Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/28/26: Noem Trashes Stephen Miller, Ilhan Omar Attacked, ICE Revolt, MAGA Turns On Trump

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

Krystal and Emily discuss Noem trashes Stephen Miller, Ilhan Omar attacked, ICE agents revolt, MAGA voter turns on Trump.   Ken Klippenstein: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/    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 I-Heart 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 Wednesday. Great to see M. Thanks for, thanks for being here, Crystal. Well, Ryan is in Cancun for his annual fish show. Oh, I forgot. That's what he's got going on this week.

He's very excited. Yeah, but he's like Ted Cruz. We got a storm and he's out of to Cancun. That's true. That is true. A lot to get to you this morning. There was an attack on Ilhan Omar. at a town hall last night. This dude came up, sort of charged at her and squirted some foul-smelling liquid on her. We still don't know what that is, but we'll give you the latest. We've got a Trump reaction for that. We've got a lot of new details in the killing of Alex Pretty.

We also had a new shooting involving either ICE or Border Patrol or one of the federal agencies out in Arizona. Ken Clippenstein is going to join us with some of his latest reporting. He's been getting all kinds of leaks, as he does. I mean, this is what Ken does. But in any case, he's both got a bunch of current ICE agents who are speaking out and who are upset about how things are going. He also has some indications that while the figureheads at the top of the operation in Minneapolis have changed, the tactics don't appear to. So lots to get to with him.

We had Trump in Iowa. I know you paid close attention to his speech as Iowa, among other places, not too happy with Trump's economic stewardship at this point, Emily. Well, that's not what he said, Crystal. Of course. Yeah, we'll pick on the speech. Yeah, a little bit of a different perspective there. Yeah. Yeah, big picture is that he's supposed to be on an economic messaging tour. And you could see that in the text of the speech that he was obviously deviating from, as one does.

And so is he going to be able to focus for the midterms on pitching his economic message? Spoiler alert. Probably not. Well, speaking of that, we didn't get this in the show, but I just saw before we started, he's making new threats to Iran. So, yeah, hard to stay focused when you're constantly starting new wars all around the world. Speaking of which, we have a wrongful death lawsuit in the case of some of the people who were killed in those boat attacks. So we can give you the details and the significance of that one. Some dire warnings from a top AI CEO that are definitely worth paying attention to.

And we're going to break down the latest for you guys with regards to Sudan, some typical very dire. and very grim news, but also some positive things going on there as well. So, you know, Ryan and Emily really wanted to keep you guys updated. I do as well. So we'll do our weekly segment to give you the very latest on what is the worst humanitarian crisis in the entire world. Yeah. Crystal, let's start with Minnesota. Indeed. So we had some Trump comments yesterday with regard to specifically the killing of Alex Pretty. That was pretty interesting. We also had some, some infighting coming to the surface between the various characters who involved, Christy Noem versus Stephen Miller, et cetera.

But let's go ahead and start with some of those comments from Trump. Do you think he was acting as an assassin in Minneapolis? Who is that? Mr. Pretty, your deputy chief of staff said that. You don't think so? What about the second amendment? You know, he can't have guns. We can't walk in with guns.

What about the Second Amendment? Listen, he can't walk in with guns. You can't do that, but it's just a very unfortunate incident. What if you know I'm going to step down? No. The assessment from some of your own officials that Alex Pretti is a domestic terrorist or an assassin. Well, I haven't heard that, but certainly he shouldn't have been carrying a gun. But all of, hey, look, bottom line, everybody in this room, we view that as a very unfortunate incident.

Okay? Everyone, unless you're a stupid person, a very, very unfortunate incident. I don't like that he had a gun. I don't like that he had two fully loaded magazines. That's a lot of bad stuff. And despite that, I say that's a very unfortunate. Incredible. So Emily, effectively there, you know, saying he would not characterize Alex Pretty as an assassin,

but effectively saying he was killed because he had a gun. Right. And I think Dana Lash, obviously used to be a spokeswoman for the NRA, quote tweeted that and said something, one of his comments and said something, like, please make this administration stop talking about the Second Amendment. Like someone just tell them they're not allowed to talk about the Second Amendment anymore. But you could see in Trump both like sides of his dueling political instincts or his dueling personal and political instincts. His personal instinct is to say, hey, he, you know, this guy doesn't like me. He brought two magazines. He's an agitator. And then on the other side, you can see he recognizes there's an obvious problem. And that's why people are even asking the question, an obvious political problem for it. him. And I don't know what he thinks about the substantive problem, but he at least recognizes there's a political problem for him, which is why the swirl right now of rumors about Christy Knoem, it's why that's even being asked in the first place because conservative media, daily wire,

daily caller, are reporting that the tensions inside the administration between the Homan camp and the Nome camp are absolutely real. They have been real for some time. And you can see with Noam stepping back and Holman going to Minneapolis meeting with Jacob Frye and to Walls yesterday, that it's genuinely possible he demotes her in one way or another. Yeah, well, I think he's looking for a scapegoat. And, you know, the fact that there is pressure that there have been some, at least, you know, top level or cosmetic changes, I think, is incredibly significant. At the same time, we have to keep our eye on whether, you know, the sort of systematic problems with this approach are actually altered. And, you know, that's something

I'm very skeptical of. And we can talk to Ken about it. And also, I mean, it does fit a pattern of whenever something goes wrong for Trump that people can't deny that, you know, MAGA can't deny. It's never his fault, right? It's always, oh, it's this person. It's that person. He's getting bad advice, et cetera. And so I see a lot of that with this as well. There was another speaking of Trump psychology.

This was a very interesting insight into Trump psychology, not that this will necessarily surprise people. But he indicated he may actually feel a little bit worse about Renee Goods, murder because of the fact that her parents were big Trump support. So let's go ahead and take a listen to that one. And I'm not sure about his parents, but I know her parents were big Trump fans. Makes me feel bad anyway. But, I mean, I guess you could say even worse. They were tremendous Trump people, Trump fans. And, you know, the daughter was, she was, I don't know if you could say radicalized.

Maybe radicalized, maybe not. I don't know. But I hate to see it. I hate to see that. I mean, just what can you even say about that? he's ranking how badly he feels about these various killings from his own agents based on the proximity to Trump fans. Not surprising at all. And we're going to talk a little bit later in this block about how he

responded to what happened to Ilhan Omar last night as well. But worth noting. Actually, this was in political playbook. I was reading just before we started. They had an interesting anecdote from, I think it was the president of Slovakia, who said, who was after everything went down last week. Let me make sure that I have this exactly right. He said, is the prime minister of Slovakia. He said that a meeting with Donald Trump left him shocked by the U.S. President's state of mind. He told EU leaders at a summit after a meeting with Trump.

And this is according to five European diplomats briefed on the conversation. This man is Robert Fico, and he is, as Politico says, one of the few EU leaders to frequently support Trump stance on Europe's weakness. He was concerned about the U.S. president's, quote, psychological state, according to two diplomats. And then FICO used the word, quote, dangerous to describe how the U.S. president came across during their face-to-face meeting. So that is from a leader who's pro-Trump, worth noting. Yeah, FICO is very sort of like MAGA adjacent kind of a guy. Yeah, you spoke at, I'm pretty sure you spoke at one of the CPACs in the last year. Wow. So do you take that as he's actually sort of unhinged that he's, you know, this is like age decline.

