Pod Save America - Trump Retreats After Alex Pretti's Killing

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

Donald Trump caves to the national outrage over Alex Pretti's killing, telling Governor Tim Walz that he'll agree to allow for an impartial investigation and "look into reducing the number of federal agents in Minnesota." Lovett, on the ground in Minneapolis, joins Jon and Tommy to talk about what's happening in the state, and to share reactions to the tragedy and Trump's surprising about-face. Then they discuss Congressional Democrats' demands for reforming DHS, which may lead to a partial government shutdown, and a wild New York Magazine piece about the president's health. 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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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favro. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Dut. On today's show, Lovett is joining us from Minneapolis, where he's been talking to protesters and residents about the latest on the ground there. We're going to talk about that, about how the political blowback from the second American killed by federal agents is finally causing at least a partial retreat by Trump in the White House. And we'll also get into how Democrats in Congress are planning to use this week's government funding deadline as leverage to demand changes to ICE in the Department of Homeland Security. But first, by now you all know, and have probably seen footage of federal agents killing 37-year-old Alex Preddy of Minnesota, an ICU nurse who was

filming the agents on his phone and helping a protester who'd been pepper sprayed when the agents tackled him to the ground, removed a gun they found on Preddy, and then shot him at least 10 times. Preddy is the second American citizen federal agents have killed in Minneapolis. And somehow, the government's immediate response might have been even more offensively dishonest and sickeningly cruel than their response to Renee Good's killing. Stephen Miller smeared Pready as a domestic terrorist and a, quote, assassin who had planned to murder law enforcement, which J.D. Vance retweeted. Christine Ome, Greg Bevino, and other assorted dipshits followed suit. Here is some of what they said immediately after the killing.

The agents attempted to disarm the individual, but he violently resisted. This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement. When you perpetuate violence against a government because of ideological reasons and for reasons to resist and perpetuate violence, that is the definition of domestic terrorism. This individual who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism. That's the facts. This is a violent riot when you have someone showing up with weapons and are using them to assault law enforcement officers. With respect, it feels as though in some ways you're blaming the victim here. The victims are the border patrol agents.

I'm not blaming the border patrol agents. The victim are the border patrol agents. You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protests that you want. It's that simple. You don't have that right to break the law. We do have a second amendment in this country that Jonathan, have you ever gone to a protest? I mean, have you gone to a protest? I mean, I've, no, actually, as a report, recovering it.

Okay, I've been to a protest. Guess what? I didn't bring a gun. I brought a billboard. We can set aside which protest Scott Besson attended where he brought a billboard. Yeah, not enough caviar, 11 Madison Park, I think he was. You think it was a soybean type of soybean related to that. It's been in the Bush v. Gore, kind of the Brooks Brothers riots in Palm Beach.

It's a good call. So we are going to spend some time on the blowback from this response that we just witnessed. I do think it's worth spending a minute on how you guys feel. not only about the murder of Alex Preddy, but what the government said and the storyline they tried to push in the immediate aftermath, which I can't seem to stop thinking about.

Tommy, you want to start? Yeah, I mean, you know, you and I did a quick reaction to this for the Pate of America YouTube on Saturday and we were watching the videos in real time. And I think, you know, my initial reaction was horror and then rage at the way they were smearing this man

and then just like heartbreak for his family. and the people witnessed it in the community, and everyone in Minnesota was living through this. And I think in the days since we had that conversation, we've learned more about who this guy was, who Alex Pretty was, and what he was doing and what happened that day. And mostly I just want to say that I think he's a hero

and that he, like his death was an unjustifiable, senseless murder, but that he was acting heroically. Not only is this a guy who by day cares for veterans at a VA hospital, in his free time, he decided to put his body on the line at these protests in the freezing, hold bear witness, you know, film these ice and CBP thugs when they're beating up people in this community. And then his last act was trying to help a woman who had just been brutally assaulted by a CBP officer. He was trying to cover her and put his body in the way of her so she wouldn't be

beaten further. And like I, his last words were, are you okay? Yeah. And like I think we'd all like to think that in a situation like that, that we'd have the courage to act in the way he did. And I hope people take as much inspiration from him as they do outrage. And like with respect to J.D. Vance and Christy Noam, above you know, they're the opposite of Alex Prattie. You know, like they are cowards, they are disgraced liars. They aren't willing to risk anything to do what is right. They will only do what it takes to get more power for themselves. And so they're going to have to answer to voters and to their consciences and to God if they actually believe in one. And so, look, it's self-evident that Alex Prattie was never a threat. He was not a terrorist. He was being brutally

assaulted by half a dozen big armed men before he was executed with 10 bullets. Like not only, was he only holding his phone. He had his other hand up, right? Like, he did what, for years, conservatives have told mostly young black men in this country that the way you avoid getting killed by the cops is you have both hands up like this. And he did both of those things. And he was executed in cold blood in the middle of the day on the street in front of dozens of people. So it is an enraging, horrifying tragedy. And he's a hero. And I hope people remember him that way. Love it. Yeah. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. that you have officials in the administration that are basically responsible for immigration

policy, basically immediately, without any real information, they had no more information than we did, basically. It was within minutes, I think, describing someone as an assassin based on nothing. And then both Bovino and Noam land on this line, like maximum damage, some form of maximum damage to law enforcement again without any evidence. The fact that they were willing to assert that before they knew anything just shows how corrupt they are and irresponsible they are and unfit they are. But boy, how unlucky for them that Alex Pready turns out to be an incredible person, like truly like the best of us. What bad luck for them that this guy is a hero because you shouldn't have to be a hero to not have the government lie about you when you're

shot dead in the street by agents of the state. You shouldn't have to be the best of us to be treated with respect. It is a terrible story for them that this man spoke movingly at the deaths of veterans. A lot of people have noted this that that Predi became a nurse in 2021, which meant that he saw what was unfolding in COVID and decided that he wanted to be in the medical profession. But Noam and Pavino and all these people, they'll lie about anybody. They're lying about people all the time. They've been lying about people. They've grabbed off the street. They've been lying about people. They've put in detention. There's just only some of those stories where it's so egregious and the person so obviously deserving of more that it gets

this kind of attention. And so the tragedy, right, is that this wonderful and beloved person was gunned down because of poorly trained, angry, twitchy, aggressive federal agents who feel beholden to and protected by Donald Trump and his goons. We went to the memorial where he had been killed. and you just see so many people who they're just standing there in silence, just really unable to move. There don't, a lot of people have never been to anything like that before. They've never felt this before. They've never experienced anything in their communities like this before, like so wrenched by this. And it's all just so completely avoidable.

