that were talking about, like, Emmanuel Macron is really unpopular in France, which is another thing just politically.

Like, the leaders who stand up to Trump, obviously. Their approval ratings skyrocket. Look at Lula. Yeah, look at Lula. Petro. I mean, Shinebom is really popular. Like, you know, Carney, the whole reason he's prime minister is because of Canada's fight with Trump, et cetera. But in any case, so politically it doesn't even make any sense.

But, you know, this is the landscape where we are. they thought they had these trade deals in place. Starmard thought that this was some win that he could take and say, look, you know, at this thing that I negotiated or she's going to be beneficial for us, blah, blah, blah. Now, nope, that's all out the window. Like, you can't do a deal with this person because he is so volatile. He is so much like a child and unpredictable, like, toddler constantly in danger of doing something insane or throwing some sort of tantrum that may be self-destructive and self-defeating,

ultimately. And just, you know, so you can't, you can't, you can't relax. lie on anything that he says or any deal that you strike with them. All of that can be true, but you can also look at the people who have successfully negotiated with Trump and have come out on the right end. You've got Mexico, you've got China, and you've got Russia. It's threatening to like invade and bomb Mexico. I don't, I wouldn't say that that's been like a, you know. It hasn't happened yet and they wanted to do it on day one. They met, Claudia Scheinbaum has not only been able to work with them on fentanyl, drug cartels, but has also

maintained her popularity and has kept trade flowing. Look at the Chinese. the Chinese immediately, whenever we levied tariffs on them, they just doubled it and then doubled it and doubled it again. Well, that's the thing. And then all of that completely went away. Yes. They showed strength. And I don't know why these people can't get it in their heads. That is the only thing that he respects.

It's the only thing he respects. And so if you're not willing, and look, everybody knows the lopsided nature of the relationship. But it's not like the Europeans have nothing they can do. and Trump is not really down for a lot of pain. He's very worried about the stock market. You know, he's going to be looking at these treasury bond yields. That was the thing that pulled him back from the first liberation day, right? So he's going to be looking closely at this.

And so if you, you know, start selling some treasuries into the market, not, you know, it doesn't have to be a whole huge deal. But if you signal, hey, listen, we've got some things we can do and it's going to cause you some pain. He has not really have that kind of willpower to stay in it. And the only thing that he will ever respect is you standing strong. So these text messages, like, it's so embarrassing. It's so the wrong way to deal with him. It's humiliating on the world stage.

Like I said, I think it's also humiliating for him because of the way people feel. Because revealing these sorts of things is just, like, inherently disgusting. Everybody's had that situation where their friend or their, it's like an abusive relationship is what you get from these text messages, right? The point is around this is that they can't get out of it and they have to continue. And also, we all know, none of their behavior will change. They'll be privately furious. There'll be a Lamont report. And then come Davos, they're going to be kissing each other on the cheek and pretending that none of this ever happened.

Because they're pathetic. They're weak people. And, you know, you look at this situation. And I don't know. Like for me, yes, you can, you know, oh, Trump, bad, et cetera. But you have to look at these people who lack self-respect and who for 25 years have been warned that the NATO security umbrella, your lack of investment and the way that you structure society has turned you into a vassal state incapable of defending your own sovereignty and acting

independently. And this is the net and the end result. That's why the people who either decoupled or built up their domestic strong militaries, they always had some sort of a plan B. India, China, Russia, some of the South American countries are the ones who stand strong today. Remember, our trade crisis with India, nothing happened. Literally nothing to them. And but they're doing fine. They're absolutely fine down there. I mean, and so you look at it. at these European leaders in this current context. And you're right, you know, the Japanese are the ones who dumped a huge number of U.S. debt after Liberation Day. And that's ultimately what caused us to buckle. Don't forget that they also got a trade deal where all they had to do was like some fake promises

about $500 billion. And it's effectively in place right now with a modest amount of tariffs. Their economy is okay. And their own leader is conservative, like quasi-nationalist, trying to keep it relations with the U.S. But they've handled it well. And of course, We respect them. We don't respect the French and NATO and all these other people who are going to be flocking at Davos and who are going to be kissing his ass in 24 hours. This isn't even the first text message, private text message, people forget, that Mark Rutte has sent Trump, which has been released. And he's the same guy. Yeah, you know, because we tracked this stuff every day, I remember.

I also remember when he called Trump daddy whenever it comes to. Yeah. I'm trying to forget that. These are the people we're dealing with. Yeah. And again, I can, with NATO. I mean, his whole fate isn't, like, I feel like I sort of get the embarrassing nature of what he's doing here. It didn't have to be this way.

But you made it this way. But the thing, I mean, listen, with Macron, I will say, he is the one European leader who came out and said they should use, you know, what they call this, like trade bazooka. Like, we should use the most aggressive measures we have in our toolkit to push back against this. And he does say in this message, like, listen, we got to do something on your. like, oh, I love you on Syria and I love you on Iran, blah, blah, blah. Greenland's another matter. But the overall approach of, you know, of the Europeans, the rest of the world has to get their act together. I mean, that's just the truth of the matter. Like, you have to move away from the U.S. You have to unite and you have to move away through U.S. You have to like, you know, do what

Bricks has done. You have to do what Mark Carney is doing and striking these deals with China. And I think you're right that Ukraine is a big part of the reason why the Europeans have not gotten their act together to, you know, unite, have some pushback, show a little bit of background. Yeah, let me just expand on that. The main reason that they can't do anything is because they're obsessed with Ukraine. And I've tried to make this point for the Europeans too. If you're French, you should not mortgage your foreign policy, sovereignty, and national pride to the eastern Dunbos region of Ukraine. That's what's currently happening. The European leaders are so panicked that Trump will go and make a side deal with Russia on Ukraine, they have to. They have to start. This is like the destabilization

of their complete, like, mortgaging of sovereignty from the European Union to now the expansion of NATO has created this crisis. Like, you should be, I mean, I could, you know, go on for a long time, but like just thinking about how vindicated the DeGal vision was about the United States, NATO, and how, you know, he would drive us crazy at times. But in retrospect, he's, he's, is one of the most vindicated Europeans of all time who saw this very, very early on. And they moved away from that vision, and that's on them. They turn themselves into vassal states. They have no true economies that are capable of producing things at scale, which make them truly independent and economically viable. They're totally dependent on us. And they've created a situation where,

you know, where they have to act like this in public and their own democracies, you know, look, I'm not European. I don't pretend to be. But like, for those people, like they have created and put you in a situation where you're emasculated on such, you know, to such a historic degree. And, you know, it's funny, you know, I shouldn't be cheering for people to unite against America. I like balance. I think balance creates stability. This is why I would always talk about Israel. If we had a balanced nature in the Middle East, none of this would happen. There would be nothing with Palestine. And they're also, you know, Syria would be a relatively stable state and Iran too. Everything would be created and have a situation where mutually assured

destruction or some credible threat would make it so that rogue gangsterism is impossible. Now here with the U.S., we have a similar situation where, look, Trump is an aberration, but all he does is dial up everything that we do. He takes it from 6 to 11. The United States has been operating this way for quite some time. It's caused great pain to us as citizens. And, you know, the world has accepted it. And so I like balance because it creates ultimately stability. And we have lived in a totally unbalanced world, largely not just because of our own actions, because we've mortgaged really, you know, our unipolar moment. We also are in this situation because of exactly people like this. And so I don't know. I just, maybe I'm being too hard.

