Pod Save America - Ice Kills Minnesota Mom

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three living in Minneapolis, is gunned down in her car by an ICE agent as cameras roll. Jon and Dan react to the tragedy and discuss the administration's response, especially JD Vance's despicable remarks in the White House briefing room. Dan talks to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey about how the city plans to investigate and push back. Then, Jon and Dan discuss Trump's quest for hemispheric domination, and how Congressional Republicans are are starting to cross him on foreign policy and health care. Then, Mayor Zohran Mamdani talks with Tommy about a new deal with Gov. Kathy Hochul to expand free childcare in New York.New York Times video analysis: Videos Contradict Trump Administration Account of ICE Shooting in MinneapolisFor a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Wamponpon. Sleep well. He's also thinking about paying off the people of Greenland to join the United States. A little carrot, little stick. You know, maybe we won't invade you. We'll just give you some money. We'll also talk about how Republicans in Congress are starting to assert themselves just a little bit in passing a new war powers resolution with Democrats and joining Democrats in extending the ACA subsidies, at least in the House so far. Then Zoran Mamdani talks to Tommy about the new deal he struck on universal child care in New York and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frye talks to Dan about the horrific ice shooting in his city. So let's start there. And I will try to do this

without yelling or crying. By now you've heard about the killing of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who was shot to death in her car by an ice officer as she was on the way home from dropping off her six-year-old at school. Her family says she wasn't an activist, though others who knew her says she was part of a local group that warns people when ice shows up. Either way, at some point, Good came across several ICE officers, and this is where everyone's relying on eyewitness videos that are all over social media, no many have been verified by media outlets. What you can see for sure is that Good's car is blocking a residential street. Then the car moves forward a bit. Then she stops and waves by other drivers who are trying to pass.

Then more ICE agents show up in a truck, get out, and according to an eyewitness, one told her to leave. and two others told her to get out of the car. One agent walks around the car to the front while filming the encounter on his phone and then another tries to open her car door. At that point, she reverses the car and you can see the wheels turn away from the officers as she tries to get away.

This is when the agent filming the encounter, who is now in front of the vehicle, yells stop, grabs his gun with his free hand, shoots her once through the front windshield, and then two more times point blank into the driver's side window. The agent then walks away unharmed, and I would encourage everyone to watch the really well done New York Times analysis of the videos, which we will put in the show notes.

Now, the ICE agent claims he shot her in self-defense because he thought the vehicle was going to run him over. The Times analysis shows that his feet are clearly away from the vehicle when he takes the first shot. But regardless of what you think, looking at the videos, in a normal world, law enforcement and government officials of either party would simply say there will be an investigation into this tragic incident that they don't want to prejudge. And in fact, that's what Trump borders are.

Tom Homan, of all people, said in an interview before later he had to put out a statement that sort of walked back because I'm sure the administration pressured him to because that's not what Trump said that's not what Christy Knoem said and it's certainly not what the vice president of the United States said who came out to the White House briefing room

on Thursday to throw a bitchy little tantrum. That woman has as part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to docks, to assault, and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job. Everybody who's been repeating the lie that this is some innocent woman who was out for a drive in Minneapolis when a law enforcement officer shot at her,

you should be ashamed of yourself. This is classic terrorism. You guys are meant to report the truth. How have you let yourself become agents of propaganda of a radical fringe that's making it harder for us to enforce our law? She tried to run somebody over with her car and the guy defended himself when that happens. Next question. There's a part of me that feels very, very sad for this woman, not just because she lost her life, but because I think she is a victim of left-wing ideology. I would appreciate everybody saying a prayer for that age. He deserves a debt of gratitude.

And I think the media prejudging and talking about this guy as if he's a murderer is one of the most disgraceful things I've ever seen for the American media. He deserves a debt of gratitude, a man who no one disputes, shot a woman three times, twice at close range. Keep in mind earlier on Thursday, Vance tweeted that Renee Goode was a, quote, deranged leftist.

Just imagine what J.D. Vance would have said or done about a Democratic politician who called Charlie Kirk deranged the day after he was assassinated. I don't know. Any reaction to what I thought was one of the most despicable performances by a Trump official, maybe ever? You said you were going to do this without crying or yelling. I cannot make those promises. It was in the 10 years since Trump came down the escalator, that might be the most angry. infuriated and disgusted I've been at something a Trump official, including not Trump himself, has done or said in this time. J.D. Vance is disgusting. He is, he lies with such ease, with such little compunction. He is unburdened by decency, morality, shame, any concern about possibly, by the truth. He does it with confidence and arrogance and even more infuriating.

he does it well. Like he's a sophist in the truest sense of the word. He can make any argument sound clever, at least on the surface. And it's, it's truly, truly just to have such little humanity after someone was killed. Regardless of what you think actually happened there, and if you want to make the argument, this officer legitimately thought they were shooting assault defense, that's not an argument borne out by the evidence that I've seen. But even if even if you were to take that point to just dismiss this person to call them a deranged leftist, a domestic terrorist, part of some shadowy left-wing group, which department, which JD-vance said in that press camera should be investigated by the Department of Justice without any evidence. And the thing that makes me so

angry about it. And this is true of JD Vance, Christy Nome, Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, is that they lie with no fear of getting caught. Because they believe that, even if evidence comes out, video evidence, documentary evidence, circumstantial evidence that says what they said was wrong, they can just blow right through it and bend reality to their will without a care in the fucking world. It is, yeah, I was shaking with anger watching it because, and, you know, he's been tweeting a bunch of shit about it, so I sort of knew it was coming, but the way he did it and just sort of the anger and smugness from him. I just want to add a few things that the vice president neglected to mention.

Here's the government's use of force policy that applies to DHS. I'll quote from it. Firearms may not be discharged at moving vehicles unless the vehicle is operated in a manner that threatens to cause death or serious physical injury to the officer or others and no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist, which includes moving out of the path of the vehicle, which is an option that that agent took. He moved out of the path of the vehicle,

which is why his feet weren't run over by the car, which is why he's standing there afterwards, which is why both of his feet are on the ground and not near the car when he's firing the shots, which is why he walked away unharmed, even though they're like, oh, he went to the hospital and was treated for his injuries. I'm sure they made him go to the hospital.