And the lying about it, you know, like, I've seen a bunch of people like scratch. their chins to complain about all the ways in which everyone but Noem and Bovino and all these people are ultimately responsible and ICE is ultimately responsible and the Border Patrol responsible. But the lying is escalation. The lying is a form of ratcheting up the tension. And it's only because Prattie is such a like a tribune to good values that they've kind of had to blow up in their faces. Yeah, I want to talk about the line because I think it is the most chilling part to me. Yeah. Because I think we are so used to because we now have a reality TV show president. We have a bunch of Fox pundits running the cabinet. We are so used to like, well, we're all in this

political warfare with each other. And so one side lies and the other side lies. These are the people in charge of the federal government, which is the most powerful entity on the planet. They control just, you know, enough manpower, enough weaponry to destroy the whole world. This is the Department of Homeland Security. It's not immigration officials. Department of Homeland Security is supposed to protect the country. And they are lying and lying easily, callously, without even blinking, without even seeming like they feel like, oh, shit, we got to cover our asses. They're lying so easily about something that they know was filmed at multiple different angles.

So it's not like they thought they could get away with this. They're just lying thinking like, I'm going to just say whatever the fuck I want. And who the hell cares about that? And that to me is like the most chilling part. And they just kept going. And like they all jump in. You see Pete Hegseth, our defense secretary jumped in with a post saying who's from Minnesota, who's born in Minnesota that said ICE greater than sign Minnesota.

And also, why is Scott Besson commenting on what CBP and ICE are up to? You're the Treasury Secretary. I don't know. That's not my job. Don't comment on it. Fucking Vice President of the United States retweeting Stephen Miller calling it. Which, what exactly? Tommy, which is like all this stuff about, they're all doing it because they're all afraid of Miller.

I mean, they're afraid of Trump, but they know that Miller's the enforcer because Trump's busy with his ballroom and a whole bunch of other shit. He's doing his Melania thing, his screening of Melania. And Miller's the real boss. And so when Stephen Miller says, oh, this is an assassin, they're all like, oh, we all got to jump in, right? J.D. Vance then on Sunday tweets his fucking story that he told last. week about, oh, these ice agents in Minnesota, they were having dinner. And then suddenly, everyone, a mob came in and they, and they locked the door and they felt scared for their lives. They're like, what were they, it was like, did rains of Castamere start playing?

He's like, it's fucking red, like the door locked from the inside. Did they just casually get up and walk out, you know? But he was like, he basically, he basically told that story to say that, like, like, Minnesota officials have created this chaos so they can have moments like yesterday where someone tragically dies and politicians get to grandstand about the evils of enforcing the border and I'm like that is like you are so fucked up like jd vance forget about like his values his morality like to tweet something like that after someone who's murdered like you need to see someone for help like that like you're you're fucking psychologically nuts yeah and just like the casual like the callousness and the total disregard from the truth it really just like saps your

faith in government and humanity but then the efforts to blame the vicarages victim are just like cashmattel right he says you can't bring a gun to a protest they're trying to suggest that you know that he is Alex pretty is at fault because he brought a gun to this protest and it's like are you fucking kidding me Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people at a protest you guys lionized him you treated him you made him into a hero cash Patel specifically offered to raise money for Kyle Rittenhouse to sue the media about his reputation and by the way he made these comments on a white nationalist podcast with the guy named stew peters stew Peters is so vile and so anti-Semitic that he sold a meme coin called J-proof, i.e. Jewish proof. And then Cash Patel later lied to

the Senate and pretended he didn't know who Stu Peters was, despite being on his show eight times. I think of that aside there, I think just like tells you about the character of the people in these government positions. How Cash Patel is the FBI director. And he got that position because he was willing to lie and say whatever it took to get power. And that's where we're at. And it's just like the conclusion from this, which is a conclusion most of us have have drawn years ago, but especially true now, it's like, we cannot trust a single thing that our government tells us. Especially DHS. About anything, especially DHS.

But like, you know, we just had, you know, the story last week about the five-year-old boy, who they took from his family and is now somewhere in a detention facility in Texas, maybe sent to Mexico now that they're reinstating the remaining Mexico policy, this five-year-old. And they tried to tell us, the father abandoned him, the mother didn't want him. And all these lies and, you know, they're trying to argue. But it's like, we can't, we can't believe any of that. that. We're supposed to believe that the agent who killed Renee Good had internal bleeding. We're supposed to believe that the car hit him. We're supposed to believe there were two rounds of

ammo that Alex Prady brought with him to. They haven't produced any pictures of the ammo. If they had that, they would, they would, we can't believe anything. We cannot believe anything the government says right now. There's something about Vance, that unrelated story about the lunch incident. And it was dinner. Don't worry it was dinner. It was the dinner incident. You can Trump people's lunch. It was sorry, it was the main meal. That he, and then they're like the, the, the, the, the work at the phrase, so they can have moments like this. So they can have moments like this.

What are, because he would do that. That's why. Because he, because Trump and, and Vance would use, would use stuff to have, would want moments like this for their political end. So they think that we would do the same thing too. But, but then it's like, so, so I'm sorry, is, is the tension that took place. where Alex Pretti was killed elevated because of an unrelated incident the place at this other restaurant? Are you saying that you hold a separate protest accountable for the ways in which you were bothered by what happened at the previous? Is Alex Pretti responsible for other people's acts? Are those

ICE officers that killed Alex Pretti? Are they not responsible because of something that happened to an unrelated group of people. Like, hold individuals responsible for their conduct. Like, what happened in this moment? We all watched it. We all sob with our own eyes. What the fuck does what happened at a restaurant have anything to do with that unless you are doing some kind of collective punishment of protesters in which,

because some protesters have done things that you don't like, whatever you're describing it as, whoever you're mischaracterizing it. What does that have to do with the rights of an individual to record people? people to try to prevent someone for being hurt from not being murdered on the street with bullets in the back. Like it has nothing to do with anything. Like the overall context, like what the fuck are you talking about? Well, you know, it's the whole too. Like what about, you know, why, where's the uproar about Lake and Riley or any of the people who've been murdered by undocumented immigrants? It's like,

well, the people who murdered them should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law and sent away for their lives. And if someone has a criminal record and is violent, and you should deport them if you can. And if they're a U.S. citizen, then you should charge them with a crime and have a jury convict them. What are you talking about? By the way, you can go even further than that.

Go further. I'll go further than that. And if the immigration system is broken, right? If the immigration system is not safe, we should fix it. We should have better laws. That does not mean people surrender their basic rights. That doesn't mean we have to have an inhumane deportation policy of people that happen to have been in the wrong restaurant at the wrong time.