What do you read into that? My read is that it is age decline. You know, I think our standard of age decline is watching the dramatic decline of Joe Biden, but not everything that's age decline is going to look as dramatic as Joe Biden's decline looked in front of everybody as it was playing out. So I think it's, I'm a, that's my best. guess because when we've seen him, and I think, you know, some of us have talked about this. Crystal, you, I at Sager and Ryan have talked about this. He seemed different a little bit. I mean, he's always, none of that surprised me that he just said about, like, for example, the family of Renee Good versus the family of Alex Prattie. I don't find that particularly surprising. But he does just seem lower energy

in some of his public appearances. Yeah. Well, let's go ahead and put up this next development, which is we have very few details about, but is one to watch. There was a man shot in what's described as an incident involving Border Patrol in Arizona. A man who the FBI said has a criminal history of human smuggling was shot and wounded by Border Patrol agent in Arizona on Tuesday after allegedly firing at agents. According to officials, Patrick Gary Schlegel, a 34-year-old Arizona resident was shot around 7.30 a.m. And A. Rivaca, I don't know how to say that. Sorry, guys. about 10 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, he was shot after a foot chase following a traffic stop related to an active alien smuggling matter. So that is what the government is saying.

The government has often just flat out lied in these cases. So that might be what happened. It might not be what happened. But if we can put this next piece up on the screen, we now have a track record of more than a dozen shootings involving ICE and various DHS agents. per the Washington Post, there were 16 different DHS shootings. You had quite a number where they initially charged the people who either were shot or shot at. For example, in the case of Miramar Martinez in Chicago, that's when we followed very closely. They claimed the agent was blocked in by 10 vehicles, that she, the initial rapport was,

oh, she grabbed a gun. Now, she did have a weapon, much like Alex Pruddy, that she was legal. permitted to carry, she never touched the gun. Body camera footage came out and they dropped the charges and walked away from them. That has happened in a number of cases where you had these shootings from ICE or from CBP agents where they initially claim that, you know, we're going to arrest this person, we're going to file charges because they did something that provoked this, this was self-defense, et cetera. And they've had to go on and drop the charges because once, you know, you actually have to go to court and prove the claims that they're making, they are unable to do so.

That's a good point that their spin is actually I think sometimes their spin is rather clever, but it is about galvanizing their own side so that people, I mean, this is what spin is, but it's so intentional that it's about sort of muddying the waters and galvanizing their own side. in a way that makes it hard for some of these narratives to take off. Because, but I mean, some of the narratives have been misleading, like the little guy last week. Like, it's, that's obviously a problem too. But it's effective. And when you have to prove those claims in the court of law, I think these numbers are pretty interesting, Crystal.

Yeah. Well, and I mean, it also proves why it's been so important the people who are recording in and around Minneapolis, because without that footage, you know, it's just the government's word versus this individual. Or, you know, in the case of Alex Pertie and Renee Good, obviously they can no longer speak for themselves. So that's why that mission of just recording everything that's going on has ended up being incredibly significant in a number of these instances in order to actually establish what truly happened, not just the government's spin. because that is exactly what they do. And, you know, I think this ties in with, like, the Noam versus Stephen Miller, Tom Homan versus Greg Bovino thing here is Miller, according to the Noam camp, Miller said, okay, this is the narrative

we're going with. He was a domestic terrorist. He was a would-be assassin. He was planning maximum damage. And the reason they do that before, you know, anyone can even see the video to see what actually happened is that that has been their. pattern and practice in the past. And it has worked in a number of instances where they can at least get their narrative out. As you said, it muddies the water, their supporters who want to believe them

and want to back up their side of the story, start spinning that out. And then by the time you have any sort of contradictory evidence, many people have already moved on. Again, I'm thinking of the case of Merrimar Martinez is another great example of that where right when it happened, And before we had any of the surveillance footage or any of the other indications, you know, the Wright really believed the government's story that these ICE agents were under attack. They were, I think there were CBP actually, were under attack, that they were blocked in, that it was self-defense, et cetera. And then by the time it's all resolved, most of the country has moved on from the details of that

and they haven't really thought too much about it. So it seems to me that they tried to run that exact same playbook here. And it was just too undeniable. There was too much evidence. There was too much footage. And what they claimed was so dissonant from the reality of what actually occurred. Clearly, I mean, when you have officers involved in their lives are on the line, there's an incentive to spin from them as they are going up the chain of command and saying this is what happened. And that's why, by the way, with all of their new funding, every single one of them should have body cameras on. But that's not what's happening right now. The numbers are not that every single one of them has body cameras. I think it's still a minority of them are actually wearing body cameras. The numbers are, the Washington Post had some numbers on that, but it's definitely not every one of them, which is why we don't have body camera video. And why, in fact, in the Renee Good case, you had a guy holding his cell phone as he was patrolling that particular situation. So all this is to say, you have an obvious set of incentives that is not towards, you know, the truth. Although now that everybody is filming, it does make it harder. I mean, there's just this case. is one that I think the public's trust was kind of shattered because the news, and in a nonpartisan way. Like, I think I just sent this to one of our messaging things, but this is from Alex Clark at Turning Point USA, who said, I run a Facebook group of over 20,000 conservative women who are fans of my show and the majority think that Alex Prattie shooting was unjustified.

And I know folks are making the argument that it's only optics that people are thinking the Alex Prattie cases that other people in the public are losing faith in the Trump administration on all of this. But I also think when you are in the government and you come out with such a bold position that this guy was trying to do maximum damage, that he was there to massacre law enforcement. And there's, you know, probably a dozen videos taken from the scene where he's clearly just a average person involved in the protest or the disruption, however you want to talk about it. That is a really dramatic. Like that creates, that's the type of thing that creates a trust gap with your own, with independence and with people who are like thinking, what do I want, what do I make of all of this? Like the entire approach. What do I make of the administration's entire approach to immigration? and plus you layer the Second Amendment stuff on top of that.

And yeah, it's Trump's political instincts. You can see he's kind of being torn. He understands there's a problem. And that speaks pretty loudly in and of itself, I think. Well, over a long enough time horizon, if you are a sycophantic Trump supporter, he is going to humiliate you. And he did that here because Stephen Miller, Christy Noem, J.D. Vance, all get out there.

Greg Bevino, over their skis, doing. the thing they think Trump is going to want because that's what he's wanted all this way of lie, cover up, never back down, never apologize, we're the good guys, they're the bad guys, that's how it is, you know, the children of the light versus the children of the dark. And then Trump sits back, sees the way that this is, that this is a disaster for him. And he undercuts all of them. So all of, and not just the administration officials, like all of the, you know, right-wing influencers, the Matt Walsh types, who were out there going hard in the paint, going to the mat over, sorry, no pun intended, Matt Walsh, but anyway, going to the mat over, you know, backing up this completely bogus narrative about what happened.

And then your guy just comes in and casually is like, no, this was a terrible incident and we're going to look into it. So, you know, I mean, this is what he does. Now, in terms of any sort of like actual accountability here, put D, wait, sorry, A5 up on the screen. No civil rights violation investigation is going to happen. DHS is going to investigate themselves. They still, of course, are not cooperating with the local and state officials. They went to court to argue that they're allowed to destroy evidence in this and other cases. So that's the reality of what's happening behind the scenes.

But in this case, versus Renee Good, they at least felt enough pressure to pretend to do some sort of investigation. So I guess we'll count that as progress. Let's go ahead and put the next piece up on the screen because we do have some early indications from the initial DHS review. And even this, you know, self-review that I don't think anyone would really trust to be impartial. Even that already contradicts the initial narrative that came out. To me, there were two important pieces of this breakdown. Number one, Pruddy did not brandish a gun. Of course, we already knew that because we all watched this.

