Morning Wire - Blue Cities Clash with ICE

Episode Date: June 1, 2025

With gang violence spreading and deportations rising, Congressman Andy Ogles is demanding an investigation into the Nashville Mayor’s office for allegedly working to block ICE operations and shield criminal illegal immigrants. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As illegal immigrant gangs grow across the U.S., Trump borders our Tom Homan has been leading ice raids in cities across the country targeting these criminal illegals. But some so-called sanctuary city officials are working hard to hinder that crackdown. One of those cities is in Nashville, and now Congress has opened an investigation into the mayor's office. You can have a woke mayor who wants to cry and whine in his cheerios about it, but I'm going to say, we're going to stand with the president, we're going to stand with Pam Bondi, we're going to stand with I'm executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howl. It's Sunday, June 1st, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles, who sits on the Homeland Security Committee, announced this week that they've launched an investigation into the office of Nashville mayor, Freddie O'Connell. They claim that the city officials are actively obstructing ICE. The congressman joins us now. Congressman Ogles, thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely. I appreciate you having me. So you've announced an investigation this week. What exactly are you looking into?

Yeah, well, so what you've seen across the country is an increased activity and deportations by ICE and Homeland Security. And the mayor of Nashville came out with his executive order. And he's requiring law enforcement to report any interactions with federal. So local law enforcement with federal law enforcement. But he's also encouraged citizens or civilians to report. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us on short notice. This is a tough moment, and I am heartbroken that today many of our neighbors in Nashville are experiencing fear over family separation rather than the safety we all deserve.

The trauma inflicted on families is long-lasting, and I'm doing everything in my power consistent with applicable law to protect anyone who calls Nashville home. What's clear today is that people who do not share our values of safety and community have the authority to cause deep community harm. So there's this community oversight board. He said, hey, if you see Metro Police helping law enforcement, federal law enforcement, we want you to file a complaint against them. So the mayor of Nashville is making local PD who are just trying to do their jobs, the bad guy. And the problem with that, aside from aiding and abetting and impeding federal law enforcement

is we've had a 400% increase in attacks against law enforcement across the country. So when these mayors are making local law enforcement the bad guys, this feeds into that loop where you see more violence against our law enforcement. And as someone who's on the Homeland Security Committee, I just received a classified briefing. And what I can tell you is that MS-13 and Trinderwag, where they're all over the country, they're in Nashville. They're in our small cities like Columbia and Tullahoma. And so if we don't fight back, if we don't take our cities and our streets back, you're going to wake up and you're going to see those gang members on the street corner in front of your elementary and middle schools. then it'll be too late. So we're seeing this across the country. Nashville, obviously, a major focus for you being from Tennessee. Have we actually seen officials in Nashville working against ice, obstructing ice to thwart their operations?

Absolutely. So that's one of the things we're going to be looking at. So we're looking at the city of Nashville and the mayor to see if there's been actual actions or federal monies that have flowed through the city to illegals. Then also you saw the state rep, Afton Ben, who used her vehicle. She recorded herself and she put it on social media where she was blocking ice vehicles. We got our girl squad and we're bullying the ice vehicles and state trooper. So this is like, this is a win. Your favorite blonde state rep? Her phone's always at 1%. I think my superlative is most likely to always have her phone at 1%.

So, okay, so we're waiting for my phone to charge. Let me send this to Emily and the girl. There we go. Okay. Did he let them go? She even admitted to blocking four different delaying. Delaying was the word she used, ice vehicles as they were trying to conduct operations. And so that's a crime, ladies and gentlemen. And so the Homeland Security Committee, which I'm on and the Judiciary Committee, that's Jim Jordan, will be launching a joint investigation into Nashville, the mayor.

But then also this is a message to cities and mayors across the country. if you impede federal law enforcement in their duties, in their directive to follow the president, President Trump, to say it's time that we start deporting these folks. We're going to be looking into your city and where applicable, we're going to hold you accountable. So there's a lot of work to be done here. What I can say is Senator Marshall Blackburn is doing something similar in the Senate. So you're going to have the House and the Senate both working on this. Obviously, I'm the one who called for the investigation in the House.

And the other thing to keep in mind is Nashville is a through city. So whether it's human trafficking, whether it's drugs, whether it's guns, geographically, we're about six hours from most of the population in the country. So if you look at a map and you draw a big ring, with the exception of the West Coast, Chicago, New York, you know, you can get almost anywhere in the country from Nashville. So the gangs, the violent gangs in Central and South America, they want strongholds in Nashville. They want to take over Nashville.

And the more competition and the more fighting, the more violence you're going to see on our streets. and I'm not going to stand for it. And heck, I'll go out there and I'll help ICE, but we're going to find these people. We're going to get them off our streets. Now, you mentioned an NGO in your order for communications records. Have you seen NGOs playing a role in general across the country in this effort to shield or enable illegal immigrants?

Oh, absolutely. You know, under the Biden administration, there was a whole economy essentially set up by nonprofits who were making money off bringing people into this country. So someone would come across the border, then they would swoop in. get them housing, get them benefits, and then they would profit off of it from the federal government. President Trump is putting an end to that type of nonsense.

And literally, you have these nonprofits, whether they mean to or have ill will or not, they're literally undermining our cities and our communities. And I go back to that classified briefing, which I can't give great detail on, but I can tell you that these gangs are sophisticated. They're in every city in our country. They have very sophisticated surveillance equipment, a tactical equipment. I mean, this isn't just some thug on the street selling drugs.

These are cartels and criminal enterprises that are moving and sweeping across our country. And so this idea that they're just, you know, the Bregow case, he's just a father of three. No, he's a member of a gang, you know. I was just invited by the president of El Salvador to come to El Salvador to see the notorious Seacot prison. And the folks that are being deported that are going to that prison are the worst of the worst. I literally talked to one of them. By the way, one of them was from Nashville, but I talked to another individual. He said, you know, why are you here?

He said, homicide. Just as you and I are talking, just very plain, not animated. He said, homicide. How many people did you kill? He said, 50. So this is a young man. He came to this country. At 13, he joined the gangs.

He was moving in between like Virginia and New Hampshire. And in that time, he had killed 50 people. And this is who were deporting. And so when the mayor of Nashville, when this state rep in Nashville is standing up and defending these people, we literally caught rapists and murderers and child traffickers and human smugglers and drug dealers.

This is who was caught up by eyes. This is who we're trying to deport. And I, for one, am going to stand with my community, my state, my country, and these people should not be in our communities. Well, there continues to be very strong support for deporting criminal, illegal aliens. So a lot of people backing this effort.

Congressman Ogles, thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely. I appreciate you having me.