Like, what is the connection? here. Like, what the fuck are? It's a, it's like the, the refusal to just look at the thing, like, in the face. Like, I don't, like, Cash Patel, Pete Hegseff. Like, I don't think these people have, like, these are not, like, deeply held beliefs. And I don't even think that, I don't even think sometimes they're saying these things because they're trying to, like, own the lives. Like, they're just saying what they think they're supposed to say to stay on side. And they just happened in this case to be so warped by their media environment, by their fear of their boss by the fact that they haven't really thought about their deeper moral convictions and

in seemingly a very long time, too busy, too overwhelmed, too incompetent, that they misread this situation because it was so egregious, because they've gotten away with it or think they've gotten away with it in so many other circumstances in the first year of this administration. And look, it just, it is a bigger deal when the state executes an American citizen, right? Like, we have an implicit contract with the state that the state is allowed to use violence or to detain us, right, to take away our freedom. and our liberties, right? So we have certain rights. And the White House position is basically that ICE and CBP, they can murder American citizen, they can posthumously slander him or her,

they can call them a terrorist, they can remove evidence from the crime scene, they could block state and local investigations, and then they can hide the shooter's identity, even though that person is staying on the job. And the fucking, don't tread on me, crowd has now like, you know, like, spank me big government daddy, you know, like, thank you, sir, may have another. It's like, I don't, how do you, whatever happened to that libertarian DNA, like, where did all that go? When did we have become just like pro police state authoritarianism? Like it, whatever. You have it, you have an in-group that the law protects and you have an out-group that, that must be dealt with. That is, that's, that's, that's their only law. That the law binds.

Well, I just also, just at that point from Tommy, though, it's like, you realize how, how few people just have any first principles whatsoever, right? Like, hey, this person is an agent of the state. If you believe the killing is justified, he did it on behalf of the state. If it's not, he did it as an individual. We need to understand the difference. That's why you learn the person's name. That's why, because he was operating on behalf of the state. And if he was, then he should be protected.

And if he wasn't, he needs to be held accountable. Like, that is how it works. And like, there's no, like, no, you don't get to, it's not doxing when a federal official kills somebody in the street. That's not what that means. Pod Save America is brought to you by Helix. Love Helix mattresses. have two Helix mattresses in our home.

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Preddy's killing already seems to have broken through in a way. I don't think anything has in Trump's second term, at least in terms of prominent people. people speaking out who've been quiet up until now. Trump supporters criticizing the administration, just normal people posting about it, talking about it, getting outraged. Just one example. Here's what happened at the Minnesota Timberwolves game. They played the Warriors this weekend. They held a moment of silence for Preddy before, right before the game. We extend our love, support, and heartfelt sympathies to Alex's family, friends in our community during this difficult time. Please join us in honoring the life in memory of Alex Priddy with a moment of silence.

If you couldn't hear it, that was everyone screaming. Fuck ice. Hard to know if this will last. It certainly feels like it could be an inflection point. What do you make of the response from everyone who's not a Trump deadender on this, Tommy? Well, you mean, there's some polling. Fifty-eight percent of voters say ICE has gone too far. There's new Reuters, Ipsos poll. Trump's approval on immigration is 39% approved, 53% disapproves. That's quite bad. I do think it's an inflection point. I hope it's an inflection point, but I really do think it is because voters wanted a secure border. They want violent criminals deported.

No one wanted this. Like everyone knows this is wrong. And from a cultural standpoint, I really, I personally am seeing it breakthrough like in my feeds. Like NBA players, John Randall, who was a Hall of Fame defensive tackle, played 11 seasons for the Vikings. He was tweeting about this. There was like a Vikings beat reporter, a guy on Twitter who was like a Minnesota, you know, a twin superfan. Like my buddy, Joel Corti, who founded this company Chase Bliss.

They make guitar pedals. Like he's posting stuff on it. You know, it's like people you know all throughout your life. And it's usually people being like, I never use this account to talk about politics because I hate talking about politics. But this is different. You're also seeing Republicans willing to break with Trump. Like there are some usual suspects, Rand Paul, Tom Tillis, Murkowski. They're going a little further than usual.

But even like James Comer, who's a, you know, died of the wool, maga guy, he's saying, I should get out of Minnesota. Greg Abbott said ice. That is wild. Yeah, Texas governor says ice needs to recalibrate. its decisions in Minnesota, a bunch of high-profile MAGA, like media people, even like formerly paid propagandists from the Russian government are criticizing ICE and Trump. The New York Post editorial said, quote, the hasty misleading rhetoric coming out of the administration needs to stop.

The American people didn't vote for these scenes. And you can't continue to order them to not believe their lying eyes. So I do think, like, that is a lot of pressure from the right. Yeah. Love it. What's your sense? Yeah, look, I think it's broken through. You know, it's been interesting watching the kinds of people that that try to defend Trump

at every turn or find the intellectual way to not defend him while still managing to make sure they're doing their job of making this about the way the left is causing it in some fashion, how they've kind of run up against some weather in this. And I do think if like you're not in the kind of daily political battles about how we argue over all kinds of videos and images and seeing the opposite. Like, even those who want to be, like, deferential to law enforcement, when you watch this video, the Renee Good video, on top of all the other videos we're seeing, like, it's one thing for people who are maybe instinctively more defensive of law enforcement to defend police

acting professionally. But what ICE or Border Patrol, what they look like in these moments, they just look like a gang and they're scrambling and they're running up and they're pushing people. They're not acting like police. They're just not. Like you can have all kinds of criticism of police that is deserved. These people are not acting like police. They're not de-escalating. You see a lot of criticism from cops, by the way, law enforcement officials, both locally and nationally saying, this is not how a professional police force acts because you're supposed to de-escalate. You're supposed to step back. You're not supposed to make things worse. And you see like the number of videos you see of somebody

from from the from the from ice or BPB we put them together but they are different kind of running up and just shoving somebody grabbing somebody and then because now and there somebody maybe grabs back or falls whatever an agent falls now there's two people on top of each other so six more agents come in and now they're part of this scrum like a little bit of like what happened with with predi and it just doesn't look like police it looks like gangs they're acting like gangs and so i think that is visceral for everybody including people that are less political less anti-comp more pro law enforcement like I think that is part of what makes these images so powerful. I mean, remember after they killed Renee Good, you could hear the man who shot her, the agent who saw her say fucking bitch.