He didn't have any fucking injuries. He was walking around fine. Crooked's DC correspondent, Matt Berg, talked to a former FBI investigator about this policy, who said this, quote, in prior administrations, this shooting would have been entirely outside the scope of the use of force policy

and would have been unjustified. Multiple current DHS officials also expressed, quote, shock to CNN, over the department's response so far. These are current DHS officials telling CNN, and they cannot believe that so many administration officials are prejudging the outcome of investigation. And that's what's really,

I think that is what has shocked me, angered me, more than almost anything else. Like, it is a fucking tragedy that this has happened. I have watched all the videos, but like, it shouldn't be up to the public piecing together and the media, piecing together all these different eyewitness videos and then trying to have an argument about who did what.

That's what investigations are supposed to be for. That's what the legal system is supposed to be for. But we are all left to do that now because this administration has decided they don't give a fuck about the legal system in this country, that they are above the law, that they are above accountability. And so the rest of us are left trying to piece together fucking videos

and have arguments online with right-wing assholes about who saw what in a video. And clearly, that's what J.D. Vance was doing. J.D. Vance doesn't care about the actual fucking investigation. J.D. Vance's head is in his fucking Twitter feed all day long, and I see the people he follows. I follow a lot of those people on MAGA Media, too. Where that came from, that press conference that he gave was from all of the shit that's been on right-wing media. They're all saying the same things as him. They're worse than him, in fact. But that is his only

source of information, and that is why he is so outraged. Because ironically, as he's talking about, I do feel sad that that woman was brainwashed. He's the one who's fucking brainwashed. by his algorithm because he's just parroting all the fucking bullshit that's already been debunked by a whole bunch of other people who actually know the facts. See, I disagree with that. I do not think he's brainwashed. I don't think that he is a victim of a toxic media ecosystem that he stumbled backwards into. That information ecosystem that lives tweets he's seeing, he is in using that as data to make a

decision about what is best for his personal ambitions. And that the way to get support, approbation, enthusiasm, as, you know, he seeks power in this country is to make those people happy. So he did, this was a performance for them. I think if they've said the opposite, he'd do the opposite. I think this is giving him too much credit. I think he actually hates immigrants. I think he actually hates leftists. I think he actually wants to see us all in jail. And I think he actually wants to see them all out of the country. And I think he actually thinks that this woman, as tragic as it was, deserved it. I don't think he's a good person pretending to be a bad person for power. I think he's a person who

who changes on a dime. He is the vice president to a man he called Hitler eight years ago or whatever, 10 years ago. He blurted out that his best friend in the White House and the person he'd most want to be on a flight across the country with is Stephen Miller. That is the greatest lie ever told. But that's because that's good for him to say that.

Yeah, I don't know. I think it's true. I think this is, anyway, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what's in his head. It's disgusting what he said. This is also, by the way, And the reason that you can't fucking take ICE's word for it, or DHS, or J.D. Vance, or the federal government, this is not the first time that ICE has shot someone or killed someone and lied about it and then was caught later lying about it. But the entire media had moved on at that point. And so you have to go back and, like, you know, there's some story that pops up, oh, DHS was lying. And then no one cares.

So, in fact, this is the ninth time ICE has shot someone since September, and it's the second person they've killed. First person they killed was a man named Silvero Gonzalez. It's a 38-year-old undocumented father of two who DHS claimed tried to drive his car into agents and then dragged one agent causing, quote, severe injuries. Then surveillance video comes out, shows that Gonzalez was a lot. actually just trying to back up and drive away, and that the agent was caught on video saying that his injuries were no big deal, nothing major. This was in Chicago. This was during the midway blitz. DHS also got caught lying about their shooting of Merrimar Martinez. That's another U.S. citizen. They originally claimed she ram their cars and threatened them with a semi-automatic

weapon, which forced them to shoot her, and that she was then totally fine and drove herself to the hospital. Turns out when all the facts came out and all the body cam footage came out, she didn't have a gun. She didn't threaten them. She was taken by ambulance to the hospital. And the body cam footage shows the officer saying, do something, bitch, before opening fire. And when that came out, all the charges against her were dropped. Was anyone held accountable? No, they weren't. Was there a big media uproar? No, there wasn't. There was a couple stories about it. And, you know, if you're wondering, well, why didn't this woman just, why didn't this woman just get out of the car? Why did she stop?

Or why did she try to drive away? She's putting the whole thing in danger all this. I interviewed George Redis, who we remember is the U.S. citizen veteran who was yanked from his car in Camarillo here in just north of L.A. And imprisoned for three days without access to a lawyer or due process before they realized that they had fucked up or didn't realize it. they realized it before and then just decided to let George go. And when he tells his story, and of course you can see this on video footage as well, he basically says the same thing as what might have happened to Renee Good, or at least according to one eyewitness,

which is that one DHS agent, one ICE officer, is telling you to get the fuck out of the car, the other one's telling you to drive away. So you become confused. You can see a bunch of masked agents with guns all around you telling you different things. You're in a car. What the fuck are you supposed to do? Right? And so, like, I just am, I am, not a lot shocks me. I am shocked by just how the administration has handled this when they, they could have so easily, they could have so easily been like, we believe, you know, we have our own opinions. We think that was self-defense, but we'll let the investigation play out. But they're like doubling and tripling down, which I guess is what they do. It's like never, no apologies from the Trump administration ever. But I also think it's a signal to everyone that like we're going to do whatever.

the fuck we want. We have the guns. We have the legal system. And the rest of you can fuck off. Yeah. They can never admit fault, particularly when it comes to ICE, to ever suggest one single time that one single ICE agent did one single wrong thing is in their minds to would collapse the whole effort, which is an absurd way to think about it. But that is how they think about it. So they can never do it. And it's just the opposite of the way. Yeah. It's so unsurious, I guess, is the way I'd say it. Like, deadly unsurious, I guess, is how I would describe this administration, because just you're responsible for these people.

You're responsible for what happens. You're responsible for the citizens, the residents, the people in the United States who interact with ICE agents. And you do not care what actually happened. You just have to prove yourself to be right even when you're wrong, no matter what the evidence says. It's such unsurious, ridiculous behavior. But it comes with life or death consequences, as it did.

this week in Minneapolis. And like they always, they do this whenever it's an undocumented immigrant. You know, they say it's an alien. It's a criminal alien. It's a violent alien. And now, you know, they can't do that because it's an American citizen. It's this, you know, she's a domestic terrorist. Right.