The only thing brandished was a phone, Emily, and, you know, our first. friends over at Newsmax to demonstrate how, I guess, you know, you can brandish a phone like it's a weapon. But in any case, yeah, like the exact. I don't think we have the video, but you can look it up. Greg Kelly, just like blue steel for the camera and was pulling a phone making it. He's like, it looks like a gun, right? He's like, I don't know about you, but it looks like a gun. Ray Kelly's son, by the way. He's supposed to be trained law enforcement professionals. I'm pretty sure they could probably tell the difference between a gun and a phone. And if they can't, then that is a whole other issue that we need to think about. In any case, the other,

important detail there, which had come out in some of the New York Times, I think, video analysis. There were two separate agents that fired shots into Preddy. There were two agents. So I think there were 10 shots. Eight of them came from one guy. Two of them came from another guy. So, you know, we've been thinking in terms largely of one individual responsible for this killing. And in fact, it was two, which I think is significant because it speaks to, you know, this isn't just like a one-off. This isn't a bad apple. This is two guys. And even if you give him the most charitable reading that they thought there was, you know, a gun and they were under threat and they got spooked, after Alex Pretty is lying motionless on the ground, they continue to pump bullets into his body. So those were the two, I thought, significant parts of that investigation, that early, uh, evaluation from DHS. And if we put A7 up on the screen, some new information came out about Prattie himself. He had been recording, you know, this is something he had been doing. This wasn't his first time. And apparently previously, he had the week before, he had had

his ribs broken by federal agents. So it says federal immigration officers have been collecting personal information about protesters and agitators in Minneapolis. sources told CNN and had documented details about Alex Prattie before he was shot to death on Saturday. It is unclear how Prattie first came to the attention of federal authorities, but sources told CNN about a week before his death. He suffered a broken rib when a group of federal officers tackled him while he was protesting their attempt to detain other individuals in a statement DHS said DHS law enforcement has no record of this incident.

A memo sent earlier this month to agents temporarily assigned to the city, asked them to capture all images, license plate identifications, and general information on hotels. agitators, protesters, et cetera, so we can capture it all in one consolidated form. So what CNN is claiming here is not only did Alex Prady have his rib broken the previous week, which again speaks to the, you know, insanely, consistently insanely aggressive tactics of these federal agents. But the other part, Emily, that needs to be at least looked into is they're claiming that he was put into some sort of database of known, protesters, known quote-unquote agitators, and that raises the question over whether or not he was actively targeted by those agents on the scene who end up taking his life. And I find the database possibility. I mean, it sounds like it's a lot more than a possibility when you actually have agents out there as the viral video from Maine showed saying you're now in our database. I find that like highly disturbing. And we consider you a domestic terrorist

because we put you in that database. So, yeah, I mean, logic would indicate that they viewed Alex Prattie in that same way. What I see in the Predi video and what I see in the Renegh Good video, and what I see in so many of these videos is more of a Keystone Cop situation than an operation that is like finally tuned to target people like Prety. Like in that video, for example, it seems as though to me CBP was trying to deal with the woman and Prattie stepped in between them and the woman. And that's where it all went south.

And so I don't know. I'm skeptical. But even with that, even with that, like, why were they assaulting this woman? Why did they push her to the ground? The two women that were there. Why did they push them to the ground? Why did they pepper spray Alex Prattie? Like, none of it was necessary at all, which is why I say, I think you're right.

And this is very typical of this administration, that there is a keystone cops element. to what they do. But they're also, you know, you had Trump himself saying that they're coming to Minneapolis or Minnesota for retribution, right? You have the vice president of the United States saying these guys have quote unquote absolute immunity after they killed Renee Good. So of course, they took that message from the top that this is what the president of the United States wants me to be doing, wants me to be roughing up and assaulting and do and, you know, just terrorizing these communities, which is why you don't see it, you know, in one or two instances where it seems to be nearly every interaction is not to de-escalate, but to ramp things up, but to escalate to

the next level, but to create these incredibly chaotic, dangerous, and violent situations. The story that seems to be emerging is someone ICE was looking for ran into the donut shop, and we're still obviously trying to get the pieces of the puzzle put together here, but someone ran into the donut shop and because the ice watchers had identified a vehicle, they started kind of dispatching themselves over to this block and making it difficult for ice to then apprehend the suspected migrant or whomever was in the donut shop or whatever part of that operation where they were trying to nab someone. And so, I mean, when I look at the pretty broken ribs story, it does make more sense to me

that his parents were worried about him. I think people are right to be worried about anyone who's going out in this situation. I know many of our viewers are probably going out and protesting. And I just, you know, Kilmara Brigo-Garcio is a good example to me of somebody who the administration admitted a, what did they say, like an administrative error,

clerical error or something like that, when he was originally deported and is playing out in court right now. And I think that's a much less chaotic and much safer way for everybody to fight some of these battles. So it doesn't excuse Keystone Copery at all. And that's definitely what we're seeing on the streets of Minneapolis. But that is my sort of big picture perspective on all of the chaos.

Let's take a look at some of this infighting here. So let's put A8 up on the screen immediately after, you know, when Trump starts to show that he's uneasy with the lies that were told and labels this a quote unquote unfortunate incident, won't call Axe Priddy an assassin, won't say he's a domestic terrorist. It's Christy Noem and Greg Bovino that are the initial fault guys. Bovino's pulled out in Minneapolis and back to California. Tom Homan brought in instead. And here you have from Axios quote, Christine Holmes' language that Alexe Pretty wanted to massacre federal agents was dictated to Noam and her department by the man most responsible for the controversial operation,

Stephen Miller. And I will tell you, Emily, like, I have zero love for Christy Noam. But I actually find this report to be very credible. And one of the things Kyle actually pointed out to me, which was a good point, remember back what feels like a million years ago when we had the whole Signalgate controversy, and we got to see the internal communications with a variety of top-level AIDS to include Stephen Miller. When they decided to go forward with the Yemen bombing, it was when he came to. over the top and said, hey, the big guy says we're going. So we're going. And really positioned

himself as speaking for the president. You know, the president has effectively, Trump has effectively put Stephen Miller, like this is one of your, he has a lot in his portfolio. But this whole like immigration, mass deportation, flooding the zone with these federal agents, occupying these cities, this is your, this is your zone. And so what I, my guess, having zero. inside knowledge of what happened here is that you got some information, perhaps even somewhat inaccurate information from the agents on the ground that there was a gun, because they in real time seemed confused about what happened. When his body is prone on the ground, they're saying, some of them are saying,

where's the gun, where's the gun, not even realizing. And the Washington Post did an analysis from where they watched the video or they had law enforcement experts watched the video. And one of the things the experts said, which is obvious to anybody who saw it, if you disarm him, you say he's been disarmed, I have the gun, I have the gun. And instead, they seem to have had, some of them seem to have not known that he was disarmed, which will be a very big question legally, of course. But obviously some of them knew he was disarmed. At least one of them knew he was disarmed because he disarmed. But why did he not say, we don't see in any of the videos. He has been disarmed. He has been disarmed. Clearly they didn't know. So in any case, it's possible that some inaccurate information came from the agents on the ground. They immediately, without missing a beat, spin it into this narrative of he's a would-be assassin, trying to commit a massacre, mass murder, et cetera, et cetera. And it does not surprise me at all that that specific language and the imprimatur of this is what the big guy wants would come from Stephen Miller. I wonder what you make of that, given what you know of the internal dynamics.