I just think they're completely bad. My, I guess perhaps cope on all of this is that I'm hoping that Trump's, the brazenness and undeniable nature of the way that Trump operates in the room will force that sort of reckoning. Because listen, the old world order is, was already bankrupt, right? It was. And these, you know, the international institutions, which I would love to, I would love them to be functioning. I would love for international law to actually have some teeth and for there to be rules of the road. That's not the world that we live in. And Trump has just, Trump has made that undeniable. And so I am hoping that that forces, a realignment of the world order

that leads to something that is genuinely better, that is genuinely functional, that strikes some sort of balance. The danger and the risk is that we are breaking apart the post-World War II order, which for all its flaws did keep us out of World War III. And made us fantastically rich. Made this country fantastic.

I mean, it was a great deal for the U.S. Like all of the, you know, Trump's carping, oh, it's not fair, the Europeans taking advantage of blah, blah, blah. Like, we set up these institutions. We set up this order to benefit us. It has been fantastically beneficial to the United States of America by design.

But putting that aside, you know, my fear is that we're breaking apart those institutions without replacing them with a more stable order. And we cannot afford to do that because now we have a nuclear world. Now we have AI, you know, driven killer robots. It's a different time.

And so that's the fear. The hope is that this forces some sort of a reckoning and a building of a world order that is actually superior. This show contains information subject to, but not limited to personal takes, rumors, not so accurate stats, and plenty more. What's up, man? This is your boy, now bringing from the Broken Play podcast.

Look, it's the end of the season, the playoffs are here. But guess what? It ain't the end of your season. You can always tune in with Broke and Brokenplay podcast with Nav Green on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Not a team who ain't going to the playoffs. The Chief.

Oh, it's a rap. It's time to rebuild. Who your MVP right now, then? Drake May up there. Josh Allen up there still. Oh, my boy, Matthew Stafford. Where did his boat Knicks at? He ain't too far behind.

He did all this talk about. What Matthew Stafford is doing statistically, bro, it's crazy. Bro, you know I ain't no Josh Allen fan. But Matthew Staffer got better weapon. Caleb Williams. Hey, he should be in that conversation. In what conversation?

He should be in it. Listen to Broken Play with Nav Green from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the Iheart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or whatever you get your podcast. Speaking of that sort of like brazenness and reckoning, some of that is coming through at Davos, which is in a very interesting identity crisis kind of moment. We could put A-Zero up on the screen. Trump is going to be speaking there tomorrow. It's the World Economic Forum. You know, all of the world, like, global elites gather here infamously, CEOs from major companies, a ton of world leaders show up, et cetera.

And it says this Davos can mean interference to Trump has replaced everything. So previously, the ethos of Davos was always stridently neoliberal, right? Meaning that they, you know, they want total market freedom. They want low taxes for themselves. as they want low regulation, but they also want to go to Davos and talk about get pay lip service to how they're going to make the world a better place. Climate change. Yeah. We're going to buy carbon credit. They did something. It talks about in this article one year, just to give you a sense of this sort of thing, they had like the refugee experience where you

would like be blindfolded and hear gunshots or whatever. Anyway, that's like you fly in on your private jet, right, where after you're, you know, you're the Exxon Mobil CEO or whatever, you fly in on your private jet after doing horrific things in the developing world, and then you spend a couple days publicly pretending like you care about making the world a better place, the world that you are personally defiling. And behind the scenes, you're doing deals with the other business leaders and world leaders there to continue consolidating wealth power and defiling said world. So that was the previous Davos ethos. Now in the Trump era, they, like that sort of patina of we need to be responsible citizens. We need to like care about poverty or world hunger or climate change

or refugee crises or whatever. That's all kind of out the window. So the theme this year, I don't remember, it's something very generic. It's like big ideas or something like that. It's something really that I have to look at the article. It was something like that. Like the most generic thing that you could possibly think of. And, you know, a lot of con. Oh my God, Chris. Committed to improving the state of the world. No, that's not even it. Oh, you're right. The slogan of the forum committed to, that's the overall one. But no, the specific one for this year is a spirit of dialogue. That's the theme. Spirit of dialogue. This is the stuff that turns me into like a raging, like a true radical.

It turns me into a communist. Yeah, I'm like, I cannot believe we are ruled by such incompetent, pathetic people. Well, it's, and so the previous thing has all been like the hypocrisy. right? The thing now is the brazenness. And, you know, that's, that's the shift. And it's going to be a lot of talk about AI and crypto and all of that. But really, they're in sort of the previous, the guy who's founded World Economic Forum, Claus Schwab, he's stepped down. You've now got, I think, the head of, like, Black Rock is running it along with somebody else. I don't remember. And, yeah, so they're in kind of, like a, they're in kind of an identity crisis because they don't know how to exactly position

themselves now in the era of Trump. Trump is planning on going there and making some sort of a speech. You know, it also comes at a time of incredible, like, world historic levels of income inequality. You could put A3 up on the screen. This is from Gabriel Zuckman, who, you know, is one of the leading foremost trackers of wealth inequality. Fantastic economist, he says back in 1910, so like at the peak of the gilded era, the richest 0.0001% households in the U.S. owned wealth equivalent to 4% of U.S. national income. Today, that amount is 12%. The wealth and power of the super rich, he says, now far exceeds its gilded age peak. And you can see the lines on this graph that just effectively go completely vertical. And it's set to continue even more aggressively in that direction with the advent of AI, these giant tech companies, these giant tech,

you know, tech oligarchs who seek to become and are on track to become the world's first trillionaires. Productivity in this country in particular is spiking, but workers are seeing none of those gains. They are all flowing to the very, I'm not even talking about the top 1%. The top, as he says, 0.0001% are the ones who are consolidating the vast majority of the wealth and political power. And so that is really the backdrop in the context of Davos this year as well. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's why, that is why, look, we were originally going to talk about inequality, not only that, but Trump is planning on making an affordability pit.

I will say, you know, one of the problems here, as much as I would love to crap on the Europeans and all of that, that's more of a side project friendly personally. You know, it's just a personal side quest of a long held vendetta have against the continent. But, you know, the thing that really matters is affordability and actually, you know, out of the inequality graphic. It's really the importance of how people are able to make it here and to be able to fulfill even like a modicum or hope that your children are going to have a better life than you currently have, which is just currently not the case for the entire millennial generation. That's the sound like that is why the Greenland thing, even though as, you know, my feelings are well known, most people are going to look at this and be like, I don't care about Greenland. This is insane. Like, why are you wasting all of this capital? I think it has like 8% support. Right. Because people, they're like, I don't ultimately care that. much about it. Like, this is not 1815 or whatever the Louisiana purchase was where it's so like, there's this vast land where we get to move into and all these resources that we're going to get.