And then now, after this, there were two agents like fist bumping, high-fiving after the Preddy murder as well. Sickening. There was also a doctor who filed this in the affidavit for the court case that we'll talk about a bit, but said that he once again, just like in the René Good killing. tried to rush and and provide medical care for Preddy, and they wouldn't let him because he had his license on him. And then finally they let him. And he said it was weird is that he was laid on his side, which is not what you do when there's like a gunshot victim. And then he saw that the agents, the Border Patrol agents were counting the bullet holes. That's why they had Prudy on his side, as opposed to trying to help him with medical care. They were counting

bullet holes. Well, they were also looking for a gun and they realized there was no gun on him because he'd been disarmed before they executed him. Yeah. The other Republican, I thought, was interesting. Chris, Chris Medell, who was a Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota, and the pro bono lawyer for Jonathan Ross, the agent that killed Renee Good, dropped out of the race, said, I can't look my daughters in the eye and say, I'm running as a Republican when they're pulling over Hispanics and Asians because of the color of their skin and what they look like. I did not sign up for that. That was the end of his candidacy. So you sure, like some of the tech people are finally speaking up. Some of like the next tier tech folks. I saw I did see one guy from from Open AIs and exact there. Jane. diet, which is a pretty damning tweet. He said, there's far more outrage from tech leaders over a wealth tax than masked ice agents terrorizing communities in executing civilians in the streets, tells you what you need to know about the values of our industry. Yeah, the fuck yeah. Yeah, the fucking all-end pod crowd. They think the real problem is a 5% wealth tax on billionaires. Chamath was literally tweeting about that all weekend while this was happening. This is your buddy,

Donald Trump. You didn't have a fucking word to say about this? The real victims are the billionaires. Do we think, do we think Tim Cook was on do not disturb during? the screening and so he only saw it after. What Leavitt's referencing here is that Donald Trump, on Saturday night, after the killing, held a screening of the new Melania doc that, you know, that was a little bit of a drug deal there. Amazon paid $40 billion for. Yeah, 40 million. And, you know, and Tim Cook went.

That was great. Why? A couple executives. It's on a competing streaming service. Why is he going to the premiere of a documentary on a competing streaming service? I guess Tim Cook and Apple just wanted to show support for the president who just presided over, you federal agents who executed the second American citizen in a matter of weeks. A riveting documentary for everyone who always wondered, what is the first lady up to in the 20 days before she becomes officially first lady in her inauguration?

Directed by Brett Radner, a person we all missed. That Hollywood was clamoring for more work from. Let's talk about Trump himself. And I do think it's notable that we have waited until now to talk about Trump, which I think just goes to show that he has, I mean, at the beginning of this, sort of was in the background of it. It is pretty clear now that he and at least some people in the White House have realized that, at least from a pure political standpoint, they have royally fucked this up. Trump announced Monday that he's sending Bordersar Tom Homan to Minneapolis, who will be replacing Greg Bavino, who is finally leaving the city with at least some of the border patrol forces under his command. And Nick Miroff at the Atlantic has just reported that Bovino has been removed from his role as border patrol.

commander at large and will return to his former job in El Central California, where he's expected to retire soon. This is according to a DHS official and two people who have knowledge of the change. What a world where we're like, oh, yes, we got Homan. We got rid of a Vino. We got homing guys. Just the guy with the 50 grand in the Kava bag. That's like a relief. Well, remember how this all went down, too, is that it was first Homan and then there was all this sort of reporting about this internal scuttle butt over like Tom Homan wasn't extreme enough for Christy Gnome and Cory Lewandowski. Cory Lewandowski, of course, the brains behind the operation at DHS.

Maybe something behind something. Yeah. And so, you know, Homan wasn't tough enough, right? Because of course, Homan is a, is an Obama administration holdover from way back. He was some mid-level ice guy or senior ice guy there. He wasn't, yeah. And so Homan wasn't tough enough. And so they kind of demote Homan, or at least he's, he's out of view.

they get Bovino on the ground with his SS coat and his phalanx of agents that he needs to have him around him even when he's going into Target to take a piss he's a big tough guy and so they have

so then it's Bovino and remember after Good was killed and Homan is in one of those first interviews and he's like I think there should be a full investigation like I think we should not call it domestic terrorism and all this time and then suddenly he's like

back on the talking point so they all seek Homan as like a cuck right Homan is a real Yeah. Homan's a real beta to them, which is fucking nuts because Lewandowski and Nome don't, they don't like Homan. There's like attention there, right?

Right. Yeah. So now Homan is back in. And I guess this is the last of Greg Bevino for a while. Trump also said on Monday that he had a, quote, very good call with Tim Wals and that they, quote, actually seemed to be on a similar wavelength. I'm sure Wals laughed at that.

The Wals office said that Trump agreed to allow for an impartial investigation into Preddy's killing that involves Minnesota state officials, which they had originally been trying to keep out of it, and they did for goods investigation, lack thereof, not a real investigation into goods murder. And that also Trump agreed to, quote, look into reducing the number of federal agents in Minnesota. And of course, there's that reporting that some of the Border Patrol is going to leave with Bovino. Also, apparently, right before we recorded, Trump talked to Fry, Jacob Frye as well. And they had the mayor of Minneapolis, and they were supposed to have like a productive call as well. according to Fry. There were also hearings on Monday on both of the points that Walls and Trump talked

about in these were court cases brought by the state of Minnesota by Attorney General Keith Ellison, one asking a judge to stop the ICE surge and the Border Patrol surge immediately, and one demanding that the Department of Homeland Security preserve all the evidence from the scene of Preddy's death. You know, the judge seemed reluctant or sort of torn on whether they could actually stop this enforcement operation during the hearing, though the one thing that was really getting the judge was Pam Bondi's letter that she sent basically saying, we'll take out our agents only if these conditions are met. And one was, we want your snap, your food stamp rolls, and one was we want access to your voter rolls. So weird.

Yeah. And then we want more cooperation on law enforcement. And so the judge was like, it does seem a little weird that there's basically a demand of meeting certain conditions before you stop terrorizing a population. It's not what the judge said, but that was basically the feeling there. So we'll wait for rulings on that. And then White House held a press briefing, their first press briefing since the killing on Monday. Caroline Levitt was asked at her briefing about Stephen Miller and Christine Ome calling Prattie a domestic terrorist and an assassin. And she said that Trump doesn't characterize him that way. Did not defend Miller. Did not defend him. She hung him about to try. Did not. Yeah. It's a weird. The bar is so low, right? Like, but also didn't criticize

milk you know what I mean just sort of not she didn't condemn him but you like she definitely were like they're on an island and I'm signaling that Donald Trump has not said that yeah and seemingly wouldn't say that I mean I yeah I can't imagine any White House press secretary unless the person was fired yeah to actually you know make the criticism right there but I thought that that was that surprised me because Carolyn Levitt's never done that no she was I was actually like she was it was actually more circumspect than than usual Trump of course aside from some of these posts spent the weekend a lot of other posts over the weekend. He was posting about his ballroom,

basically saying it's unstoppable now. You can't stop me now from building this ballroom. Okay. He was hosting the screening, of course, the Melania screening. He threatened to, again now, he's to make bad polls a criminal offense. So his head's in the right place.