There have been reports that Stephen Miller is really driving, there have been reports for a year now, that Stephen Miller is driving DHS, that he's doing briefings with them and it's coming top down from Stephen Miller, bypassing Nome in some cases. I wonder if this leak is pretty intentional because Christy Nome is trying to save her job and is trying to say, hey, Stephen Miller, this came from Stephen Miller. Oh, of course it is. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's amazing because, like, I think what likely happened is Stephen Miller told her to say that. And she was like, oh, yeah, she was happy to say what Stephen Miller told her to say. I mean, it's as though it's not as though she's, you know, some toddler who can't formulate her own thoughts and isn't responsible for telling the American public the truth. She went out and spun it. She did that interview with Peter Ducey from the building where she was like going into detail with these claims and standing by them. And a point that you made earlier, I just wanted to underline, which was they know. this is what Trump wants to see in, you know, 80% of cases. And what happened in this case is I think those who kept their powder dry genuinely did not intend upon there, but those who kept their powder dry ended up being closer to Trump because Trump realized that the people who were pit bulls, super aggressive in the messaging from the beginning, made the administration look bad because there was so much daylight between what they said and what happened. And that's where you had Caroline Levitt, someone who largely kept her powder dry telling reporters at the briefing the other day when she was asked if Trump has, Trump agreed that Prattie was a, quote, domestic terrorist. She said she has not heard President Trump, quote, characterize Mr. Prattie in that way, which to the point you made earlier, Crystal, that if you really, really know Trump, then you would understand sometimes he's not. He's not. going to like. Sometimes his instincts are different than the MAGA instinct because he doesn't come

from the right. Like he's a Republican now, but he comes from like TV world and has a history as a Democrat. He's from New York. He just has a different background. And that is, I mean, a serious problem for Christy Noem, but clearly I think trying to telegraph that she wasn't ultimately to blame, which you're an adult. All of these people are to blame up to. and including the president of the United States, who ultimately the buck should stop with. Well, and people are forgetting he put out, let me find, he put out a post on truth social saying something similar. I'm not going to be able to find it because he's truth so many times the last few days. But he right away said something similar too, but he didn't go on camera.

Yeah. Well, last piece, let's put this up on the screen, Stephen Miller trying to sort of like, you know, another way of him washing his hands of any sort of accountability for, you know, I mean, this whole project is really. his project, this whole, like, epno-nationalist, you know, occupying liberal cities. This is all Stephen Miller. Truly, I don't think anyone really believes Christyneum is like the brains behind all of these operations. In any case, it says this is from CNN, White House Deputy Chief of Staff. Stephen Miller says officials are evaluating why customs and border protection agents in Minneapolis may not have been following proper protocol before the fatal shooting of VA nurse, Alex

Pretty. In a statement to CNN, Miller said the White House has, had, quote, provided clear guidance to DHS that the extra personnel that had been sent to Minnesota for force protection should be used for conducting fugitive operations to create a physical barrier between the arrest teams and the disruptors. We're evaluating why the CBP team may not have been following that protocol. And I mean, this is just really rich from Stephen Miller, from this White House, which again said that these thugs had quote unquote absolute immunity after they had just killed the, you know, another American citizen. in Renee Good. So the message went out from the top that we want you to be thugs, we want you to terrorize, we want you to rampage and like strike fear in the hearts of these communities. And that's exactly what they got. Now, again, I agree with you that there's a lot of buffoonishness and like,

you know, especially the new ICE recruits. But it's worth noting that both the agent that killed Alex Prattie and the one who killed Renee Good, these are not new. recruits. These were people with many years serving in these positions. So presumably training is not the issue here. I think what they were getting in terms of what they were supposed to do from leadership. Like this is what leadership was pushing them to do. This is what had been condoned. This is effectively, you know, up until the point that it became undeniable and there started to be a political backlash. they were doing exactly what Trump, J.D. Vance, Stephen Miller, Christy Noam, you know, Tom Homan, Greg Bovino, what all of them wanted them to do in these places.

Well, and here's why I think Christy Noem's job is in trouble. She has been a source of skepticism since the very beginning among the like furthest right immigration hawks. And I'm saying this as somebody who's pretty pro deportations. I don't know how anyone defines mass deportations. but the majority of the public, when Donald Trump took office again, he was above water on the issue of immigration. He was, his polling was above a majority of the country who supported his immigration agenda and supported mass deportations. And the question of how you define that is obviously important. And what methods you use is obviously important. But there are a whole lot of people on the right who look at Christy Noem and see that she has led the agency into chaos.

Now, of course, they're not in an easy situation. They have very organized activist groups that are intentionally making life very difficult for them. And the left is, I think, correctly pointing out they are successfully making life very, very difficult for them and for the agents and even experienced agents, as we just pointed out. So they're not like in an easy situation. No question about that. But now, Christyneome, that comes to a head when people look around and realize this entire year-long operation looks like a. bungled public relations campaign rather than something that would have been orderly and substantive. Now many people are saying, you're not going after employers at all? What about the guys who own the

meatpacking plant? Why aren't they in cuffs? Why are you picking random people out of the streets and not going after the Americans who have employed them knowingly? Are you investigating that at all? Is anybody in trouble over that? So, I mean, this is all coming to a head for Christy Noem. And I think she's very, very vulnerable. She might just get a Bovino-style demotion because Trump doesn't like to concede anything. But I think she's really on the line right now. Yeah, she could just be sidelined and end up, you know, in a sort of like Tulsi-Gabird like state where you still have the title, but it doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot. All right, let's go ahead and get to this news about Ilhan Omar. Wild seen in Minneapolis where Ilhan Omar was attacked in a town hall.

So she was there, you know, speaking to constituents. And at a moment when she was calling for ice to be abolished and Christyneum to be impeached, a man charges at her, squirts her with some foul-smelling liquid. They say it smelled strongly of vinegar. It was like this disgusting brown color. We still don't know what it is. He has now been arrested. But just take a look at this whole scene is so crazy.

Secretary Kristy-Nome must resign or face impeachment. I don't know he's Whoa Whoa What are you? What are he? I don't know Oh my god

He's sprayed something on her I need a napkin to know nothing No we won't continue No no no You need to go get chipper We will continue These fucking assholes are not going to get away with it You need to go get checked

No I don't know what What is there? We are Minnesota strong. And we are sad. So there's one. No, no. Yeah. Well, this, I mean, we'll talk about her responses, which is wild.

But we do have one more angle of this. Let's go ahead and take a look at this one as well. Impeachment. Well, that's a great angle to talk about her response. Right? Because she charges at him. She's like, and she like raises her arms. Like, she's going to take.

Take him out. I mean, that would, listen, that would not be my response and more power to her. I think it might be. I think it might be your response. I mean, I guess you never know until you're in that situation. But the fact that you get sprayed with this liquid is so disturbing. And, you know, that would that would really freak me out. By the way, this guy has been arrested. I can look at what his name is. People pulled a social media appears to be a Trump supporter. Follows, you know, some like well-known MAGA influencer type personalities. but obviously very unnerving and disturbing situation. Well, it's from a syringe, too. So you really, I mean, the fact that he sprayed something out of a syringe allegedly here is, I mean, obviously horrifying. If you're on the other end of something getting squirted out of a syringe at a town hall event. Now, credit where it's due, politicians are such lame losers, babies, like across the board. Crystal, you know this. And that second angle, what you saw was Ilhan Omar basically charged to the guy, this big dude, which if you're in the listening audience, this guy is probably like six foot, 220 or something like that. I'm just guessing. And Ilhan Omar, who is tiny, as much as I may disagree with this woman, credit words, deal, that was badass. Totally. His name is Anthony Kazmirzak, 55 years old.