Because at this point, as you just pointed out, even if we were to have this idea of all these minerals and things in Greenland, which would be able to exploit, nobody's under the illusion that we're all going to get rich because of that, because of the way that the market and wealth and all of that is distributed broadly, right? We understand that this would be a bonanza to a certain and select few of companies that we personally, though, would not reap the benefits. That's the issue that I think, you know, structurally, they're never going to be able to solve. Like, from what I've understood in my conversations around, I'm like, what is up with the agreement thing? Because, like, what, you know, what is it? And they're like, well, first of all,

and I keep using this term, it's a sugar high. They're just literally, like, they're basking in Midnight Hammer and Venezuela. They're like, we can do anything where America bitch is basically the Trump doctrine. And in that, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're. like, well, this is something where he could solidify his legacy as expanding the territory of the United States more than any, you know, time since 18, I forget when the steward purchased of Alaska was. I think it was like 1868. It would be the biggest expansion of the map and he loves that. But again, this is a central problem for Trump. The more that things are about him personally and using the U.S. as a play thing and not about any of us, that's the fundamental issue, you know, in his general

politics. Okay, let's get to the church. This show contains information subject to, but not limited to personal takes, rumors, not so accurate stats, and plenty more. What's up, man? This is your boy, Nav Green, from the Broken Play Podcast. Look, it's the end of the season, the playoffs are here. But guess what? It ain't the end of your season. You can always tune in with Broken Play Podcast with Nav Green on the Black Effect Podcast Network.

Not a team who ain't going to the playoffs. They're cheese. Oh, it's a rap. It's time to rebuild. Who's your MVP? right now then. Drake May up there, Josh Allen up there still.

Oh, my boy, Matthew Stafford. Where did he vote Knicks at? He ain't too far behind. He did all this talking. What Matthew Stafford is doing statistically, bro, is crazy. Bro, you know, I ain't no Josh Allen fan, but Matthew Stafford got

better weapon. Caleb Williams. Hey, he should be in that conversation. In what conversation? He should be in it. Listen to Broken Play with Nav Green from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the Iheart Radio app.

Apple Podcasts or what? ever you get your podcast. Turning now to Minneapolis, there's been a very high profile protest, I guess if you could call it, where a bunch of BLM activists who are now part of the anti-ice movement stormed into a church

in the state of Minnesota. The reasoning behind this was that they had found names of ICE officers and suspected that one of the pastors at this church was the leader of a local ice. field office. It did end up, by the way, that the pastor, who they allege was an ICE officer, was not even present there at the time. It set off a high-profile incident, now showdown with

the Trump administration. Don Lemon, the current YouTube streamer, I guess a disgraced X CNN anchor, was actually present at the protest, which has heightened some of the discussion around this. So we're going to show you some of the clips that has happened. We're going to discuss it on the other side. Let's take a listen. So you can see the protesters here have gathered over here. they're in the middle of the church during the beginning of the search service the pastor was speaking

and Mekima stood up and said her peace and then the protesters surrounded her but this is a clandestine mission I think they found out one of according to them this is according to Operation Pullup that one of the pastors here

is a member of us and so there we go and we were interrupted by this group of protesters. We asked them to leave and they obviously have not lived. What do you think of it? I mean, this is unacceptable. It's shameful. It's shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship. But there were folks who will say, I have to take care of my flock. Listen, we live in, there's a constitution in the First Amendment to freedom of speech and freedom

to assemble and protest. We're here to worship. We're here to worship. We're here to worship. Because that's the hope of these cities. That's the hope of the world is Jesus Christ. I want to be very respectful. Please don't push me, though. We're here to worship Jesus. That's why we're here. Tell you is that there are varying arrays of views on the political situation here.

What do you mean by that? I'm going to leave it at that. But there's varying array of views in this church on politics of immigration. Recognize the complexity issue. Some people don't like what's happening. Some people like it. I'm not going to reduce it to that. I won't reduce it that simply, but we acknowledge the complexity of the situation.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate you talking about. By the way, just so you know, this is what you get with independent journalism that you will not get with corporate media. I'm just here to tell you. So if you're in the chat, if you're with us, support us, support us. Like and subscribe, becoming member, support independent journalism. So there's Don in the church. asking for people to like and subscribe after accompanying these activists, where he appeared to have had some foreign knowledge.

This is relevant, by the way, whenever we'll get to some of the charges that may be levied against him. The Trump administration of all these protesters who decide because they suspect, again, they did not even have it confirmed. It's been confirmed now later that a pastor who was not there was potentially a leader of the local ICE office, that they decided to come in to disrupt this service to harass, intimidate, and scream at, including, by the way, women and children. And if anybody's wondering, it was a multiracial congregation. I don't know, Chris. I mean, looking at this, like, I think that the spirit of BLM is alive and well. It's very clear specifically because it's also a BLM group that was behind this protest.

And I've actually been frustrated that everybody's talking about Don Lemon and not about the actions of these protesters themselves. themselves, and then the reaction from Democratic lawmakers. So you had the Minnesota State Attorney General defend this protest action. And he said, oh, well, people will have to feel uncomfortable. So he doesn't see anything unlawful here. He actually doesn't think it's a violation of the FACE Act. You know, the state governor, Governor Walsh of Minnesota put out some mely mouth statement. And it's like, this is just seems intrinsic to me. And I remember in our debate, you know, people got mad because I talked about liberal protest norms. This is liberal. This is liberal. protest. Like, they seem to believe it is okay. And again, this is a violation actually of federal law, at least clear cut to me, whenever you have the Face Act, which was written in 1994, specifically says you can't intimidate and go in and disrupt religious worship services. It is unbelievable to me, like, that there is no general consensus and effectively just silence in the same way that you see many right-wingers be silent on, let's say, the excesses of ice, to what is something which is so egregious in its form of protests. And it seems completely.

normalized and permissed, like in the liberal establishment within the state of Minnesota, and the fact that the Attorney General immediately dismiss it, local police literally doing nothing whenever these people, and again, let's be clear, screaming, making children cry, following them to their cars, intimidation, direct trespass, not leaving whenever they want, I just, I truly do not understand how can this, this cannot be, like, actually condemned, especially when this already happened in 2020, and there was a massive backlash against it. So I really actually want, like, I don't understand.

And as somebody who swims in this world, like, what is happening here? Like, how is it that this is completely permiss? And it's just like, oh, our side is good so they can do whatever they want. The Minnesota State Attorney General is making a big stink about political, you know, political or non-prosecution or whatever in the Renee Good case. immediately comes out and says that this is totally fine, especially in a state where you had a shooting very recently in church. How could you possibly try to encourage this type of behavior? I just don't get it. So let's separate a few things down. And that's why I don't want to talk about Don Lemon.