Mom of three, so they have to say domestic terrorists, deranged leftists. It's so important that they link her to an activist group. Who the fuck cares if she's an activist or not? She was a mother dropping her kid off at school who is now an orphan because the child's father had died a couple years ago as well. So she is a mother droplet, whether she was also part of an ice activist group, that doesn't mean you get shot. Not like trying to speed away from a crime doesn't mean that you get fucking shot by police officers. Like you're specifically not supposed to shoot them in that case. Like that is a procedure, as you said. The number of fucking

people who are just not, they're not just online influencers. They are Republican politicians who think that if you disobey a police officer, that if you drive away, that if you block a driveway, if you protest, if you're an activist, that that should get you shot and killed, that that's not the fucking law. But they don't think that we live in a country of laws anymore. They think that power is the only thing that matters. They have power. No one else does. Fuck the laws. We get to do what we want. That is how they're governed. All these things are connected. It's like when I was listening to the interview with Mark Kelly on from earlier the pot earlier this week. That's exactly it. He said something you don't like,

so we're going to take his rank in his pension. If you disagree with the state, if you disagree with the regime, then you will suffer any measure of consequences from losing your livelihood to losing your life. And the crime is not what you actually did. The crime is the disagreement with the regime. The Hennepin County Attorney's Office thinks that they can maybe still charge this officer, though we'll see, you know, the feds believe that he has immunity. And from talking to George Redis, who's trying to even just sue federal agents, it is tough the way that the law is right now. This is a problem that federal agents have a lot of immunity from both criminal and civil charges. But we'll see what happens with the Hennepin County

attorney. But I do think that the problem here is, I think when this first started happening, I'm like, well, someday someone's going to sue and they're going to go to court and the truth is going to come out and then these people are going to look like assholes, which is what happened, by the way, with J.D. Vance, again, and Kilmar-Abrego Garcia when he was like, oh, he's MS-13, terrorist, blah, blah, blah, and we've seen what happens there is this could go to court. All the truth could come out. We could find out that there could be, there could be footage of this woman clearly turning the wheel saying, please, whatever it may be, and they would still find ways. to say that it was her fault, which is what J.D. Van said. They don't care. Or they'll just have moved on. It'll be like months from now and they'll just be like, oh, whatever, we don't care. I mean, it's like you and I have been in government. There things happen. And you know what you want the answer to be. Right. But then you don't go out and say it right away for fear that you don't know everything and

therefore something could come out that could contradict what you said. And therefore you have burned credibility. You have been, you know, even if not intentionally, you will be portrayed as me having been dishonest to the American people. They do not care about it. They didn't have any of the facts. In fact, most of the things that Christine Nome said were disproven by the video. Like she, I don't probably assume and not even seen the video, just heard.

A second or third hand reported what happened immediately reflexively said all the talking points that they say every time something like this happens and feel like they suffer no penalty for lying. And now they just the ease with which they throw around the term domestic terrorism. Democrats are domestic terrorists. The party's domestic extremists. This woman's a domestic terrorist. Like just labeling people domestic terrorists. And Christine, you know yesterday saying, oh, I'm going to get the DOJ to charge, bring domestic terrorism charges. there are no domestic chariarsum charges.

It's not a statute. First of all, you dumb shit. But like, there's the ease with which they lie. They don't care. They just don't care. They don't care. Because you're right. Like, they don't think they're going to get caught.

Or they do think they're going to get caught. But then they think, yeah, catch me lying. What's going to happen? Nothing. Because I have all the power and I have the guns. So, obviously, we're hearing a very different story from elected leaders in Minnesota who've been very outspoken about this tragedy, say the least, understandably. So one of those leaders is,

Mayor Jacob Fry of Minneapolis. Dan, I know you spoke to him earlier this afternoon. We'll listen to that interview right after the break. Positive America is brought to you by Smalls. January is when we all try to reset. We set health goals to improve our diet and nutrition. So why not also do the same for your cat? It's 2026.

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understand your relationships motivations and emotions does not sound great perspective ugh who wants that No, no, you need it. I know you need it. I know you need it. I'll tell you who's not going to give you that. Your chatbot. No.

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therapists, BetterHelp is one of the world's largest online therapy platforms, having served over 5 million people globally. And it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. BetterHelp makes it easy to get matched online with a qualified therapist, sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com slash PSA. That's BetterHELP.com slash PSA. Joining me now is the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frye. Mayor, welcome to Pod Save America. Thanks for having me, Dan. So earlier today, Vice President J.D. Vance referred to Renee Good, the 37-year-old woman who was killed by ICE agents yesterday as a deranged leftist said that she was there to obstruct law enforcement, suggested she might be part of some sort of left-wing

network that the Department of Justice should investigate. What can you tell me about her why she might why she might have been there and what happened on that day? I don't know a lot about her. What I do know is that she's a victim and doesn't appear to having doing anything wrong. She went through a two to three point turn clearly trying to leave the vicinity where the ice agents were located. And you've got this narrative that is coming out of this Trump administration that is immediately saying, one, that the ice agents were acting in self-defense and two, that the victim was a domestic terrorist. That's a load of bullshit. Anybody who watches that video could come to that conclusion, you don't need a law degree.

And to the extent they're trying to cover up the actions that we all knew were inevitable, I find disgusting. Because, you know, the chief and I have been saying now for over a month, not just privately, but very publicly, that something like this was going to happen. either a civilian, resident, police officer, or an ICE agent was going to get badly injured or even killed. And tragically, the latter of those two conclusions happened. And it should have never taken place. You told ICE to get the fuck out of your city. They don't seem to be going anywhere, obviously.