And, you know, Ilhan has long been a lightning rod for conservative attacks. Trump has really fixated on her recently. In fact, just hours before this attack occurred, he was talking about her at his Iowa rally. You know, even his, we have his response here, put A13 up on the, actually put A12 first to get a sense of the, of the type of things that he's been saying about her. And this is just like all the time. He is going after her. He said there is $19 billion in Minnesota, Somalia fraud. Fake congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a constant complainer who hates the USA, knows everything there is to know.

She should be in jail or even a worse punishment sent back to Somalia. Consider one of the absolutely worst countries in the world. She could help to make Somalia great again. Put the next one up on the screen. He was asked for his reaction to this attack. And while you had some, you know, Republican members like Nancy Mace came out with a very gracious statement, not so from President Trump. He said, this is from a reporter, just spoke to President Trump. I asked him if he'd seen the video of Representative Omar being attacked and sprayed by a substance, quote, no, I don't think about her lies because he talks about her all the time.

I just been talking about her earlier in the day. In any case, he goes on. He says, I think she's a fraud. I really don't think about that. She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her, the president said. I asked again if he had seen the video. I haven't seen it. No, no.

I hope I don't have to bother. So there is your response from Trump. Just classic Donald Trump. It's like from the Charlie Kirk Memorial Service where he was like, it's the one thing I disagree with Erica on. We don't forgive. Just typical callback to that mentality he demonstrated in the moment. But I mean, I have seen also, should pull this up, there's been criticism of the level of charges that actually have been dropped.

So Mike Davis from the Article III project, he posted in response to the fact that the guy is only getting, I think he is, yes, state third degree assault charges. He said attacking a member of Congress is a federal crime. The Justice Department must fully investigate this attack. the FBI must interview the suspect, along with obtaining a material statement of fact from Ilhan Omar, no one is above the law because, yeah, again, he's just being held on third degree assault charges. So there's a little duty for the federal government from Mike Davis. Yeah, no, that's actually, that's a very good point. And, you know, I, listen, credit to Ilhan, incredible, like just in the moment, courage.

And not just from her initial instinct to charge at this guy. But then her staff are like, we got to get out of here. You got to get checked out. We got to end this town hall. And she's like, no, I'm not going to let this asshole steal the show. We're going to continue. Like, just give me a few minutes. Let me gather myself.

And people in the audience were also understandably very unnerved and upset. Because it's the sort of thing where, you know, and again, we still don't even know what this substance was. It's been sent for testing and it looked horrifying. It's like this brown liquid in a syringe like you said. But, you know, it really shatters your sense of safety, right? Because if he had had a gun, like, it's all over, you know. That's a great point. We're also, we are all as humans, incredibly fragile beings, right?

It takes us having this shared social contract and sense of, you know, personal safety and trust in one another to be able to just go about and live our lives, let alone when you're in. incredibly, I mean, just constantly demonized and attacked figure like Ilhan Omar. For her even to do this town hall to begin with was like a fantastic act of courage, to be honest, given the level of threat that she faces on a daily basis. I wonder if there were pat-downs security to get into a town hall, which, by the way, you shouldn't, I mean, it's a very sad statement on where we are. You shouldn't have to do a pat-down to get into a political town hall. But I wonder if they actually were checking for weapons if there were metal detectors or anything like that.

Obviously, a syringe wouldn't be found. But to Crystal's point about a gun, you know, William McKinley got shot point blank by someone who had a gun, like, wrapped on the hand, right? And now you have a lot more security when people get that close to the president. But a member of Congress, they're going in and out of those types of town halls. And the country is obviously a powder keg. It feels like, you know, it feels like things are not getting better but getting worse. I think that's kind of an obvious thing to say, even though the Trump administration is trying to calm the situation in Minneapolis now realizing, as Ken Klippinson, well, tell us in a bit that there's clear chaos, even being understood inside as chaos, inside these agencies and departments as chaos. So even though they're trying to now calm the situation or fix the situation, repair their own agencies, just feels like things are only getting worse, Crystal. Yeah, I think we'll probably see more and more congressional security more and more of that screening just to get into any sort of interaction with members of Congress. And inevitably, when you have that, it means that your representative is going to be less accessible.

It means that, you know, you already have had this trend of them not doing debates and doing fewer and fewer town halls, shutting themselves off in the public. And unfortunately, these sorts of attacks and threats are only going to, you know, make that even more of an reality and give them even more of an excuse to close themselves off from any sort of public access. Sad times. And when the ecosystem is so fragile, I don't know. David Betts, who's a Civil War historian, has, is from the UK. He's been doing some interesting work on what it would take to precipitate something that becomes a rolling civil conflict in the West, whether it's in the U.K. or the United States. And the conditions feel very familiar that he studied in the past, feel very familiar now. So folks should go check him out if they're interested in going deep on how this could escalate and spiral.

I mean, obviously the Charlie Kirk assassination was in September. and everyone tries to have unity after that. You know, Dems responded, some like high-profile Dems responded in a way where they're like, this is going too far, we need to de-escalate. Chris, there's been no de-escalation at all. And here we are in January, and it seems as though it's only getting much worse. Yeah, indeed. All right.

Well, we've got Ken standing by. So let's go ahead and get to him on his latest reporting inside of DHS. We're always happy to be joined by Ken Clippinstein. He joins us now. Make sure to follow Ken Clevenstein.com. That's where you can follow his substack. Follow him on X wherever you get your news. Ken is there. And he has been reporting from inside the bowels of ice and customs and border protection where he's getting leaks. And those leaks paint a picture of the internal dynamics at these agencies that have been tested on normal. over the last several months, Ken is out with a new report that was, Ken, I saw this yesterday, linked on the Drudge Report. By the way, you probably already know that, but mega traffic, megatrific. So everyone was posting this. And some of the quotes just from Ken's sources, here's one, one ICE agent tells Ken,

I can go on and on, but overall, it's been a ridiculous experience. Another one says, as much as I support this administration, there needs to be more common sense in situations like this. not a knee-jerk damage control narrative that does not line up with the evidence on video that was from a Border Patrol agent. So, Ken, thanks for joining us. Please walk us through your reporting here. What are you hearing from inside these agencies? One of the things that surprised me most was I asked each of the people I interviewed,

which is eight people from both ICE and Border Patrol. One of the most surprising things was asking about the shooting this past week, and every single one of them blamed the Border Patrol officers in the United States. evolved. And I want to stress, that's not coming from some liberal lefty position. I think every person I talked to, maybe with the exception of one, were Republicans. They just thought it was unprofessional, chaotic, and crazy. And when you talk to them, you get the impression of an episode of Reno 9-1-1, more than some federal elite law enforcement response, like it's been framed by the administration. And they would basically say that themselves, because they've been inundated,

in young, inexperienced recruits who I thought, when I talked to them, they'd be excited about this tripling of the ICE law enforcement budget. All of them said that these new recruits are useless because they haven't been trained. They don't know what the hell's going on. They've been dumped into this foreign context that's completely different from where Border Patrol usually primarily operates or even what ICE typically does. And so it was kind of this topsy-turvy, like, opposite in so many ways of what I'd expected that I was going to find when I talked to them because they all support immigration enforcement in principle. They just don't support what's taking place because it's not immigration enforcement.