Because, you know, and I'll get to them. But we do need to talk about Don Lemon because that's what they're focused on. And the administration is threatening to charge him specifically with Face Act and also with the KKK violation, which is insane. So I watched a good bit, I didn't watch the whole thing, but I watched a good bit of his. stream. And to be honest with you, it was genuinely good. Like it was, like, I mean, we played a little bit of it here. He was tipped off by the protesters that they were going to do this action. Okay. As a journalist, and no doubt he has a perspective, that doesn't mean that he isn't a journalist, right? So as a journalist, he goes in. He documents what they're doing. As you saw, he spoke with

the pastor. He spoke with parishioners. He at times was asking them challenging questions, but he also asked those challenging questions of the protesters as well. So of course you come away with a sense of where Don Lemon is on the issue. But actually, it was, for me, it was genuinely valuable to watch his stream and to hear from the parishioners themselves. Because if you do just come at this from either a right or a left perspective, then you're going to have a very flattened view of the human beings involved. But it actually gave me sort of more texture and more context to be able to think about the,

whether this was a sound tactical approach, hearing like that guy that we heard there who's like, listen, you know, to be honest with you, there's a lot of different political views in this church. There were other people there who said, you know, to be honest with you, like some of what the protesters are saying, like I kind of agree with.

I just, this to me is way out of line and it's, you know, too comforted and I'm very upset about what they've done here. But to be honest, with you some of the things that they're saying might be things that I agree with. Sure. So, you know, in terms of as a journalistic endeavor, like, I think you should like and subscribe. He's on the ground in Minneapolis. He is actually tracking what is going on here and giving you a window in that is not just caricaturedish. So the idea, the idea of charging him

is truly insane. And we all know the reason why they are focusing on him, which I think is also worth saying as well, because he's famous, because he's famous, because he's, he's liberal because he's hated. Yes, I think because he's black and gay. All of that plays into it. He's the first person to remind you he's black and gay. Okay, that's not, it has nothing to do. There is no doubt that that is part of why he is a lightning rod here. No, because he's a lightning rod here. I don't think that that is liberal. I don't think that is deniable. But in any case, that's the reason that they have made the face. He wasn't even the only journalist there, by the way. So for Don Lemon, for them to even float charging him with

the face act, with this KKK insane. And like, on principle, As journalists, we should be vehemently opposed to that because genuinely, you may not lie. I know you don't like his views. He's a liberal. All of that. It's not because he's a liberal that I hate him. But yes. But you don't like it.

No, but here's the difference. As a, you know, as a journalist, like the ability to go in to document this protest, to be live, to talk to the protesters, to talk to the parishioners, to talk to the pastor, to talk to everybody on the ground. It was genuine. It was actually valuable content. and it is worthwhile looking at it because, you know, I think he in some senses did a favor to the right.

By showing the insane tactics? Yes, yes. Because you do get more of a sense of, you can't just view the church members there in a caricature-ish way when you actually listen to what they have to say and you're there in the room with them and experiencing that. Now, for me, in terms of the protest tactics, you know, do I have like a moral issue with?

No, I don't have a moral issue. I think it's crazy that there is an ICE field officer who is in any sort of position of moral leadership. Fine, but that's not. This is a guy. Well, it is my business. It is a business. I mean, I'm a taxpayer of this country. I'm paying his salary.

Sure. They are, you know, in the local community. Let me just finish for a second. So do I have a moral issue with? No, I don't have a moral issue with it. Do I think, and people get very mad when you say this, do I think it was tactically smart? No, of course not. You've given a major propaganda win to your adversary.

you protected zero immigrants, right? The work, you're undermining the good work of the Will Stancels of the world who are out in the streets, tracking ice agents, blowing whistles, and recording. I mean, and Trump posted actually yesterday before he started posting, like,

his private text with Mano Macron or whatever, he posted that there was, quote, too much focus on ice agents and not enough on the fraud. Why? Because he sees that these videos that everybody's seeing of, you know, pulling some elderly American citizen out

in practically his underwear in the snow, tear gassing a six-month-old baby shooting now a Venezuelan national on top of the killing of Renee Good. Like, he's seeing that this is not going well for him in the public opinion. Those tactics are working. And instead, today, of being able to talk about those things and those abuses, we're having to have a debate about interrupting church services in this way that I think for a lot of Americans is going to look over the top and very uncomfortable. It's because it is over the top and it is ridiculous. Like, the people violate the social contract at the most basic level.

But let me, can I ask you one thing, though? Yeah. Because do you also, I think you use the term egregious to, is that fair? Yeah. Do you also think it's egregious that ICE has interrupted church services to arrest, make arrests of undocumented immigrants? But see, no, this is kind of my point, is that it is a race to the bottom. And if we want to have some sort of norms whenever we're like, and by the way, even then, it's a bit difficult. But do you?

Because it is a bit difficult when you have churches who basically declare. themselves as a place where the law itself, immigration law, does not be allowed to enforce. Like, that would be like saying that you can commit any crime inside of a church and as long as you do that you're going to be immune from federal or state prosecution. So, you know, I do think it is fundamentally different. And then second, you know, on this journalist's point. In a sense, I mean, I agree with you that it's fundamentally different because the harm of coming in and like arrest, like those people that were at the church, I think they were

upset and they were angry. They're fine, right? to come in and interrupt service and to make arrest in front of everybody and with children and families there. Like, that is deeply, deeply. So you could just never arrest? If a murderer was hiding inside of a church, could you go and you could catch that? We're not talking about them. We're not talking about a violation of the law.

We're talking about what is a civil offense in terms of. Not all the time. We've had multiple illegals who lived in churches to escape prosecution. Okay, well, so then it's clear then you find it egregious when people protest in a church, but you do not find it egregious when ICE raids a church, hit it out in all their military gear, and pulls people out during service. I would not do it for some, but personally,

I can only speak for myself. If it was just purely like women, children, people have committed no crime, yeah, I would say don't do it. I think that you should be able to do it a different way. What I have seen, though, is there have been extremely high profile illegal activists who are actually have committed felonies

who go and hide in churches at the direction often of some of these NGOs, and then they use that policy against them. use the specifics of what we've seen unfold. There's a lawsuit right now against the federal government alleging violations of people's constitutional right to worship and disrupting, you know, their religious practices that were brought by a variety of religious organizations. I know the Quakers are involved. There's a number of other religious groups that are involved as well. And what they allege is not only that these raids have occurred, you know, during services, on church property, et cetera, but it creates a climate where not only undocumented immigrants,

but many other church members are fearful of even going to church. So you are, you know, so if you're upset about this incursion in terms of, you know, protest activity where I think you're wrong about the FACE Act being applicable here, but, you know, not a legal act. But it specifically says you can't intimidate or disrupt a religious force of service. No, it doesn't say disrupt. I find the text. You can find it.