What levers do you have to pull or what can you do to try to protect your citizens from what's going on here? Is it just giving them sort of advice about how to stay out of the way? just like you're obviously you want to protect your citizens you have this what you believe to be a very dangerous element in your city what do you do obviously if i had the immediate authority to get ice out of here they would have never been here to begin with uh the way they are behaving is completely and utterly unconstitutional and what is clear to me is that the trump administration is looking for some excuse to cause additional chaos and deploy even more military force in our city. I mean, right now, as far as I'm aware, we've got somewhere in the range of 2,270 agents in some form. That's ICE, that's HSI, that's border control, and they're located

in the region beyond Minneapolis as well. But there's no doubt in my mind that they're looking to have some form of political performance that goes well beyond where we're at in this moment. And so the message that we are putting out, and by the way, the message that our community is righteously reiterating again and again is that we are not going to take the bait. We are going to keep the peace. We're going to demand justice. We're of course going to express First Amendment rights and freedom of speech and protest and all the rest. But we're not going to give them the bullshit excuse that they're already trying to create to come into our city. there's no doubt in my mind that the reason that ICE is here is not about safety it's not about

driving down crime here's the thing we've worked with federal agencies substantially in the past to successfully drive down crime we've worked with the DEA the ATF the FBI the US Attorney's Office and crime on the north side specifically and shootings are at the lowest level on record And so if the goal is to go after murderers, yeah, we're anti-murderer. We're all for that. If the goal is to go after violent crime, absolutely count us in. That's not what this is about. This is about targeting specifically Latino and Somali immigrants. This is discriminating only on the basis of are you a Latino or are you a Somali person and then indiscriminately plucking people off the street thereafter. This is not okay.

is not constitutional. Everybody, Democrat or Republican, should be speaking up loud and clear that this is a threat to the endurance of our republic. Since the shooting, have you had any contact with anyone in the administration, the secretary known, someone from DHS or ISIS, have spoken to you or members of your administration? We have been working a number of different channels to try to make inroads to get the point across. We've got correspondence that's going out.

we are, look, pulling any levers that we've got because, look, priority number one is to keep our city safe. Priority number one here is to make sure that the residents of our city are able to get through this. We're resilient, we're tough, we've been knocked down seven times, and we'll get back up, eight, and we don't need to deal with this kind of chaos that they are very intentionally creating in our city. Speaking of the chaos, people keep describing what's happening on the ground there is, you know, Minneapolis being a Tinderbox that everyone's worried about it. School has been canceled over the next two days, I presume, out of fear of some sort of public unrest. How are, you know, how are things actually there? How are you thinking about keeping the peace over the next couple of days here?

Look, we're keeping the peace. Thus far, the message has been widely received by the community that, hey, if you want to, and I know they do, want to, and I know they do, want to, stand up and protect our immigrant communities here in Minneapolis, let's not give the Trump administration an excuse to deploy more force and individuals. This is, importantly, not just coming from me, this is coming from activists, this is coming from leftists, this is coming from moderates, this is coming from most people throughout our city speaking with a very common accord here that we owe an obligation to the people that we purport to want to help. and that's those that are being targeted.

During his press conference today, which was truly quite a performance, J.D. Vance declared that the officer had, quote, unquote, absolute immunity. And there are also reports that the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are refusing to cooperate with at least state law enforcement officials. What do you, like, what's your reaction to that and any sense you have about the ability of the state or the county or the city to investigate and potentially seek justice here? So ICE agents have absolutely. Immunity. I have not heard this one yet.

Yeah, that's what he declared today. Isn't that guy a lawyer? Yale Law School graduate, he is, yes. Good Lord. I had a lot of respect and I hopefully still do for those Yale grads. I don't think I could have gotten in there, but that is comical. You don't get absolute immunity by way of being a federal employee anymore you get absolute immunity being a city employee. That's some wild stuff, man. And, yeah, obviously, it's deeply concerning that the DOJ is boxing out the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in the state of Minnesota from being part of this investigation.

The way this was initially presented was that the BCA was going to be working with the DOJ on investigating exactly what happened with no predetermined outcome, you know. And that would be the normal course of business. Yeah, that's pretty standard, you know. And by the way, you know, the BCA is not some like wild radical group. This is a group of, I think, like a lot of police officers and otherwise. I mean, they're going to do an investigation. There have been times in the past where they've come to a conclusion that there was not culpability on the side of the police officer. There's other times where the investigation led to some form of charge, you know.

And again, based on truth and facts, not some sort of garbage narrative that's being spun up by the president. of the United States. So, yeah, to those that are concerned about the legitimacy and the fairness of a Pam Bondi investigation from the DOJ, I'd say that that concern is well placed. Any, as you sort of think about this and think about everything that's happened, you know, Minnesota has been in Minnesota and Minneapolis have been in the national conversation with Republicans for a long time. You know, a lot happened in 2020, the George Floyd. Sort of how are you thinking about your city and how you persevere through, you know, these sorts of moments? We do not retreat. We don't give up. And here's the thing. Our city's coming back. I mean,

I know these Republicans out there want to talk about the city is this like a wild apocalyptic place. But look, man, crime is way down. Crime's down. In virtually every category, virtually every neighborhood, the economy is coming back. Small businesses are opening. We just got like the best restaurant in the entire world award. It's a spot called Diane's place. just across the river. Ridiculously good, by the way. And so, like, the cities is rocking along, you know, do we have big city challenges? Of course we do. And at the same time, is coming back. And here's another thing. I personally is mayor, and we collectively, as a city, have learned a lot in the last five years. You know, I'm not the same mayor as I was in May of 2020. I am not

the same person. I have learned lessons that have made me a better mayor and a better leader. And I use those experiences every day, especially during some form of emergency or crisis just like this. Moreover, I know there are countless people in the city that have also learned a lot. Have also taken a practice of let's take a beat, let's figure out what the best strategy is for dealing with this bizarre hellscape that is the federal administration. And then figure out how to move on together in unity, together. And I think that's a big part of the message that's going out. It's unification. It's putting down our silly individual grievances that we might have.

You know, we're a city of like, I don't know, 85% Democrat or something like that. And it's moving forward to figure out what's the best thing to do for the city as whole. It's loving our country more than our identity. theology. And I think that's what the entire city is feeling right now as we unify. Well, Mayor, thank you so much for joining us. Good luck in these coming days. We really appreciate you. You got it. Thanks for having me. Thanks for the work you're doing. Potta of America is brought you by Wild Alaskan Company. What challenges do you face when buying seafood? There's so many. You have to go into the supermarket. Sometimes you can't park

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In the interview, Trump said, quote, I don't need international law in that he believes the only limits on his power are, quote, my own morality, my own mind, it's the only thing that can stop me. Jesus. Trump also said that the U.S. could be running Venezuela for years, years. And that our government will be, quote, using and taking their oil.