You guys have thoughts on the evolving nature of the Trump White House response to Preddy's killing in this seeming retreat from Trump in the White House? Yeah, look, Trump has been, as you said, he's been horrible at times. But I also think, in other times, his reaction has seemed more human than J.D. Vance or or Stephen Miller or Christine Nome or at least more like politically in tune with the moment.

And so he definitely seems very much to be in Climbdown, the fact that he's calling the mayor, the fact that he's calling Governor Walls is significant. I think, look, I think he is mostly focused on making money and like legacy stuff, like the ego stuff. Like he wants the ballroom. He wants to Ark de Trump wants to build these monuments to himself. And he wants to know about Peace Prize. But he doesn't like when the markets go down. He doesn't like when the stock market dips. He doesn't like getting calls from Republican senators or other allies telling him that his team is screwing up.

So they're making changes. And, you know, there's been a lot of reporting even before Alex Prattie's murder that there was internal White House disagreement over the political impact of the ice crackdown, specifically in Minnesota. I think there are people in the White House who are monsters, but they can read a poll and they know that this is not helping them. In fact, it's backfiring. But their problem is that Stephen Miller doesn't want to give an inch, and Stephen Miller is the first among equals in that building. Susie Wiles has the title of Chief of Staff. I'm sorry, but you're not the most powerful person in the White House, nor is J.D. Vance. It is Stephen Miller. And so we know this piece during Signal Gate. Stephen Miller basically told J.D. Vance to shut the fuck up and get with the program about bombing Yemen.

And so, you know, I think clearly we're seeing, you know, a climb down in Minnesota. Maybe there'll be a changed way ICE and CBP is deployed. I think people, probably understand that another incident like this is inevitable if some change isn't made. I'd still worry, though, that there's going to be a constant kind of back and forth push and pull with Stephen Miller and the people trying to constrain him. I don't know how long term it will be. Love it. What do you think? So there's sort of there's there's three, there's three things happening to me. One is the policy, the policy of mass deportations and how you execute on a policy like that.

The other is the incredibly aggressive tactics that they've been pursuing in the Twin Cities and other places. And then the third is the tenor of the administration and how it talks about what it's doing. Clearly, Trump is trying to do this with the tenor, maybe some surface changes in the aggressiveness of the response, but the mass deportation policy remains.

And that's a math problem. That's not even a Stephen Miller problem. It's a math problem. I agree he's the driving force behind trying to hit whatever number, a million deportations in a year. But they just can't get just criminals. They don't have it. So they have to go after normal people.

And there is no way to pursue a mass deportation agenda without causing chaos in communities with immigrants because there are documented immigrants, undocumented immigrants, and citizens from those communities. And by the way, they're neighbors and community members and community members and colleagues. and people that go to school with their children who are American citizens. And so, you know, he can have a different phone conversation tone with Tim Walts for a day. Well, by the way, still posting that he's going to go after Elon Omar and go after the fraud, which is ostensibly going after Waltz, right, whatever else he wants to call it. But the reality is

the policy, if this is the policy, this is what will happen, no matter how they try to kind of massage it. It's not an optics problem. It's a math problem. And I don't know how they resolve that. there's no real way to resolve it. You can do a mass deportation policy that is less monstrous, I suppose. It's still going to be incredibly disruptive and horrible for these communities. So that to me is still like, what are we talking about? What's Homan going to do? That's different than what Bovino was going to do, a slightly better tone. Is Homan some fuck? Does he have a great bedside manner? I mean, maybe compared to fucking Bovino, but he's still Tom Homan. Yeah, what I worry about is so imagine what happens on Saturday takes place. Alex Pready is murdered and Stephen

Miller does not tweet that he was a would-be assassin. Greg Bevino does not give that press conference that we saw. Cristino does not go out there and say he was a domestic terrorist. They do not have a response as fucking nuts as they had. They announce, all right, we're actually going to take this seriously. We believe that, you know, this man had a had a gun on him and we believe he was going to cause violence. We're going to have a full and investigation of this and and that's going to be it. And, you know, the outcry then is, is huge, I would hope, but they probably think at that point they can still send in ICE, send in Border Patrol to the next city and the next city and keep doing this and keep getting

away with it. And, you know, they're now in Maine. We haven't heard a ton from Maine. We have because we paid really close attention to this. And so, you know, people in Maine, but they're in Portland. They're in Lewiston. And ICE and Border Patrol, whoever, whoever's there are acting just as monstrous as they've been acting in Minneapolis, uh, not just to immigrants or not just to legal residence, but to protesters as well. So you do, and no one, I mean, we don't have good insight into what's happening at the detention centers, which are fucking just horrific, the conditions there, or where they're sending people or when they're sending people to third countries, not even their own countries, right?

Like, so there is so much harm they can keep doing that I do think that it's now going to be incumbent on everyone who has been monitoring this, who's been reporting on this, who's been filming this to keep it up because you're right. Like Trump, Tommy's exactly right. Trump just doesn't like, Trump doesn't like the mess, right? He doesn't like seeing a mess on TV.

He doesn't like the blowback. He doesn't care. It's not like Trump is like really feeling for Alex Prady and his family, right? But Trump's like, I got other things to care. I don't want to deal with this shit. Stephen Miller's like, okay, fuck, how do I get done what I want to get done without the boss getting mad at me or me getting sidelined or anything else.

And I do worry that there's enough of them like Miller and Vance, who are smart enough to figure out how to do this in a quieter way. And I do think like sidelining Bovino and maybe Nome, we'll can talk about that, who's just a fucking idiot, is like, that's an easy thing. Yeah, there is another, you're right. That's all, I think, right. Except the one thing that they can't manifest is a magically more professional immigration

Bureau because they've staffed. In fact, they'll get a less professional one as time goes on and the new recruits who they keep hiring are going to. Well, that's what I mean, because part of this, again, is like they've staffed up too quickly and they've ramped up too quickly and they've recruited people that are either some combination of unqualified or ill-tempered and poorly trained. And so that will continue, right? That mess is there and they can't talk their way out of that. Yeah. Unless these assholes are all just like sitting in an office somewhere at DHS or some field office not doing anything, you know. I think all we can really hope for right now is some near-term improvement on the ground.