It's about threats intimidation, but it also specifically says, carves out peaceful, First Amendment protest activity. You got kids screaming. you're following people to their cars. It is 100% peaceful. But in any case, putting that aside, right, I think if you are upset about people going into a church to protest peacefully during a church service, I would say that to be morally consistent, you should be even more upset about the violation

by federal agents coming in during service to arrest people. And so that's why, you know, I mean the rights upset about this, again, I think the tactic was not smart. I think it caused, you know, gave the right something that obviously they see as a propaganda when I don't think it was the right way to go about things. But I also can't take seriously the rights like, oh my God, the sanctity of religion, blah, blah, blah. Because these are also, in some cases the same people. I think Tommy Tupperville like yesterday said that all Muslims are terrible and the enemies within the case. Like they have no respect for any sort of like blanket religious tradition, it's only when it comes to, you know, something they don't like from the left

and specifically with regard to questions. Yeah, but okay, you can say the other side is inconsistent, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't condemn it. And here we have the law specifically says, injure, intimidate, or interfere with religious worship. There's no, it's like open and shut for every single one of these protests. You don't think that they injure, injured, they did not injure. They did not injure. Intimidate or interfered. And again, there is, I'm sorry, Chris, that is ridiculous. Specific car vounce for, again, peaceful, First Amendment protest activity. I don't think. Now, do I think, you know, maybe like a trespassing charge, potentially. But the person that they focused in on here is specifically Don Lemon.

And that to me, I think, I think should be, again, as a journalist, I think you should find very troubling. So here's my transgressive take. I would agree with you if we had not already had multiple journalists who were prosecuted on the day of January 6th. You had three, at least three streamers that I know of, Isabella DeLuca, baked Alaska, and Owen Schroyer, who were all all prosecuted by the DOJ, and some of them actually spent time in prison, even though they were streaming what was going on. Under the same thing, you could make that argument is that they were interviewing people, giving context. So do you support that? No, I don't. Okay, then you should be consistent here. And that's why I'm saying. That's my transgressive take is while I despise Don Lemon,

I think we should set a standard, actually, and this is part of my frustration, is we're all focusing on Don. No, it's about, the story is the protesters and Keith Ellison and the government, Governor Walsh and Jacob Frey and the entire, like, live industrial complex, which has zero to say about it. Pramilla Jopal even did the meme where she said it was mostly peaceful whenever she was private. And so that's why I'm like, look, again, look, if a, if Nick Shirley, when. Let's put Governor Walses, well, Nick Shirley did go with like demand to see a bunch of kids in the daycare. And no one's arresting him. If a, if a Somali fraudster was a leader of a mosque and it was Nick Shirley and people went in there, these people would be screaming to high heaven.

You think they'd be talking about mostly peaceful? Not for a second. And you'd be defending him. No, I actually would not be defending him because I think this is crazy behavior. I'm even said that Nick Shirley literally did a piss poor job and is a retard who doesn't know what the word benevolent means. So I'm not somebody who's sitting here and defending all of these types of tactic. And I defended all the January 6th streamers. I don't think Don Lemon should be charged, which is why I'm so frustrated that Don Lemon, By the way, we can get to his little clip about claiming white supremacy and denigrating people. Again, the enduring image of that protest is an Asian family who are trying to protect their child from these freaks who are screaming in their face.

But this is the issue. Is that BLM, and people always are like, why does he talk about it so much? This is the beating heart of liberal activism. The right to disrupt, the right to be antisocial. Yes, that is protest. Yes, no. That is protest. It's true. Is that they believe that their moral righteousness gives them the right.

right to destroy, disrupt, loot riot. Can you acknowledge, though, that it is some crazy business to have a guy who is the field officer, like the head of the agency, the regional agency of ICE, to be in a position of moral authority like that. Like, that is wild. But that's not up to me to defend. That's up to the church. If they're okay with it, then fine, whatever.

So, there are crazy black pastors around who are literally believing like straight black nationalism. Do you think that's consistent with American values? No. lawsuits about all of the aggressive and illegal tactics here. And I think the reason, and he wasn't even there. And I think the reason why people, you know, oftentimes comments on how much you bring up Black Lives Matter. And like the level of energy that you bring to this, which is some private individuals who did a protest that you don't like. But then to me, the much more important and consequential part of this story is those are, those are like relatively powerless individuals,

right? It's not true. Of course it is. No, it's not true. Of course it is. You're looking at it as a vacuum and not in a vast permission structure. Hold on. Can I finish?

Who did a thing that you don't like? Okay. I think that that is so much less consequential than the fact that you have a, the federal government with all of its powers who are aggressively and illegally using tactics in a widespread manner that amounts to a terror campaign in these communities. And with this story specifically, I find the most important, most troubling thing, not to be some tactics that I don't think are effective, but to be the fact that you immediately reach for, let me criminalize this journalism. That's the part that has far more far reaching consequences than, you know, some protesters

did a thing that you found to be distasteful. Well, I would give you the same thing is I find many of the tactic, to the extent that I have problems with ICE, it is violation of U.S. due process, violation of U.S. rights. Fundamentally, though, like you, I support deporting people who are here illegally. So yes, my tactical objection is going to be on that. But fundamentally, I think that people who are illegally should leave. You don't agree with that. That's fine.

But this gets to my point about the moral equivalence is they are so certain in their moral righteousness that they can walk into and disrupt every facet of our lives. They can burn our cities to the ground. They can turn every major blue city into a literal shithole for two to three years, spike the murder raid, take over federal and educational institutions. That's why you're saying powerless, completely not true.

But is that happening now? No, but it did happen. And that's why people like us bring it up because when they were in power and then Keith Ellison, who is in power, is defending this, we see with our own eyes very clearly, oh, right. So when you people are in power,

they're going to allow this, They're going to use the same selective political prosecution. Nobody gave two shits about journalism when all of these two, when these three, I think it might even have been five streamers who were all charged under January 6th. They held it up. They said they're not legitimate journalists. Now when Don Lemon is here, because now he apparently, because he's black and gay, then, oh, all of a sudden we've rediscovered the First Amendment.

There is zero consistency. Like there is- Sorry, I think there is zero consistency in saying it is fine for ICE agents to go in and raid a church. And you haven't said anything about that. up until I asked you about it and to be so incredibly upset about one church service getting interrupted by a handful of protesters. Because fundamentally. I think that is wildly inconsistent.

Because what you're trying to defend is the principle that illegals who are tens of millions here present can go and find safe sanctuary in a church in anywhere. What I'm trying to defend. I don't believe criminals to believe have the right to sanctuary anywhere. Ice agents should not be brought in to American cities by the thousands to terrorize entire communities. Which is what is being done here and is not about, this is not even about immigration. Well, I know that that's a convenient talking about, but I don't think it's true. Then why are they in Minneapolis? Tell me, why did they choose Minneapolis?

I think ICE agents are in Minneapolis because the Nick Shirley video and because that's how this administration operates. Right, which has nothing to do with immigration. Well, there are several like thousands illegal immigrants or present in the city. The overwhelming number of Somali immigrants are in fact American citizens. Yeah, but that's why they're there. I mean, let's just open our eyes to what is really going on here. It has to do with the fact that they hate someone who's not white and Christian. They are after anyone who, you know, has opposed to Trump.

They hate walls. They now hate Jacob Frye because he opposed him as well. But, I mean, if you look at what these people are actually doing, it's incredibly weak. Like Fry is out there basically saying, like, yeah, there's nothing really we can do about ICE agents who are abusing people in the streets, immigrants and Americans alike. Well, what I think you're ignoring is that. I am much more, yes, I am much more upset about that, which has the backing of the largest law enforcement budget in history and is backed by the entire federal government, and yes, my taxpayer dollars, than one church protest that I think was probably ill-advised.