It's become a national security mission, as was described to me, a counterinsurgency against the protesters on the ground who the federal government perceives to be terrorists. And they've said that openly. How does that square can with the fact that the guys we see out there in Minneapolis seem pretty enthusiastic about what they're up to. You know, they seem to be into the mission of, you know, randomly brutalizing people that they encounter and pulling random people off the street, et cetera, et cetera. So how do those two things square in your view? So that's, you're seeing a big selection bias to the people that actually get set out there

because the more experienced people are pulling every level they can to try to avoid these deployments because they don't want to be involved in any of this. And so the people that you're going to see out there are either going to be the young recruits that have just been hired off of these crazy memes and recruitment push that you're seeing by ICE. And that's going to filter for a certain type of person. And the second point is that the people that are being sent there are doing so on a volunteer basis. The government is not handling this like they normally would where they just say, okay,

you, you're going to go out there because you have the skill set that we want. And this has been described to me by, you know, a bunch of different agents. I don't know if it's been reported, but they're going on and saying, so who wants to go? And that's a sign, first of all, that they're worried that people don't want to go. They don't want to send people out there that don't support the mission are going to drag their heels and things. And second of all, that's going to get the really gung-ho people that are like, yeah, when I talk to people for the story, what came up again, again, was these are the types that want to go and get in an altercation and really buy into this idea of the protesters is some kind of radical insurgency that we need to counter. And I think that explains a lot of the just crazy levels of just, you know, macho and, like, aggressiveness that we're seeing posted to social media all the time is that this is the most aggressive part of the agency that's going out there. Well, it's something interesting.

I mean, we can roll B2 here. This is an officer, federal law enforcement officer. I don't know if he's CBPR, I think he's ICE, who appears to be, people thought he was a little drunk. I thought he was woozy. I don't know if it was from like some chemical irritant that had been sprayed. This is outside the Home 2 Swedes Hilton where people were believed that ice was staying and were disrupting it all night, trying to make sure that the ice agent's got no sleep and the like. You've probably seen. People have probably seen a lot of viral videos from this particular scene.

I believe this was Sunday night. We can go ahead, roll the clip and then we'll get Ken's reaction. We're all pressed here. Okay. This officer appears to believe him right now. Oh my gosh. Are you okay? I'm fine. Are you okay?

I'm fine. Where's the local PD? That's my question for the press. Where is the local TV? As long as you're getting comments, please get it. Back up. Back up. Please give me some room.

Here's a ice guy moving the protesters from above for the list of, audience. They all had drinks in their hands too, by the way, of some sort. Ass. Yeah. And Ken, I think you've reported that there's been. Professional behavior here. Yeah.

Ken, I think you've reported there's been some drinking on the job. But one of the things I also found interesting from your Ice on Lowe's report that people can check out at canclippincstein.com is you mention a lot of these guys are not on the left. How are they, like, what do they want to see done? They know they're not in an easy situation. So what is there, I mean, he obviously having the support of the local law enforcement has helped them. And that's what they want. And you can understand why they would want that.

But how do they, it's not like they're welcoming the anti-ice protesters that they understand that that's created a challenging situation. So what more do they want to see? Is it leadership, organization? What are they looking for? I mean, they're opposed to the entire idea of this massive federal deployment that they, they don't want to find a counterinsurgency. They hate this. And it's really interesting to talk to them

because the admin is very triumphalist about all this. We're never going to back down and this is so popular. Virtually all the guys I talk to you think this is a disaster for the agency that long term is going to just destroy their reputation of it and that they won't be able to do what frankly a lot of them believe in, which is prioritizing violent felons. I mean, there's a range of attitudes. Some of them want to just deport anyone who is here without legal status.

But a lot of them also, you know, they have this cop mentality of like, I signed up to fight like cartels and like I hope that I can get sort of these powerful people that we want to remove from the country. And now it's like I have to go and deal with protesters in crowd control. And it's like I would have signed up for the National Guard or something like that if I want to do that. I don't want to do that. It's just so it's like really profoundly demoralizing. And something that struck me was how much they are hearing the protesters.

Like, you know, I don't want to give you any impression that they're, like going to go out there and wave a, you know, like wave the flag of like the left or something. But it's like they, they hear that and they find it embarrassing and depressing. And like it was almost despondent. And it was so weird because I just, I go from that to talking to like some of my leftie friends are like, you know, what difference does any of this make? We're not reaching anybody. It's like they hear and see that stuff. And they might not perceive it the same way that people on the left do.

But that factors into their judgment about what is going. on. And so this whole thing of it being this massive mission, they could just be doing enforcement with the coordination of state and local government. It wouldn't be this kind of like spectacle, you know, so they're opposed to all of it. How internally do the ICE agents view CBP, how does CBP view ICE? And I'm thinking about this in the context of, you know, we're starting to get the demands from some Senate Democrats about the changes that they would want to see in order to sign off on DHS funding. And one of the things is these CBP agents,

they need to go back to the border. As part of the switchout in leadership from Bovino to Tom Homan, some CBP agents were apparently pulled as well. We have no idea how many. In any case, you know, help us understand some of the cultural differences between those two agencies. Yeah, so when it comes to Border Patrol,

it's really alarming some of the resources they're tapping. They've sent Bortak out, which is kind of like the original special forces. And just, so you said culturally, culturally at the border, it's a very different environment than it is within the interior. I was talking to one Border Patrol agent who said, you know, you just have a lot fewer civil liberties at the border, like when you're in an airport, for instance, because the laws are just completely different. And the idea at least is supposed to be like, okay, well, this is like people entering the country. So it's kind of like got to be a heightened state of security. So that's the mindset they come into this mission with.

And you can't just snap your fingers to say, all right, now you're just in an American city and you've got to forget all that. They're not going to forget that. Like they have a very different worldview. They actually will have, you know, dealt with cartels and things at some level, human trafficking at the border. And so they bring all those assumptions and that lends to Minneapolis or, you know, whatever city. And that's how they're going to see things. So, you know, and this was a border patrol agent telling me this. It's like, you know, it's a very different world out there in the southwest where you have, you know, coyotes and you have real human trafficking.

And, you know, some amount of it. Like, they didn't sound hysterical, but then it's like you come under the city. Not only is the population different, the attitudes are different. Like, there are all these videos of ice officers slipping and falling in the ice. I asked them about that. They said, well, these are boys from the southwest. Like, a lot of them have literally never been somewhere with eye. They don't know how to walk on it.

So it's like they're in this far away alien land that like sounds to me. It's like they're talking about Vietnam where the locals hate them. No, seriously, like they don't know what's going on. They hate the officer corps. They don't trust the leader. They don't want to be here. And I was really surprised because I thought, I assumed there'd be some level of criticism.

But it was like far beyond like what, you know, and including from young recruits. One young recruit told me, he's like, yeah, I looked at the other guys that joined along with me. And it was like, he said the word he used was sketchy. He said, these guys are passing a flask around while we're supposed to be at a stakeout following that suspect. That is insane, by the way.