He also said that owning Greenland is necessary, quote, because that's what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing you can't do with a lease or a treaty. It's like talking about fucking buying a car? I think this is like how the reason, if you rent your house, you can't redo the bathroom. If you own your house, you have full control of redoing the bathroom. And of course, he's saying this because the Times reporters push him and are like, well, the U.S. already has a military base in Greenland.

They have the right, the U.S. under the treaty, has the right to open more military bases. Denmark has said, hey, we'll do more cooperation with you. You can be more involved in Greenland. We'll do treaties. We'll do economic development, all this kind of stuff. And the Danes are like, why does the U.S. just keep rejecting that and say they want to own it by force? Because Trump just wants to own it. He doesn't know why, because it makes him feel psychologically good.

Some people are renter. Some people are owners. He wants to be an owner. So this all comes as Reuters reports that Trump is considering sending each Greenlander a lump sum of potentially $100,000. per person of our tax dollars? See, John, you're missing it. It's not going to be our tax dollars. Oh, I'm sure it's...

It's Venezuelan oil dollars. Venezuela. Right, yeah. Or I was going to say it's either that, or I'm sure he's going to say, oh, the minerals. They've got great minerals in Greenland. We're going to mine the minerals. We're going to sell them, and then we're going to use that to pay the people. Or it's the tariffs. It could be the tariffs. Yeah, I'm getting off the tariff shelf.

Tickets from the Trump Kennedy Center. We don't know where this money is coming from. But it's not going to you. I'll tell you that, American people. Yeah. Well, yeah, if you're in Greenland, you could be getting $100,000, which is going to help make the president feel psychologically successful, I guess. What was your reaction to this fascinating insight into the mind of our greatest

geopolitical thinker? Oh, man. Reading the interview and reading all the color around the interview about how Trump acted with these reporters and just watching him over the last several days here is it is very clear that Trump and the people around them are drunk on power. They are higher on their own supply. They are so impressed to themselves because of of what happened in Venezuela, because the Delta Force was able to pull off this pretty astounding mission, and have really convinced themselves that all that matters is power. And even if you think that is true, that the U.S. is so powerful, that our military is so strong,

that our special operators are so skilled, that we can do almost anything we want, it is such short-term idiotic thinking. These international agreements, these treaties, these international institutions exist for a reason. The rules exist for a reason. They are to protect everyone, not just the United States, not just the Uyghur countries, everyone,

because it leads to a more stable world. So the world that Trump envisions in the here is might makes right, right? That the strongest countries do whatever they want. And that could benefit the United States in the short term. We could just go take Greenland, right? Like there's his article in the Atlantic that goes to the talks to the folks in Denmark.

They've already figured out how Trump's going to take Greenland if he doesn't invade it. He's just going to declare on true social that it's part of the United States and just act accordingly. And that could work. He's going to do it to Greenland what he did to the Kennedy Center. Yeah. He like the Institute of Peace or whatever else. He could doge himself to some additional territories. But that could work in the short term.

But in the long term, that's going to make the United States left safe, less secure because the world is going to be more chaotic. There's going to be more conflict. there's going to be less cooperation, and that is bad for us. The best times for the United States domestically have been the periods of greatest tranquility, right? And so where we are in this area of destabilization with China and Russia and everywhere else because we've decided to throw everything overboard so we can get Venezuelan oil and the minerals of Greenland is going to make.

It's just, it's truly idiotic. It's just deciding that because other smart people figured one way out, we're going to do the dumb thing because that must be better. Also, for all the, well, it's good that Maduro is out because he's a bad guy. You know, in the interview, he's talking about Delci Rodriguez, who's Maduro is number two and is now president of Venezuela, interim president of Venezuela. And they're asking about elections and they're asking about her. And he's like, well, she's giving us everything we need, oil. Yeah.

So that's nothing else. He, you think he's concerned that anything else is going to change in Venezuela? you think that they are on a path to elections anytime soon. And of course, Mark Rubio is saying, well, obviously you can't do it right away and give it some time or whatever. Trump's talking about years of managing Venezuela and taking their oil. And he also says, oh, yeah, we're going to give them some of the money too. I'm sure that's going to get to them. So we are now managing Venezuela with no end date.

He doesn't seem like he wants to put boots on the ground, but he's not ruling it out. and none of the political issues in that country have been solved, to say the least. The repression is still intense, if not more so. And maybe worsened in the last couple days here. Yeah, there were some reports that maybe they're going to agreeing to release some political prisoners soon, but we'll see what happens there. I don't know. And then the Greenland thing seems real. Yeah. Like, I would take that very seriously, as some Republicans in Congress are, they were very nervous.

a few Republicans in Congress then over the last couple days have suddenly remembered that they represent an equal branch of government. And they've decided that they're not entirely sure that the sole arbiter of U.S. foreign policy should be Donald Trump's sense of morality. So because there was some jitters about Greenland, Marco Rubio was sent to come some Republicans who aren't thrilled about the idea of invading a NATO ally. He insisted that Trump just wants to buy the territory from Denmark, I guess, for. you know, $100,000 per person per person, right? Even though Denmark has already made it clear a billion times that it's not for sale, so I don't know where that goes. Then on Thursday, five Senate Republicans voted along with every Democrat to advance a war powers resolution

that would prohibit Trump from taking further military action against Venezuela without congressional authorization. The Republicans were Rand Paul, who co-sponsored the resolution with Tim Kaine, as well as Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Josh Hawley, and Todd Young of Indiana. Trump responded by calling the War Powers Act unconstitutional, blasting these Republicans stupidity in saying that they should, quote, never be elected to office again. Nice. What did you make of the war powers vote?

Big deal that these Republicans joined Democrats? How much does this matter at all? Who knows? I think it is meaningful in the sense that there is a majority of Trump's skeptical Republicans, like true or want to be true. America first or isolationists like Josh Hawley and Democrats can get you there. And, you know, the fact that these people would vote against Trump, you know, right in the wake of a quote unquote successful military operation is notable.