That's what I'm saying. You're looking at as an ill-advised church protest and not a sustained campaign since 2014, which has normalized this behavior across the nation, and which, again, literally burn. almost America to the ground. Tell me about the tactics that are being used right now. Yes, I've criticized all those tactics here consistently. No, no, no, I'm saying about the protesters. The protests, tell me about those tactics, because it has been overwhelmingly what people have been doing is documenting what ISIS abuses. And it's been very effective. You could also say that they have tried, well, documenting

is a very, very small cry from the vast majority of them actually are trying to disrupt. And, you know, that's a whole other type of conversation where, again, we've normalized it. so that ordinary Americans just think that they're like Martin Luther King Jr. reincarnate, going and putting their cars, let's say often in front of ICE agents, whenever they're trying to conduct a raid. I won't even defend some of the tactics of the raid. I think it's chaotic. And again, like you, I tactically think it's a bad idea.

But fundamentally, like you do, agree with these protesters, I think illegal should be deported. I think they should leave. And you don't. And that's the fundamental difference. Can you not see the, can you not see, and that's not even true what you just said, But can you not see the vast disparity between interrupting a church service and shooting a woman dead three times in the face and facing zero accountability? And one being a group of powerless private citizens and the other being the full force of the United States federal government and the largest law enforcement budget in history larger than all but 13 countries, militaries, and the vice.

President of the United States saying they have, quote, absolute immunity. Like, which one is, which one is more of a danger, more of a threat? Again, I think it's an incredibly narrow view of it considering the fact that not that long ago, they actually did have the full power of the government. Nobody actually sustained any real charges. They don't now, but they did. And that's why it's matter. They don't now. Yes, because much of the tactics of the way that they're behaving. And I will even freely admit, much of the way of the tactics that the right and ICE and all of them are employing, make it so that very likely these freaks are all going to be back into power. But, you know, if we're trying to talk here about the way that this all, you know, arise

and the way that liberal protest norms have evolved now to this point and where the entire democratic liberal industrial complex will defend it and or stay silent or criticize it only as tactical, you can then realize why most people who may find the ice thing distasteful are going to be like, yeah, well, you know, look at what we've got facing us whenever the other side is in power. And that's exactly what happened with Keith Ellison. But Saga, we can always like go back to it's, it's this person, it's that person's fault, it's this backlash, it's that backlash. Because you love to start with the liberal, the Black Lives Matter, liberal protest tactics that, yes, at times, you know, the fringe of that was very violent.

It was not anything. It was the image. And not anything that should be condoned and was incredibly counterproductive in terms of the goals of that movement. But you never look to what precipitory. that, which is decades, I mean, you know, decades of systematic racism, which is police killings of unarmed black men. So how is there no accountability for that that leads to an extreme reaction? If we want to relitigate it, it was a completely fake crisis. People can go check if they want to, the number of unarmed black people were killed by police in the year 2019.

I know you're not genuinely. It's not even more than 50. I know you are not genuinely asserting that there is no racism in this country. No, I'm not. And that there hasn't been systematic race, not just from Republicans, but from both parties, right, in power that have criminalized, that have made it so that you have, you know, a mass incarcerated population that has backed redlining. I mean, we can go through the history. So if you, so it's not accurate to say that that protest movement was based on nothing and came out of nowhere because there is no. Well, it was based on fake statistics and a fake idea. That is just imperative. No, that's not true.

No, it is true. there is no ability to create that kind of a mass movement out of nothing, right? Well, you have to acknowledge that there has to have been something there. Yes, I think there was mass psychosis. No, I mean, there's a big difference. You love to just start with the things that liberals do that you don't like. Yeah. And you love to act like that is the biggest problem.

So, for example, again, you have so, you're so exercised about this incursion in a church. you have nothing to say about the way that systematically across the country, religious worship spaces have been violated and made unsafe by the attacks from this federal government. But I think that I've explained quite clearly that there is a difference. And because you don't actually... Yeah, the difference is that one is way worse. And it's just coming in and around the people. You fundamentally think that illegals just have a right to sanctuary in church.

I don't. I don't think criminals who are here illegally have a right to sanctuary anywhere. The only sanctuary they have is in the home where they came from. Were past presidents able to deport undocumented immigrants? I'm glad that you talked about this. Were they? There's this new fake statistic going around about how Obama was able to deport three million people. What he did is he reclassified turning people away at the border.

Internal enforcement was an all-time low. All they did was recross-flight, just like they did with Massachusetts. Here is the basic truth. Were previous presidents able to deport undocumented immigrants? Oh, were they able to deport illegals at an extremely low rate and at a net rate in which, which it resulted in the last Democratic administration, to have 10 to 15 million people here legally? Not violating church services was the key reason.

No, I don't. Yeah, of course. I mean, because it's ridiculous. And they're doing the same things at schools. Okay, so this is something that is genuinely different under the Trump administration. They rescinded the guidance that previously said schools and houses of worship are off limits. And that was fine with you. You had nothing to say about that.

So I don't think I was. So I don't take seriously. Seriously, you're now deep concern about the sanctity of the church services and, oh, my God, the people are so traumatized. As people know, I'm an atheist. I don't particularly care that much about sanctity of churches. I care about liberal protest norms because I can see, and I lived through literal mass psychosis where people were storming buildings, restaurants, streets, everywhere, rioting, looting, destroying property, exploding our murder rate, destroying the city that I literally lived in to the point where we still have the same problems that from what, five, six years. years ago now at that time. Like, that's why you're saying, like, it was, it's an old thing. It's not. Like, we live with the enduring consequences of that. In fact, literally across the nation, multiple cities and places and areas which I love have been ruined completely, largely because of BLM and the so-called criminal justice movement that followed and exploded through all

of the people who are actually in power, people like Keith Ellison, who have nothing to say whenever a literal church is violated here, because to them, that is permissible. Whereas any, any sort of action to arrest people here illegally is what really gets them all spun up about. But I think there has the same selective justice. That's also, that's also not true. But it is. Because, Sager, before this, before this, you know, multiple thousand federal agents storming the streets of Minneapolis, the whole region, Twin Cities, before that, I was doing enforcement.

There was immigration enforcement in Minnesota. No, that's not true. That is 100% true. Of course it's true. This is this is the, of so problem. Sanctuary cities make it so that the jails do not turn over or report. No, that is not true. No, it is not true.

They do not cooperate with federal detention. When it comes to violent criminals. Yes, exactly. Of course, there has been cooperation between Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota. Have there been ICE enforcement actions in Minneapolis prior to the search? Yes. Is the previous regime where you only believe that people who have committed violence should be a deportment? Under this Trump administration, there have been on.

ongoing ICE actions in and around Minneapolis. Yes. Did they stoke this back? No. So what does that tell you? No, people do not object to any undocumented immigrant. There may be some people like that, but by and large, to any undocumented immigrants getting deported.