Yeah. Seriously, that's why I went, as soon as I wrote that story, I started getting replies. People posting video of ICE officers drinking at these hotels. And it was like clear that this is like a systemic thing more than just these crazy anecdotes that I got. Well, and you go ahead, Crystal. Well, I was just going to ask, you know, there's an attempt from the administration right now to sort of send out this. They're trying to do PR, right?

They're trying to say like this was some bad apples. Stephen Miller even came out and was like, these agents weren't. falling protocol. They weren't doing what we wanted them to do. There was the leadership shift from, okay, we're sending Bovino back to California. He's getting demoted. We've got Tom Homan coming in. He's the law enforcement professional. It's going to be a totally different day and different approach. What have you found in terms of what's being communicated internally about whether there is a true pivot here? Because while, you know, obviously and for understandable reasons, the murder of Renee Good and of Alex Pready have really captured, you know, the public's attention and have created a lot of horror.

I talked to legal analyst Kyle Cheney yesterday. He's tracking 2,300 cases where the administration has just completely flouted judges' orders and are arresting and deporting people illegally. So there is a systematic problem in the approach from top to bottom, which is utterly lawless. Is there any indication that there's an intent to? to change that overall approach. Well, and let's put B4 up on the screen too, because, Ken, this is, you got a Border Patrol memo about the federal deployment. Yeah, so, yeah, but we could throw a B4 up on the screen.

Ken, this is your reporting. You obtained this memo. So tell us what this means. So after Bovino was reassigned and everybody sees this and it leads to this discourse, a friend of mine in CBP says, hey, we just got this. And, you know, as it shows on the screen there,

it says we are at a, quote, steady state, kind of military speak for like everything's going to stay the same and we're going to maintain it. And the operations are going to continue as planned. So I think that there's kind of a tug of war going on right now. I don't think the right reaction to that is like, oh, nothing, you know, none of this made any difference. They're under a lot of pressure right now.

But Trump is being pulled by his base who doesn't want him to concede anything. But then on the other side, there's, Congress has finally gotten off its ass and, you know, requested hearings. and even the Republican leadership and a lot of these relevant committees. So he's under a lot of pressure right now to try to feel like he can give both sides something. But I want to stress, like, again,

when you talk to ICE and Border Patrol, they see this as devastating for the agency and as something that's going to outlive the Trump administration. But to Crystal's point about policies and what they're allowed to do, the admin is talking out of both sides at its mouth because internally, and I've reported a lot of these slides and briefings, they're being told, oh, here's what you can't do.

You know, people are allowed to film you. They can even curse at you and swear and things. So the legal counsel within Homeland Security has basically said all the things they're supposed to say, but it's kind of like they're fighting against the admin, which publicly is calling these guys terrorists. And just think about, aside from policy, think about the psychological, like, effect of your boss's boss's boss, the admin, saying every day, that it's some insurgency, it's terrorists, it's an assault on liberty, they're going to

overthrow the dark, all these things. It's like, and then meanwhile, some lawyers are, oh, by the way, you can't do this. Like, it's confusing. And if you're a young recruit in particular, there won't have been that sort of antibodies built up of like, okay, well, whoever's in the White House, this is how we do things. Like, they're going to listen to this stuff and consume it and act on that basis. So it's kind of bullshit. I mean, they called the Johnson Ross, the guy who killed Renee Good.

they called him a hero. So, and J.D. Vance says they have absolute immunity. So what message does that send to people about the way that they want you to behave? And look, I think that Jonathan Ross murdered Renee Good. I think Emily disagrees in what the legal definition would be. How are you feel about that? Nobody, nobody who has looked at this, nobody who has any law enforcement experience thinks that Jonathan Ross behaved in the correct way there. I mean, he put himself in danger by going in front of the vehicle to begin with.

Officer created Jeopardy. And that guy, they called, they said he's a hero. They, you know, people were raising money for him. So of course that's the message that's received is like the most belligerent, aggressive tactics against a group of people who have been labeled literal domestic terrorists and are being entered into a database and being tracked by our government as domestic. terrorists. Yeah, what sort of behavior do you think that is going to create among not just the new recruits, but all these guys. I mean, the two killers here, well, actually three, because we now know there were two agents that fired on Alex Preti. These were not new recruits. These were guys who had years and years of experience, which I think is, you know, a very important fact here because you can't just sort of shift it off to like, oh, we got these new bunch of hooligans in and they don't know what they're doing. Yeah, totally. And again, it's an ideological thing. I mean, there's a range of people and people that talk to me that's not a scientific sample. It wasn't a partisan sample like some people are saying, like, oh, just Democrats. The idea of Democrats working for ICE and CDP is like. Democratic liberal ICE agents, guys, come on. Come on. Ten sunny for ice.

Yeah. Signing bonus, guys. I don't know. I'm sorry. I had to do it. What about for me? Journalism doesn't pay, man. Need more money for macha. So, yeah, you talk to these guys, and it's like, you know, that's the way to advancement. That's the way to, you know, doing what the admin wants. And you talk to them about these briefings that they're getting where they're like, oh, you can't do this and this. All the agents I talked to were like, yeah, that's just legal checking a box so that then

the admin can say later if there's some kind of like investigation. Like, what do you want? We had our legal compliance tell them what they can do and what they can't do. But what that's missing is like what you just said, which is that all the leaders are saying, hey, you know, full immunity. And when I ask the agents how that's received, they say, well, that's, everyone knows that means we're going to have your back if you, if you get in trouble. And that's how it's perceived.

And that's, I mean, that has to be what it is intended to be, too. It doesn't help you from state immunity. I mean, they can say federal immunity as much as they want. And you can, the state of Minnesota can still go after your JD Bant doesn't have control over them. Right. And that's why all this is so important, because to the extent that Trump is even moderated, I mean, obviously there's, you know, fair to criticize the cynicism there. But the law enforcement will hear that and say, oh, look, they're getting a little wobbly.

Maybe they won't have my back as much as I thought. So, you know, I have a kind of. And they won't. If the going gets tough, they won't. Like, you should understand that Donald Trump is not going to, like, save your ass if it is even slightly inconvenient for him. Totally. Totally.

Well, Ken, as always, thank you so much for your reporting and for joining us to break it down. I think these were incredibly valuable insights. Thank you, man. Thanks for having me again. Yeah, our pleasure. Anytime. President Trump went to Iowa yesterday as part of what appears to be the Susie Wilde's orchestrated economic messaging speaking tour. It was supposed to be squarely focused. The event was supposed to be squarely focused on drawing attention to what Donald

Trump believes is an economy and recovery after the Biden administration. Instead, of course, it was overshadowed by the situation in Minneapolis, just basically from start to finish. And Chris, I watched the speech before we started this morning. It was remarkable how often Trump was pivoting back to Joe Biden and not just on the economy in general, kind of making fun of Joe Biden for being sleepy and crooked, but constantly it reminded me of like somebody who had a great high school football career and now they're 30 and can't stop talking about it. Like he's constantly going back to high school. But let's take a listen to what Trump said as he talked with reporters on the ground in Iowa.

A lot about, Mr. President, with the current value of the dollar. Do you think it's declined too much? No, I think it's great. I mean, the value of the dollar. Look at the business. We're doing. No, dollars, dollars doing great. If a Democrat got a half a point down, this is like hundreds of, depending on the way you

want to calculate it. You could say it's an 80% reduction, or you could say it's a thousand percent reduction. You could say whatever you want, but it's the biggest reduction in history by many, many times. I think they're the best poll numbers, the real poll numbers, I think we have the best poll numbers we've ever had. Think of it, if I want to run again, if I run again, would anybody be happy? So we have the best poll numbers we've ever had. Thank you all very much. Okay, so then Trump stopped by Fox News for an interview on the Will Cain Show and was asked about farmers. Here's what he said. And by the way, I just gave the farmers $12 billion because they were treated unfairly.