The other way looking at it is if you had just like a few years ago asked, how do you think Congress would vote on a resolution trying to stop the president from sending troops to Venezuela to protect the U.S. oil interests after a regime change war? You'd think you'd get more than 54 votes for that or 55 votes or whatever it was. The reason it's not super consequential is maybe it passes the house, maybe it doesn't. I'm sure there is a majority in the House. People could vote a huge majority. Fire up another discharge petition.

But it's not enough to override Trump's veto under any scenario. So it's can't, I think it is symbolic of something of how far out on a limb Trump is with his new global adventures. It's symbolic of, I think, the sort of the growing weakness he has. as a lame duck president with very poor approval rating, staring down the barrel of losing the House and maybe the Senate. But it doesn't necessarily indicate a real opportunity to hold him accountable or change his policy in the short term. Yeah, I think the ability of Congress to constrain him on these foreign adventures, I mean, just statutorily, constitutionally, is fairly limited, though Congress is the body that declares war. That is in the Constitution.

But of course, we've talked about that. You know, Donald Trump certainly doesn't care. And even the authority that Congress has has been whittled down over the many decades by various presidents. So that's a challenge. And I think that part of the New York Times interview was Donald Trump saying, like, I don't say whatever you want, Congress. I don't give a fuck. You know, he didn't miss an opportunity to blast the Republicans who voted against him, including Susan Collins, who he very much needs to win reelection against. You know me putting that truth in an ad, though.

I know. I was going to say that probably helps her more than anything else. That's the other thing is some of these Republicans, and we'll talk about this with the ACA, are probably breaking with Donald Trump because, like, hey, want to save our own asses here. Like, they're not, they don't think it's actually going to constrain them, but it's like a free vote to they can run an ad on. Speaking of which, some Republicans in Congress are finally trying to do something, anything, about the massive premium hikes that Trump and other Republicans have forced on 20 million Americans, who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

On Thursday, 17 Republicans, 17 voted with Democrats in the House to pass a clean three-year extension of the ACA subsidies that expired on December 31st. Over in the Senate, a few other Republicans are close to a deal with Democrats that would extend the subsidies for two years, include income caps for eligibility, require minimum payments, and offer an option to divert your subsidy into a health savings account. if you are an idiot. A sticking point in all of this is the for all the idiots out there that want to do that. A sticking point in all of this is the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal money from being used for abortions.

A lot of ACA plans do cover reproductive care, and even though there are protections in place that are supposed to keep the funding stream separate, how's that for some D.C. speak. Some conservatives and other groups are pushing for any subsidy extension to include new Hyde language. Bring this up because this seems like the final sticking point here on a deal that seemingly might pass Congress. Trump told a gathering of House Republicans on Tuesday that they need to have some, quote, flexibility on Hyde as part of a broader pitch on trying to take the initiative on health care to avoid getting wiped out in the midterms.

Here's a sampling. On health care, it's never been our issue. It should be our issue. You can own health care. Let figure it out. Now, you have to be a little flexible on Hyde. You know that. you gotta be a little flexible, you gotta work something.

Wish you could explain to me what the hell's going on with the mind of the public because we have the right policy. They don't, they have horrible policy. They do stick together. They're violent. They're vicious, you know, they're vicious people. Speaking of clips to put in an ad, I don't... What's going on with the mind of the public?

You always want to blame the voters, Dan. That's the first rule of politics. Yes, the... We're right. voters are wrong as a message that has truly never failed in the history of American politics. And I think the Republicans should adopt it and run on it. Yeah, I love that message. That's all the way to the midterms. So what do you think's going on here? It seems like Trump has finally come around on what I had expected him to do, and I'm sure you did for like, I don't know, months ago,

which is like, okay, why not just take this issue off the table and get the subsidies passed? And finally now that we've passed January 1st, now he's suddenly decided that maybe he should get on board here. Or do you think he's not really on board? He's been very busy, John. He's had a lot on his plate. He's trying to get Greenland. As he said, healthcare is not really his issue usually. Yes, he's got multiple interior design projects going.

He's personally sourcing marble for the armrests. Did you see that over the holidays? I know you guys talked about the marble armrest. Did you see he actually went to the marble store as a photo op? I did not see the marble store. He went specifically looking for it. He went to check out the marble himself. Do you see the architect today?

What the architect said? He's going to add a third floor to the West Wing. To the West Wing. Yeah, because it's now he wants, the new ballroom is now going to be the same height as the main residence. So then they need the West Wing to be the same height as well. So I guess we're going to add, isn't it a fourth floor? Well, I guess if you're kind of in the ground floor, the basement. Yeah, there's the basement.

there's the first four you go on. That's where I hung out. Yeah, there was where your office was. There was where my office was. And then there's the second four. There's a four on top of that. Right. So there's a four on top of that.

Like honestly, you need more space in the West Wing, but that's neither here nor there. It really, it's getting so close to just looking like Trump Tower. That's where we're going to end up. It is, it is the, we did this.

We mocked this up for one of the correspondence dinners in like 2011. Yeah, let's not bring that up today for all day. That's the worst. So here's the thing. He doesn't seem particularly engaged here. It feels like he had to, that last comment there, the one about the voters being wrong,

suggests that he's kind, that despite all the bravado, he kind of is dialed in, at least to the fact that things aren't looking great, both for him or Republicans. And so maybe he's thinking about that a little surprising. But he's, if he was really dialed in here, he'd bring them all down to the White House. He'd want to broker this deal himself. he's very half involved and he doesn't really care. And I really think the Hyde Amendment thing

as someone briefed him in the car on the way over that the Hyde Amendment was an issue. I don't think he could probably identify it or what it stands for. I'm sure he spells it H-I-D-E instead of H-Y-D-E. And so he just sort of mentioned it and he could not answer one single follow-up question on it. I mean, I saw some reporting

that Senate Republicans involved in this were privately saying, that they're fine letting hide go, which seems like a, I mean, the Senate Republicans that are trying to do this deal. It seems like, you're still going to get to the Susan Collins of the world. I could see that. But it does feel trickier in the House, though now they have 17 Republicans who voted for a clean extension. So maybe this gets done. I can't, if it gets done, I can't see Trump vetoing it. Can you? No, I mean, I guess he did just veto a infrastructure bill for Colorado because he's mad about someone in jail and he's mad at Lauren Bogart for the exiting discharge petition.