And I do think getting CBP out of these situations sounds like it would make a material difference because they sound like the worst offenders in terms of abusing people, including American protesters. I think it's so important for people to know that too is that like ICE is awful, right? We all know that ICE is awful, but some of the worst abuses have been at the hands of the border patrol people. And they should be back at the border where their job is and never in the interior of the country. Pod Save America is brought to you by Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings.

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They are wearing bright yellow vests so that people can distinguish them from, border patrol, which feels like it's like we're in some, you know, developing country civil conflict somewhere that we have now two, you know, two sets of armed agents, one of the state and one from the federal government. But, you know, the guard there handing out coffee and donuts and, you know, people are, there's a lot of vigils and everything on the ground, but love it. You've been there. So tell us, tell us what you've been seeing, who you've been talking to and how people have been reacting. Yeah. So, uh, we went to, the Whipple Federal Building, which is where most of the kind of federal operation has been run out of

where there's been a constant presence of protesters. That's also where you've seen some of the confrontations between protesters and law enforcement. And, you know, we talked to two guys from Minnesota, one who's been kind of out here protesting for a while. Another, it was his first time he'd ever been to a protest. Well, the option really to me is do this or do nothing, and I choose to do this. I was talking to my dad, and he said, you know, he's worried about me. He says, this isn't your fight. You got kids at home, but, I mean, the people who are getting abducted, they got kids at home. And really, I mean, I'm not going to go fight anybody. So my options are stay home, pretend it's not happening or come here and do what I can.

Jesus said to love your neighbor. You can't love your neighbor if you stay home. They ignore the issues going on. So you said, yeah, forgive them, Father. They know not what they do. I just want to show that not every Christian support what's going on. And it was actually like a like remarkable how many people we met, uh, who had like went back to their religious faith for why they were out there and their like revulsion at what they're seeing and the, especially from people who claim to be Christian and conservative. They, that like that was repellent to them, uh, including someone who had been a conservative, and been someone who was on the other side but was converted.

It kind of has moved to the left because kind of woke up to what was happening in the country. You know, there was a mix of people, some who'd been involved in organizing for most of their lives, some from like native communities that involved in organizations that are as old as the 60s. There were people that had been protesting since George Floyd, and then there were people that had never protested. tested before, but they all agreed that they'd never seen anything like this in the Twin Cities. They'd never seen anything like this. One thing I just, I thought was worth saying is, you know, you see polls from people saying ICE is making cities less safe, right? And those are polls of people that aren't there. I mean, for the most part. And so they're reacting to the chaos they're

seeing. And so that's a kind of aesthetic judgment. Like, this looks like it's not good, right? It's a good judgment. It's correct. But then you talk to people about what it's actually like and to people that are trying to kind of assist in the communities and they are seeing people afraid to call the police. They're seeing people afraid to go to the hospital, afraid to report domestic abuse, afraid to get warm in the cold. And that is a community that is less safe because of this chaos because of the presence of ice. I like I tried to talk to not on camera or anything some local law enforcement and they're obviously like skittish about the politics of this. dragged into this and they're trying, you just see, like, some Minnesota guys, like, they're,

they're from the local police and they're just trying to keep the peace, right? And I said, like, this can't be, like, making the community feel safer. I, like, I know you're sort of staying out of it. I'm not trying to put you on the spot on the politics, but, like, obviously, if you weren't out here, you'd be doing something else. And, and you watch him, like, struggle to answer that like, yeah, like, look, we've got to be out here because we're worried about what's going to happen with these protests. We're worried about counter-protests. We're trying to keep these people safe. We hope people still call 911. We're not immigration enforcement. And we're still answering those calls. But yeah, like, if we weren't here, we'd be somewhere else. You feel it.

You feel the way in which it's a small thing. But when you're at the Whipple building, there are all these protesters. And there's two kind of honks when people pass by. There are the locals that are saying, hey, I'm with you. And then there are the ice guys kind of laying on their horn. And when we were at the Alex Pready Memorial, there were some kind of anti-protester pro-Trump people kind of honking their horns and going by, which people were ignoring. But when like a fire truck would go by or a car they couldn't tell who was in it would go by, you see the protesters kind of looking in the window and saying, like, are you one of us? Like, are you from here or are you from ice? Like, are you with us? Or are you, like,

are you from this community or are you part of the outsiders? And you see like the, like, fire people in ambulances or like fire trucks or just passers by, just going like, like, like, waving. Like, like, I'm just letting you know that I'm here. Like, I'm not, I'm sorry. Like, I'm not part of this. Like, I'm from here. I'm part of your community. I'm not part of this force that's come from the outside. And like that, that to me is like the feeling that you get when you talk to people, which is like, and it's, you know, like, like, get out, like this idea of like get out of here. Like this feel like you are not, we don't want you here. That feeling. It's not just like a political statement. It is like a community statement of the pain they're feeling of like,

stop doing this to us. Like stop doing what you're doing to this city. Like we don't want this. Forget immigration enforcement. You are ripping this place apart and it doesn't need to be this way. Like, that's the feeling you get when you talk to people. I'm just, I'm so impressed with the community in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and also throughout Minnesota, it's just like how they've gone about protesting and organizing. I was talking to Lydia Paul Green about this, who's also from Minnesota for offline last week. And she said, yeah, it's like, I almost don't like calling it protesting because it really is, it's organizing. It's like helping your neighbor, being together. And we haven't even covered it, and we probably would have if

if Saturday hadn't happened. But, you know, on Friday, they held the day of truth and freedom, which is this like gigantic, it was like an economic, it was a one-day economic boycott strike plus protest. I think they had like, I heard Klobuchar say 50,000 people. And nothing happened. There was no violence. There's no, there's nothing on Friday. It was just peaceful protesting that many people.

That is, like, just statistically, that's like a really tough thing to pull off. It's also so cold. And then I can't, like, it was, like, it's not 30 degrees. It's zero or below zero. It is unbelievable. And then after, and then Saturday morning comes and, and, and, and Preddy's murdered. And I was texting with, Emily has a lot of family in Minneapolis. And I was texting with Emily's aunt.

I was checking on Saturday. And she said, there's, there were these vigils that they were holding. And she's like, we just came from one in our neighborhood. And it was like, 250 people. just and there's issues like everywhere in both cities you can just see all over Minneapolis all their suburbs you just these vigils everywhere and they're just like sort of spontaneous and she said that a friend had texted her like if there aren't riots in the Twin Cities tonight it's because of the vigils on every corner it's just like unbelievably

she said it's unbelievable how powerful they were in changing the energy and sure enough no riot Saturday night nothing Sunday you know like it's just for all that for all that the Trump administration has tried to make Minneapolis be. They have just refused to take the bait and the power of sort of nonviolent organizing peaceful protest and now sort of repelling Trump and Greg Bovino and the Border Patrol agents from this city because everyone there had the discipline and the love and the energy to be like, we're just going to sit here and we're going to be witness to this. We're not going to back down. We're not going to hide in our houses. But we're also not going to give them what they want is just unbelievably fucking impressive and inspiring.