We were taken in a fortune with tariffs. And I wrote them a little check about two weeks ago for $12 billion. Anybody in this room get any of it yet? Yes, yeah. A lot of people. It's typical. Sure. Meanwhile, MS now did a man on the street in what appears to be a target parking lot in Iowa.

Here's what one woman told them. He needs to get his act together and our representatives here in Iowa need to stop following his leave. I'm not voting Republican again. Did you ever vote for him? First time around and he did a good job, but then he got stupid. What does that mean? It means that he just changed.

And it's all about him. He thinks he's God. So we can go ahead and... I love everything about her. She's making me realize I want to go to Target or need to go to Target. Now, let's go ahead and put the Trump approval rating by state up on the screen. We're going to skip ahead one element here because Trump's approval rating in Iowa is hovering in the low 40s. So this is from USA Today, but kind of across the board, the couple of places I looked where they have approval ratings on the state-by-state basis had him, I think,

between 40, around like 44 or 43% approval in Iowa. So Trump talked about Crystal. He was talking about how he brought John Deere Excavator Manufacturing to North Carolina. Got, you know, some applause for that. He's talking about how now you don't have to be a PhD to repair your tractor anymore and some lines that are economic populism. And you can see why at one point he asked the audience who had a 401k because He was trying to convince everyone that he's been a huge economic boost to the country because the stock market is going up. And he's talking about how he made a lot of people rich who hate him and all of that,

but also that normal people, you know, he asked, he literally at that point was like, who was a 401K? But he constantly was saying, this is the Biden administration. We're crawling out of the hole and we're doing such a great job. Then he's also constantly getting. diverted into these tangents. The whole thing, I mean, I'm looking at all the headlines this morning. It was really, really overshadowed. Even if you agree with his economic messaging, really overshadowed by Minneapolis. Yeah. Well, and Iowa has been sort of uniquely hurt by

the, you know, the Trump tariff schemes. The soybean issue there looms very large. And, you know, the farmers that I've heard interviewed are like, yeah, we don't. don't really want a bailout from the government. We want to be able to sell our crops, like, into a market. That's what we would like. And you have put the last element that we have here actually up on the screen because this indicates, you know, is indicative of where the public opinion is and how Republicans are faring in the state. Iowa, obviously, a very rural state. And you have a Democratic candidate for governor because their governor's race is coming up this year who was in was actually leading the Republican. Now, this was, I think, a Democratic poll. So factor that in. But say they're like roughly tied. And I know, you know, the people that I've spoken with in the state actually feel like Democrats have a shot there and maybe even an outside shot at an open Senate seat that is, that is, you know, up this time around. Now, I'm not going to like put my eggs in that basket. I think it's still unlikely. But, you know, this is a state that Trump won handily,

infamously, Anne Selzer thought it was going the other way. And many people are saying, Emily, maybe she wasn't wrong just early. He's still got thousands of people to his rally yesterday. And, you know, it's Iowa. It's a friendly place for him overall. But if your approval rating is down in the 40s and a place that you've seen, I mean, he talks about how much he loves Iowa. It's a place where he's seen a lot of success with economic populism.

some of those candidates in Iowa are talking a lot about antitrust. And you've started to see a little bit of that from Brooke Rollins and Gail Slater in the ag space. But it seems like they're out on an island. Like nobody is, because all the corporate lobbyists who are hounding MAGA in Washington, D.C. are picking up fancy new clients who want them to prevent that from happening. And so there's a long way to go if they want to have an economic populism that farmers are ultimately really happy with, apart from being sort of sated with bailouts like in Trump One, they've been giving him a lot of grace and patience because they know that they

have, they've been trying to get people's attention for years to what's happened with China and trade deficits and the like. So it's not as though they're, you know, they, they wanted things to continue as usual. They had reasons for putting their hope in, and their eggs in the Trump basket. And they've been very patient with him. But if things keep looking the way that they're looking, that's going to be a much, much harder case for him to make. Yeah. Well, Iowa is an interesting test case as well because it really does get to the question of material politics. When I say Iowa, it really is one of the states that has suffered the most under Trump's economic policies. I was just looking at up. They're ranked 49th to 50th in terms of economic growth. They're ranked 48th.

in terms of personal income growth. So, you know, things are not going well there. But because it is a rural, culturally conservative state, you know, obviously Republicans for, you know, since the Obama era, he was the last one Democrat to win Iowa, Republicans have cleaned up there quite easily. So, you know, like I said, it will be an interesting test case of the importance of material politics. Although the other thing is Democrats obviously have to offer something on that front that also looks measurably superior to what they have got and enough for them to sort of look away from the, you know, the cultural issues where they may disagree. Yeah, I think that's a great point. Well, if there's widespread dissatisfaction with, and even just a lack of motivation among Trump voters on the immigration issue come November, because they're demoralized that Christy Noem hasn't done a good job, you know, even from the perspective of immigration hawks, that can be a problem. Trump was repeatedly trying to, all right, he said the reason that he's like, I love Iowa,

but the reason that I'm here is to start spreading this economic message for the midterms. You know, you're not hearing, you're not hearing much about affordability, a new word anymore, but everyone's saying this is an affordability midterm cycle. And then he's laying the groundwork for Republican loss in the midterms. He said, did you know, he spent a lot of time saying, did you know everybody whose party is in power and the presidency ends up losing those first midterms. And so lowering expectations a little bit. But he was literally imploring, imploring the audience to remember like the John Deere deal come midterm season,

to remember their 401Ks come midterm season. So that's where they're going with this. Meanwhile, let's put up this post from Trump on true social. I'm hearing that the great country of Iraq might make a very bad choice by reinstalling Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister. And he goes on to say, make Iraq great again. This was posted literally on his way to Iowa to make a pitch for his economic agenda. He's posting make Iraq great again while he is on the plane, essentially from the timeline. He's saying make Iraq great again.

And then on the way back or once he got back, he's threatening Iran again and threatening war with Iran again. So hard to get the economic message to really break through when, number one, people feel like the economy sucks. And number two, you're constantly, you know, doing these like foreign adventures in a variety of new countries. It seems like a new one pops up every day. Well, we can put this Washington Post element up on the screen. This was from yesterday as well. Facing U.S. turmoil, Europe and India announced blockbuster trade deals. So a major free trade negotiation between Europe.

in India announced yesterday, yesterday, Crystal. So that question of, you know, Mark Carney's speech in Davos last week about the fiction, the polite fiction of the international rules-based order crumbling where he's trying to make overtures to China. We'll see how that pans out, but where he's trying at least to move Canada closer to China amidst all of the threats from the United States, which we were promised by Gavin Newsom was just a temporary, a temporary disruption. We'll see how temporary it is, but it's dormant, right? Is it I think the word that he used, the relationship is dormant. Some of these relationships are dormant. Then you have Europe and India trying to move closer together, and the

real alignment is happening in the background here. I think it's unclear what happens at the end of the day if when Trump leaves office, maybe a Democratic president comes in, it's possible Gavin Newsom is right. And these relationships were dormant. And there's an effort to kind of rebuild, but meaningful that these relationships are now sprouting up or or closening, deepening during the second Trump administration. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.