No. What they object to is what they are seeing right now in the streets of Minneapolis. And they should object to that. They should be horrified by that. I'm horrified by that. I'm horrified by giving the absolute immunity to a bunch of masked thugs. who have said to people now, they have threatened them. They've said, didn't you learn the lesson from that lesbian bitch?

They are using the murder of Renee Good as their ability to threaten people with the same type of actions. We have already seen now multiple shootings. We've seen also immigrants dying routinely now when they're in detention. So yes, I think people are right to be upset about that. That doesn't mean that they object to any immigrant ever being deported. It means they object to what is happening right now and they should. And so I am going like, I think that is a far more consequential thing to happen in this country right now, backed by our tax dollars, with this private army for Trump and for Stephen Miller that is completely rogue and completely unaccountable to the law.

I think that is a vastly, vastly more important issue than some protesters who, you know, I think you could probably, listen, I think when you protest, if you violate the law, like, there's an expectation that you may risk arrest. Like, could they get trespassing charges potentially? You know, will the government go after them for the FACE Act that can be litigated in court? I don't think that they'll succeed. Well, sure, they took on that risk. That's fine.

It's usually not even is met with a fine. So just to be clear, like I'm not saying all these people should be thrown in prison for years at all. And that's why, again, I would ignore it. But, you know, to your point there, I do think it is a bit of a canard whenever people are saying they don't, like even when you're. we were talking about violent protesters. People like me believe, I mean, Joe Biden, the so-called moderate, believe that people who are here illegally who are caught drunk driving should not be

deported. That is insane. Insane. You're putting people at risk and you shouldn't be deported. The liberal line appears now to be that unless you're a violent rapist or murderer that you get to stay here, even though you cross into our country illegally, and even though you're probably going to be a massive net drain on our social safety net, we should just grant you all citizenship. Like, this is what, like, it is a genuine slide of hand. There are tens of millions, somewhere between 20 and 30 people, 30 million people who are present in this country illegally. And I think people should just be honest, liberals, and say, yes, we want to vast,

we want to legalize the absolute vast majority of them, regardless of the consequences. And we want people like me. You talk about tax dollars. You want my tax dollars to pay for all of their health care. And for people who don't speak any English, you have no education. The vast majority of them are net contributors to society. This is, again, is a complete canard. And even if you had a swel.

percentage, which are going to be massive ball. I think people should say that. I think people should say that because that is actually the place where the American people are. That is where the majority position is. We'll see whenever they actually. No, even as we all saw, everyone was pro-mass support to be mass-separation. Even at the height of the anti-immigrant backlash, even at the height of that, you still had much more complex views on immigration that has been portrayed.

So yes, the American people do not, they, the view that you're articulating as being just like some stupid liberal position, that is the position of that. American people. That if you, no, no, no, that if you, that if you have been here and you've abided by the law and you've paid your taxes, that there should be some path to citizenship. And yet, they don't, they don't agree with what is going on. They don't agree, certainly with the, you know, insane tactics of this private, these private thugs, which again, I, it, your immigration is the pretext here, but this really is about a police state. It is about a mass crackdown. It is about threatening retribution against the opposition, making it so that,

you know, things are, you know, basic protest is criminalized. I think multiple things can be true. The administration believes that if you protest against them, you are a domestic terrorist. That is their, that is their stated definition. And again, I think that is like, that's, that's the thing that we should really be focused on right now because these are the people that are in power right now. This is what they're doing right now. And, you know, Most of America is horrified by it, frankly. Look, I think they should be horrified. I objected immediately to labeling Renee Good a terrorist, but, you know, one of these is, it's always, you know,

yesterday I was feeling very left wing. Today, I feel very right wing. I'm like, oh, right, I forgot what exactly it is like or would be like to live back under the thumb of these people. And like, I don't think that we should really forget what, you know, you're talking about normalization. This was normalized over literally a decade. It has been accepted. There is an extreme position in the way that you look at it. mass deportation. Like, I'm sorry, like, legalizing people, giving them free health care. No,

it's not happening. If I get to- Free health care in this country. I wish we all got free health care. Your position is free health care for everyone and legalization. But that is not the reality in which we live currently. For illegals and for people who are here illegally, that is not something I will ever support. I don't think anybody should support that empirically. And like this is where I do think it is important to also note that because of the position of the moral righteousness, which is at the heart of all liberal activism where they genuinely cannot see. Like, I don't think anybody can see

in the way that you're framing it. Yours look ice purely as some sort of intimidation factor. And the fact is, immigration is a part of that. Now, can it be done without many of the bad things that they've done? And that's what, you know, often the criticism is like, you only object to the tactics.

It's like, yeah, because I agree with the idea. They should get deported. I think it's basically your view here on the protests. Yes, we can't agree on enforcement. I would be much happier with 100% remittance tax and mandatory e-verify and taking a bunch of these employers who vastly profit off of all of this and throw them in prison and then basically encourage everybody to go back. More humane way to do it. Less headlines. Yeah, but to be honest, and let's be clear here, lives would be screeching and crying about that too. They would. Like, the idea that they only object to ICE tactics is bullshit. They want them to stay here legally. We can't live in the hypothetical. We have to live in the reality of- criticize Obama and Biden, anybody who even remotely sent people back, they were mad about it. They believe that they should stay and we should do nothing.

They don't care about the tactics. They're allowed to have that view. Yes, of course. They're allowed to have that view. You can believe anything. Here's the thing is, you know, you're very upset about their moral righteousness. Like, they are allowed to have a perspective. And I do think that their perspective is morally righteous because it is about, you know,

so I don't quaint. I don't think the two things are equivalent. Like, I don't think that the position of the right and the position of the left are more than equivalent. Because you're a left-wing person. Yes. And I'm not. But I'm saying there is, there is right and wrong.

Like it is wrong. Watching that man, elderly man, drug out on the street, in the cold, humiliated, in his shorts only. And, you know, turns out he's an American citizen, hours later they bring him back, right? Watching that 17-year-old at Target. who they beat the shit out of him and then drop him off, you know, miles away, and he's crying and bloodied, watching a six-month-old baby get tear gassed, and then the way they lie about all of it, this Venezuelan man who got shot in the leg,

completely lied about all of that, and of course, Renee Good. Like, yes, I, yes, I feel very much that is on the correct, morally righteous side to say those things are wrong. I think all of those are wrong. And that the people who are protesting those things are genuinely courageous, and noble and that like more people should aspire to hold values and actually fight for them, which is why, you know, even with these protesters, the only reason I'll criticize the tactics, I think the tactics were foolish. But I think it was freaking balls. I admire the fact that they

have the balls to do something I'm not doing right now and go out there in the streets and try to make a difference. Do I think that this was the wrong approach in terms of the tax? Yes, I do. I don't think it was beneficial. Do admire, admire the hell on that? Yeah, I do. I actually do because they are putting their actions where their mouth is. They're not just complaining about it on Twitter or posting. They're going out and they are trying to do something about a moral wrong that they see. And I think that is, I think it is incredibly noble thing to do to have a value and to be willing to actually go out and fight. Fine.