Yeah, I saw, um, it's, uh, there was this, uh, uh, woman at Whipple. We went back. We went, you know, to a couple different places, but then sort of before we recorded this pod, we went back because there was more people at the federal building sort of in the afternoon. And there was this, uh, woman who had a jacket on that said, uh, grannies against ice. And, uh, we'll, we'll put in the sound here, but, uh, uh, You know, she's out there just as every, every, as every, as every, uh, uh, uh, uh, SUV comes in and out. She just yells that they all have tiny penises. That's what she wanted to do. That's, that's why they're wearing masks.

Show people to back your jacket. It's a granny against ice. What have you been shouting at the, at, uh, the passing, uh, ice cars when they're going into the Whipple facility there? Oh, just that they've got tiny little winkies. and small penises because I'm assuming that's why they hide their face. You think that's why they're hiding their face because of their small winkies? And is Winky that's a Minnesota term?

It's a granny term. And what should people who aren't here right now what are they missing about what's happening in the Twin Cities? Kindness. That's the main thing. I mean, look it, we've got people bringing food, people bringing coats,

people taking and grabbing, you know, helping the people that get released from detention and bringing them to their homes, giving them phones because they release them without coats. So just like a few minutes ago, we found out that in part because of all the backlash that we're seeing, Trump is going to remove Greg Bevino from Minneapolis in the Twin Cities. What do you think about that? I think that's good, but I don't think Tom Holman is going to be any better. Yeah. Tom Hunt, I mean, we've got work or cared for him.

We should. We've got, we got, we got money. I'm about to say, we got to get some Kava bags. Well, I don't have that. We just, I just had grocery bags. So, we've got some money there. It's play money, but, I mean. And she's like, it was just sort of goes to the conversation because it's like,

personnel changes, tone changes, like, talking to people like, what are they, what does success look like? What is, what is, it's this ending. It's these people being removed from the city. They don't care. who's running it from inside the building. They're not going to see that person. They're seeing the impacts. And one last thing, too, is just something we've talked about in a couple of previous pods.

Like, I was talking to people about, like, how much are they really feeling it? Like, how much of this is centered in a few areas versus something everybody in the community is feeling. And to a one, they felt connected to it, whether directly people at their work or friends who felt it. Like, it has been pervasive. And, like, it matters only because. like Minneapolis isn't like a special example.

It doesn't have a high degree of undocumented immigration. It's not a big city. Like if they can do this here, they will do this anywhere. There's no place they couldn't justify doing it if they can do it to, to Minneapolis and St. Paul and that community. I love it. Ryan said you were introducing yourself to voters as the Gen X, Nick Shirley. Is that true? Yeah, that's right.

Can we drop that audio in right here? I was actually saying I'm the, I'm the, I'm the, I'm, I'm the cowardly Will Sansal. That's how I, I'm like without, without the guts. Without the tear gas? Yeah. Amazing. All right.

Let's talk about what might happen next on Capitol Hill. Government funding deadline, January 30th, they have been, we're not going to go through all the details, but, you know, we've talked about this. They're passing department by department bills. Basically, Senate has to vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security. The vote's going to be this Thursday. And House already passed it. And now Senate Democrats have to decide what they're going to do, whether they're going to fund it or not, you know, whether they're going to pass the whole package of bills together where they're going to try to strip out the Department of Homeland Security Bill because they agree on all the other ones and maybe enforce changes in the Department of Homeland Security bill to ICE to immigration enforcement operations.

Basically now all the Senate Democrats or most of this, Chuck Schumer has said like they don't have the votes, meaning Republicans do not have the votes to pass this bill. So the Democrats are going to demand this. And what they are demanding as of Monday is for DHS funding to be separated out from the other bills. And so far at least, Republicans are like, no, we want to move forward to vote on all the bills and keep the debate focused on avoiding a shutdown partial or otherwise. And even if the Democrats do extract some concessions from the Republicans, the House is out this week. Because, you know, if they get concessions, then you have to pass it back through the House again. Anyway, but like, you know, even your Gene Shaheen's, your Jackie Rosins, the people who basically provided Republicans the votes to open the government up last time, this time you're saying like absolutely not. We're not going to vote for this unless there are real changes.

Schumer was on a call with the caucus Sunday. He apparently said the message is going to be restrain reform and restrict ICE. And then, you know, they're going to ask for some reforms. What do we know about the reforms they're asking for? Democrats are asking for and basically like can they achieve them? I don't know that that slogan sings, you know. I mean, look, the problem about the kind of conversation about our messaging is it inevitably devolves into this like intra-democratic party fight about the last time we talked about

abolishing ice in that slogan, whether it was good or bad and whatever happened to that, Sean McAwee guy. And like we just, I don't want to have that anymore. Like, I think I think there's short and long-term issues here or sort of priorities. Short term, I guess, as Schumer thinks that a reform message is more politically palatable and beneficial, maybe even thanks he can get some Republicans on board, although it sounds like no. Also, like Caitlin Dickerson had a great piece in the Atlantic about how the Trump administration is systematically dismantled all these inspector general offices and civil rights and civil liberties offices within parts of the government that are supposed to investigate these kinds of incidents and that we should, Democrats, should be fighting to fully staff and fund those again. longer term though like it's just clearly like ice is like a fundamentally broken organization it cannot be reformed there needs to be systemic change i think the thing that always bumps me on abolished ice is

that doesn't answer for me where cbp goes this the yeah you know what i mean and like cbp it's it's not part of ice they report to the to the sector of homeland security and ultimately i think like that is the bigger problem which is that dhs was a fucking stupid colossal mistake creating that dumb thing thank you joe leberman homework for listeners google department of homeland security org chart someday. You'll see like the Coast Guard and the Secret Service and then FEMA and then the thing about weapons of mass destruction. TSA. Like what is this? So I think like ultimately Democrats probably need to fight for a lot of this immigration, all these components to be pulled out of DHS and put into DOJ where at least there's oversight and accountability or something else. But in the short term,