So, I mean, who knows? She voted for, she was one of the 17 votes for the extension of the ACA. Did she change her vote though? Did she change your vote? Oh, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. So what do you think this gets passed? I don't know.

It feels it's the easiest way to pass it. If Republicans really just wanted to be done with this and let it go would be to just pass what past what, pass the district position on Epstein. Take it, pass it, be done with it. take the win on it. The hard part is now you're going to set a competing bill back to the House that is worse than this one. There's going to be no discharge petition for that one because it's worse than the thing that's

already passed. So why would Democrats negotiate with themselves? And so I think there's a lot of obstacles before it can actually get done here. But it has a shot, I'd say. And I think we should just stipulate that the shutdown in this case, even if this does not work, The shutdown brought this closer to actual completion than anything possible. And we said this before the break, but Jeffries played his cards very, very well here on the discharge positions, held out for the stronger one, forced the Republicans to come his way. And he just did a good job there.

We've been critical of the leaders, but this is one case where they, I think, did a very good job. If you are a, if you were running a Democratic House or Senate campaign in the midterms, and this thing passes. What are you thinking? And what are you saying? I think that you are, if you are, it depends. So if you're an incumbent, you're taking credit for this. And if you're a challenger against a Republican,

you are probably running against Republican who just voted for it. And you're talking, therefore you're then talking about all the other ways in which the prices are high. Yeah. So. But it's good for people. Yeah. The thing was, if you're going to, if you're going to, this is where Jeffries was right.

If you're going to solve the Republicans political problem for them for them, then you're going to have to get something very real that helps lots of people. Right, which this would be. The three year straight extension is that. The Senate thing, I have a lot more questions about whether that's actually worth going out to see what the actual language is. But now you put income caps on. It's two years, not three years. Who knows what happens with Hyde? that seems like a less worthy, that's a harder deal to take given the politics.

But you're going to come back next year and hopefully have a ton more leverage because you control the House and maybe the Senate. We should also say that because the deadline has passed, it's not impossible to implement this. It's like doable. It is doable. I think it's also tougher to do if it's not a clean extension, right? Yeah, I think that's right. Because basically if it's clean extension, what would happen here is just you could retroactively just go back to you. to make the tax credits to January 1st.

In the federal plans, you could just give, start, take all that money, push it forward, lower everyone's premiums automatically. When the original tax credits were passed, it was in March when it went into law after the open enrollment period was over. So they just did it for people who qualified. You can do it here. But now you have a bunch of state exchanges with places who have their own exchange. Those states will have to make their own decision about how they do it.

The reason why, so you can help people. the downside here is the people who opted out because it was too expensive. You can't, it's very hard to get them back in in this scenario. Especially with the government that really doesn't want to make healthcare work. Yeah, exactly. Like if you, the Biden was able to make this work because he wanted to make it work. It's hard to see the Trump administration doing a little bit take to actually help people here. All right.

Well, we'll keep an eye on that. It's what happens in the next couple weeks. All right. A couple announcements before we get to Tommy's interview with Zoran Mamdani. Exciting news. We just launched a new weekly newsletter. from the executive editor of Pod Save America, our own Reed Chirrelin.

It's called Pod Save America Open Tabs, and it drops every Thursday morning. Here it says in brackets, hosts to riff on Reed's physical beauty and intellectual prowess. Do you think Reed put that in there? He does edit this right before it goes out. And I will say, I did see.

That is his job. I was in the Google Doc, and I did see Reed get right into the housekeeping. So I think he must have added that in. That's the kind of wit in humor you will get at open tabs as well as a lot of insight. It was for me, this was the first post. It came out before our morning Thursday calls with Reid to talk about the show. I've never felt more prepared for that call in my life because I knew what Reed was thinking.

You can be that prepared in your daily life too. For those of you who don't know Reed, Reid worked with us in the Obama White House, worked with Tommy in the press office way back when. And so, you know, just part of the Obama mafia working here at Cricket Meade. I have worked with Reed for off and on now for 22 years. Wow. Hired him in 2004, I believe. It's my carpool buddy, me, me, Reed and Tommy, just driving to the White House every morning.

Taking advantage of your top-notch parking spot right outside the West Wing. I'd pick those guys up. I'd have Dunkin' Donuts coffee waiting for them. You are. You're a true and courteous Bostonian. Anyway, open tabs. It's fantastic. It's a behind the scenes look at how we put the show together. What's coming in the next episode and all the stories rattling around in our heads as we wait to get into the studio, including, hence the name of the newsletter, some open tabs that didn't make it into the show, but are really interesting stories that we've been thinking about and talking about. So check out the first issue of open tabs at crooked.com slash substack. The first issue is free for everyone. And if you're already a subscriber on substack or super PAC.

You'll start getting it every week. For the rest of you, sign the fuck up. Become a subscriber. Cricket.com slash friends. We're going to have a lot of great stuff behind the paywall in 2026 here. New shows, new newsletters. We've already got ad-free episodes of all your favorite crooked shows. We already have some great subscriber-only shows like Polarcoaster with Dan Pfeiffer.

The one and only. And all kinds of fun stuff that you get. and you get to be proud of yourself for supporting independent media that is not going to fold to the Trump administration. So sign up at cricket.com slash friends, become a subscriber, join us. It's a fun community. Speaking of polar coaster, first episode of 2026 is out now. What did you guys talk about? So we talked, Caroline and I talked about all the polling around Venezuela, how the voters are reacting to what Trump did, and why it has been a big does.

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I'm excited to be joined today by a man who President Trump says is much hotter than he expected him to be. Mayor Mundani, welcome back to Potta of America. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. It's a unique intro. Yeah. How'd that go for you? We're like, sir, eyes up here. I'm not a piece of meat. Anyway, we'll get to the substance. We are talking because earlier today, Thursday, you and Governor Hokel made a major announcement about your plan to expand free child care for New Yorkers. Can you tell us the details of what you guys just announced? Absolutely. So we just announced just a couple of hours ago that we will be receiving a $1.21 billion investment in making universal child care a reality in New York City. And what that means in a tangible level is that we're going to be fixing 3K here in New York City and delivering universal to care for every single two-year-old across the city in the next four years. And this is something that will transform the ability for working families to actually raise their kids here because it's a city where up until today, child care has cost an average of $22,500 a year. Wow. Yeah, as a father of a three-year-old and an almost two-year-old, I can tell you, it's wildly expensive.