Then, you know, every right winger of January 6th was courageous and noble under your definition. Because only because you agree, you're basically saying that it's okay. Because my view is why we are where we are. And their thing, but you got, your morality is defined only in your own mind. Hold on, but you don't even agree with the thing they were doing. Like the election was not rigged and stolen. Yes. So they were like breaking the law and violent, like, you know, beating up cops.

Yes. And it was vastly more violent than anything that we have seen in terms of these protests. I'm saying that moral equivalence is easy in your mind. I'm saying there is no moral equivalence between those two things. Only in yours. No, no, no. For many people, the morality of tens of millions of people here illegally, But you're doing like a very relativist thing.

Yes, because we don't, we have to live in a very heterogeneous country. No, you're doing a moral relativist position where there can be no right or wrong. It's all just in the eye of the beholder, which is actually a very left-wing thing to do and which I don't agree with. I think there is right and wrong. I think there is good and bad. I think there is good and evil. And so, yes, what they did on January 6th was stupid and it was for a bad and wrong cause. What these protesters are doing in general in Minneapolis,

is for a righteous cause. And I think that that is, no, because there is such a thing as good and bad. Yeah, everybody who marched against civil rights who were in the white crowds throwing stuff with black people thought that they were in the right and they were uploading. Yeah, and they were wrong.

Yeah, I know that they were wrong. That's my point, is that the January 6ers saying that they were morally righteous were incorrect. Yes, but by normal. Whereas these people are correct. And you agree with me on that. Like, you also object to these ice tactics and you also don't think that the election was stolen

that was stupid. So clearly there is some, you know, ability to see objectively that some things causes are worthy and noble and some causes are bad and wrong. That's all I'm saying. Oh, okay, fine. Because you're doing a whole moral relative. Well, in their mind, they think, but they're wrong. And these people are not. Yeah, but if I went back to the 1950s, a vast portion of the public would have agreed with the people who were storming and there would have been, let's say, a debate here on the show.

But they were wrong. And many people, okay, we can say that in retrospect, but the point is is what matters actually in the moment. And what matters in the moment, as you just laid out, is while you think it's noble and courageous, I think that anybody who wants to normalize these types of things is despicable in the same way. I mean, I feel like I'm living in crazy land sometimes. Because it's like we haven't sat here and criticized ICE. We haven't sat here and said that the tactics are bad. As if we haven't sat here and said, yes, they've often violated.

All of that is readily admissible. However, again, that does not give you license to be rampaging through private institutions and to go and intimidate people who you disagree with, which is the fundamental belief of left-wing activism in and of itself. They do not actually believe that my position or the position of millions of people, for many who voted in 2024, that mass deportation and illegal should go back, which again, won the popular vote, let me remind everyone, that is not a legitimate position and that any of those people should be driven from public life and have no right and or to speak. That is probably the mainstream view of liberal activism and, let's say, DSA or any of these types of people.

That is objectionable because it is pretty clear to me that those people are not really consistent with any sort of democratic values. And for all the left's talk of 1930s Germany, what they forget is that these were the same tactics used by the communists. This is actually the exact same, like playbook of street gangs and all of that that was playing out of anarchism at the time. It didn't work out so well for all of you. Or the Spanish Civil War and the same murder of a lot of people who were.

religious institutions, which is eventually what led to the rise of Spanish fascism. Because it's not just about tactics. It is also about the same level of moralism, of protest behavior. And I view that fundamentally as a danger. You don't because you think it's courageous. It is a massive danger to living in a heterogeneous society. And the same way that you see illiberalism on the right, I can point to this exactly, and the handling and the basically effective endorsement of this by the Democratic industrial complex

and to say, wow, illiberalism is still alive and well whenever it comes to the institutionalized left. And people like me should be afraid of it. We can wrap this up. But I will just say there is really no comparison between the quote unquote illiberalism of the Biden administration, which I, you know, condemned. You were one of the few. That's true. Okay. And the illiberalism of the Trump administration.

There is no comparison. There is no comparison. And, I mean, we're about to cover some of the like rise of censorship. and whatever, you have the criminalizing of pro-Palestinian descent. You have the labeling of anyone who would protest them as domestic terrorists. You have the absolute immunity granted to ICE thugs to rampage in American streets. Look, can we just say, just because the vice president said it doesn't make it true. And I wouldn't defend it.

No, but not to harp on this, but it does actually make it true because that is the way that they're operating. I mean, is Jonathan Ross being investigated? No. Well, no, but to say absolute immunity would be to say that he's forever has immunity, which is like not true. Liberals will eventually come back into power and there's no statute of limitation on murder. I think you would also admit. But it's pretty clear. If when Keith Nelson becomes our AG, what?

Maybe. I don't know. I mean, is murder even eligible for pardon? Yes. Well, I'm pretty sure I'd checked on this. And there was some weird case law, something about state charges. I'm not exactly sure. My understanding is that he could be pardoned.

The state and federal thing, it's a question mark. But in any case, the view of this administration is that they have absolutely immunity. And that is the way that they have, that those agents have clearly internalized based on the way they're acting and also the things that they're saying to protesters on the street. So in any case, that is nowhere, like they are not in the same ballpark with the illiberalism that was evidenced in the Biden administration, which we're not. was, you know, marginal compared to what we are seeing here in terms of the criminalization of dissent and the, you know, the crushing of the media, the crushing, like, even bringing law firms to heal, universities, getting professors fired, all of that. And they genuinely, like Trump will say it. He thinks it should be illegal to criticize him. He says that out loud,

right? So I don't see the two things as equivalent. And you can, you can rely on me that if, you know, Democrats are the left gets in power and there is our abuses that are truly illiberal that I will be critical there. But I am not going to do both sides because I don't think that the two sides have been remotely equivalent. And by the way, one of them is in power right now and one of them is not. Well, one will soon be in power. And I think that many of the norms that may have kept the Biden administration or any of those people from doing what truly was in those hearts are now shattered. And the next thing we know. And you know, I mean, I don't think people should confuse. I am really not arguing with you. I don't think you're the problem.

I really don't. Yeah. But I think the Democratic Industrial Complex is the problem. And Keith Ellison and all of the people who are actually going to be in power, I'm like, oh, yeah. Especially what's been normalized now under Trump, I think a lot of people, like a lot of the same tactics, which were dreams of the BLM movement and all of that and anti-racism amendments after what has now happened under the Trump administration, I think it will be a reality. And I don't doubt that you would speak on behalf of civil liberties for right-wingers, but I don't think that that's necessarily a consistent view. And match of the right is to blame for it as well, which is why I often call it out,

especially on the censorship stuff, because I'm not dumb. The people who are lawyers, professors, and governors are all watching this and saying, okay, we never did it out of norms. Now the norm is shattered, which means it's going to happen. And I think that America is basically going to go through some sort of like 1990. South Africa, truth and reconciliation movement whenever a Democrat comes back into the White House. And yeah, I don't think it's going to go that well. All right. Long debate. I apologize to the audience. I hope it was somewhat elucidating. Is that the right word? Let's get to the next block.

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