I suspect you're going to get a lot of questions about the cost of this program, how you're going to pay for it. I believe during the campaign, you talked about a longer-term vision to provide universal child care from age six months to age five that could cost up to $6 billion a year. Will this plan require new taxes, or do you anticipate having to kind of move money around or that this funding might constrain your ability to fund other priorities? So the funding of this, the $1.21 billion, is coming directly from the state. It's in partnership between Governor Hokel and myself, and it's being done using existing revenues. And what it does is it starts the process of universal child care here in New York City. We have pre-K, we have 3K, but the 3K that we have, you have a family in bedside that's being told they can have a seat, but the seat is actually an Astoria. So this investment, it fixes the 3K, and it starts to deliver two care across New York City. And then by the end of the first term in office, we would, will have delivered universal to care. And then in the second term, we will be delivering one year and then below that. Got it. And I will say, like a few months ago, there were a lot of people saying, you know, this is impossible. This is one of the many lefty campaign promises that's going to hit a buzzsaw political reality once you take office. There were others questioning whether you could

work with Governor Hokel, given that you come from, you know, pretty different ends of the political spectrum within the Democratic Party, at least. How did you guys find common ground on this issue in particular? And are there lessons you think that Democrats nationally can take away from that experience? Well, frankly, I think this is something that so many New Yorkers have actually willed into reality. Today is the result of New Yorkers who made more than a million phone calls, who knocked on more than a million doors, who were told again and again, like you said, that to believe in a city that would be affordable was to believe in a myth, when in reality, their work has made that into the life that we are living here in New York City. And the governor

said in her state of the state last year that she was going to be fighting for universal child care. This has long been an area of shared interest. And as she said today, the era of empty promises is over. The things that we said in the campaign, those were not just slogans. Those were, in fact, exactly what we were going to fight for. And now on day eight of this new administration, we are delivering on one of the signature priorities of our campaign, which is universal child care for New Yorkers across the five boroughs. Yeah. Well, it's nice to see Democrats getting some dubs, putting some wins on the board. Not a lot of that happening in this country at the moment.

Universal dub care next. Yeah. Before you go, I wanted to get your reaction to this horrible ice shooting in Minnesota. I think by now, a listeners have probably seen the video. The victim is a 37-year-old woman named Renee Macklin Good. She's a mother of three. She described herself on social media as a poet, a writer, a wife, and a mom. And yet in the aftermath of the shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Christy

Noem called her a domestic terrorist, Vice President J.D. Vance called her quote, a deranged leftist. They both lied about what actually happened despite there being video evidence that we all could see with their eyes. I think I'm really struggling with a few things. First, on a human level, like just the lack of humanity in those kinds of statements about an American citizen, a mom who's now deceased and is leaving behind kids without a mother to care for them. The second is like the willingness we've seen from a lot of Americans to put a higher standard on citizens to avoid getting killed by federal agents, then they put on the federal agents themselves, the ones pulling the trigger. And then finally, just kind of like knowing the big picture,

Stephen Miller and some people in the White House, like they want confrontations between ice and people in blue states because violence like kind of helps them justify their crackdown. So I'm just wondering, how are you processing this? And what is your message to New Yorkers about how to stay safe and about how New York officials can help them stay safe? I mean, this is heartbreaking to have watched that video, to read the news, to read of her father-in-law describing that now orphan child. Yeah. There is no other way to respond to this. And there's no amount of official mischaracterizations that can ever force us to look away from that very video.

And I know that there are many New Yorkers who watched that video and felt even greater anxiety about what it means to be an immigrant in this city. And so I'm making it clear to each and every person who calls this video. this city home, each and every person who is a New Yorker across these five boroughs, that ours is a city government that will stand with them. Ours is a city government that will stand with immigrants today and for every day hereafter. And it's also a city government that's going to follow the law and actually follow our sanctuary city policies. You know, a few weeks ago, I sat down for 12 hours and listened to New Yorkers as they came

up and shared their stories with me. And a few of them were undocumented New Yorkers. And they told me of the fear that they live with each and every day, the anxiety when they say goodbye to a loved one of whether it'll be the last time. And it is my job as the mayor of New York City to take care of everyone who calls the city home. And just to think about the family of that woman who was murdered, it's to understand just one glimpse into what has been a year of cruelty. And I've said it directly to the president. I'll say it directly as well to anyone who will listen, which is that these ice raids are cruel and inhumane. They do nothing to actually serve the

interest of public safety. And I know that Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey's message, to ICE was, you know, get the fuck out of Minneapolis. I mean, I don't know that that's something that he can deliver on in practice, right? I mean, you can't force ICE to leave, but are there ways you think that city officials can, steps they can take to protect people or, I don't know? I think there are a number of ways. I think the first and foremost is to actually inform New Yorkers of their own rights. There are so many New Yorkers who live in the city who do not know all the rights that they actually have by being a New Yorker. And so we have been doing a number of know your rights outreach as well as just information.

that we're sharing directly with New Yorkers. The other is to inform New Yorkers of the safety that they have because we are a city that follows sanctuary city policies. That means we will have a police department that does not assist ICE in their operations. That means that city employees, when they are at a city property or even a property of a city contractor, they will not allow ICE agents into that premise unless they can provide a judicial warrant signed by a judge. And this sadly shouldn't be something we have to remind New Yorkers, but for a long time, there wasn't a level of clarity as to what their rights actually were and whether city government was willing to stand up for those rights. That clarity is now returning to City Hall. Well, that's very important to

hear. Mayor Mumdani, thank you so much for joining the show today. And congrats on the big announcement. Thank you so much, my friend. Pleasure to be here. That's our show for today. Thanks to Zoran Mamdani and Jacob Fry for coming on. I'll be back in the feet on Sunday with a conversation with our own Alex Wagner about our biggest questions for 2026. Have a good weekend, everyone. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts.

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