I think whatever we can do to pressure the Republicans on this in Trump and this is probably helpful. Dan and I have been nerding out about this a little bit, but it's just like there's, You can put all your demands on the table, right, and see if there's enough Republicans to sort of make any kind of incremental changes that honestly are just not going to make a huge difference. The real problem is that ICE has a budget that is the size of the Israeli militaries right now. And that budget they have no matter what happens with the government funding fight because it was a statutory appropriation that they got from the big beautiful bill. And so like ICE is fine. They're going to do their thing. And there's nothing, you went on here,

there's nothing Democrats can do about it. What Democrats can do is we can shut down the government or partial shutdown. And you could shut down Department of Homeland Security. And then I imagine at that point, what the administration will do is say, well, ICE is still going to do their thing. And what we'll do is, yeah, we'll shut down TSA and then no one will be able to fly anywhere. And we'll shut down FEMA. And, you know, then they'll blame Democrats.

for, you know, emergency management not showing up or long airport delays. I don't want to shut down FEMA anyway. Right. Yeah. So, like, they'll do whatever. They'll be a stalemate. And then at some point, you know, I do think it's, and I said this last week, I think it's worth, like, making these demands. And if we're going through a shutdown, we go through a shutdown just to, like, call attention to the fact that this is fucking bullshit what they're doing. And if you can get them to make some reforms, that's good. I don't think anyone should think that if we just get a few reforms that Democrats are demanding, that that's because Democrats didn't demand more, because

the truth is no one's abolishing, reforming, or doing anything until a Democrat is president again. And then if a Democrat is president again, again, you know, my view there is fire literally every single fucking agent that Donald Trump hired for the agency. I think you could, you need immigration enforcement somewhere, but you're right. We have these border patrol cowboys who are out of fucking control. We have ICE is clearly out of fucking control. And so basically you need some kind of border security and some kind of immigration enforcement, but like everything that we're seeing now can go away like literally the day that a Democrat becomes president. And it won't go away until that. Yeah. And that's the truth. Like there's already been a bipartisan negotiation to have that has

some modest reforms, right? That is what they would be voting on. It's paltry. It's not nearly enough. But because the funding for ICE has already been put through, it is not like a normal shutdown in which the shutdown slows them down. Actually, like, these, these reforms applied on top of the funding would be more effective, not nearly effective enough, not nearly as far as we need to go, not resolving the problem, but would do more than a shutdown. That's just the truth. Now, I could. And we should say that what Democrats, at least 10 Senate Democrats have coalesced around this, they're demanding requiring warrants for arrests. I kind of thought the Constitution required that, but, you know, mandating that federal agents identify themselves and I think body cameras are probably part of that as well

and then mandating that you know dhs cooperate with state and local investigations into ice abuses violence shootings like they did with rene good and alex pretty again all things that should be law should be in the constitution should be you know maybe a court will decide anyway but that is what they're calling forward there's also house democrats there's about 15 house democrats and not just the progressive caucus either you know i saw like set moulton on this and Pat Ryan and a whole bunch of different people calling for an immediate stand down in interior enforcement until they can fucking fix this bullshit that's happening right now. You know, I don't see that going anywhere. I don't see the Trump administration ever agreeing

that, but good for them for doing it. And then, of course, there is the, and you're even seeing moderates like, you know, Nevada's Jackie Rosen, Senator Jackie Rosen calling for Nome to be impeached. And that's gaining steam as well. You know, my thought there too is like, great, get rid of Christyneome, but again, she, you know, but she basically just does and says what Stephen Miller tells her to do. Yeah, she's a bad job. She's a bad person. I'd love for her to get fired. I'd love for her to be impeached. Push for it

if you want. It doesn't solve any underlying problems. It doesn't cut their funding. It doesn't change anything. I'd like, you know, it's not going to make Trump. It's not going to change Trump's mind. Trump's could be like, oh, Democrats hate her. Okay, now I like her. Yeah, the, like, you know, the, there is this, like, credibility problem in sort of both directions

for Democrats and Senate Democrats, led by Schumer, which is people think they'll cave, including the Republicans, right? And so their demands carry a little bit less weight. And then on top of that, given the level of corruption in that department, abolish ICE has gone from being kind of a minority view to in some polls a majority view. And even if you question that, it's obviously gained a lot more mainstream acceptance as a, as a view. So then why aren't Democrats trying to abolish ICE? And obviously, we are not going to be positioned to do that for a long time, but there is another problem under there. Because like, okay, you want to get rid of ice. Like, what kind of immigration enforcement

do you believe in? What kind of immigration support? Not as a compromise with Republicans for comprehensive immigration reform. What do you believe interior immigration enforcement should look like? at whatever level. Maybe you think there shouldn't be much. Maybe you think there needs to be a more humane but version of it. I don't know what the answer is. But like I have no idea what anyone's position on that because we haven't had any kind of full-throated democratic kind of vision on immigration in a very long, long time. And so like the whole like I think this is like the credibility problem that Democrats in the Senate fall into over and over again, which is they want to signal that they understand what they need to fight, but they have their limited tools. And then

nobody knows what their deeper goal is. Like they understand that the tactics may be in the short term, which they don't trust. But in the long term, like, what is your, what are you trying to get to? Because we want to abolish ice and we have no idea what you're for. Yeah. Yeah. It is, and I think, you know, to their credit, I think they are angry like most of the country, want to do something and, you know, have limited, limited options available to them by being the minority. And I should say like, which is what they are. Like we had Mark Warner. I talked to Mark Warner. was on the YouTube and he was initially pretty opposed to stopping this bill to having a shutdown over DHS, but I think he's been moved by what he's been seeing. And I do think being reasonable and then

moved to the stronger position does make it more credible to Republicans as well. So there is that. Yeah. And again, it's like, you know, I was in the Senate and someone was like, well, what are you going to do? I'm like, I'm not going to vote for the bill with the government shutdown. Okay. Well, you're not going to get what you want. Well, I'm not voting to fund everything that we're seeing on television. So if the government shut down, then the government shut down. And if Donald Trump wants to do something, he can do something. Well, aren't you mad about the policy? Well, no, that's just, you know, like you could just have that position. Yeah. If you want. Now, everyone should realize that, you know, then it's in Donald Trump's lap and the Republicans lap. And we've all seen how that

goes. But there you go. All right. Two quick notes. You know, we've been pushing you guys to subscribe to Friends of the Pod. This is our subscription only service here at Crooked media. And by the way, if you subscribe, you're supporting independent progressive media, which is super important. And to return the favor, we're putting a lot more stuff behind the paywall this year. We just launched a couple weeks back, Open Tabs, which is our new Pod Save America newsletter. It is fantastic. And now this Thursday, we are launching Pod Save America Only Friends. It is a new biweekly show featuring a rotating cast of the three of us and other hosts of your favorite crooked shows. It is Pod Save America Only Friends. You can only get it.

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reported and it's a really fast read. You're going to love it. So pick it up. Pod Save America is brought to you by Bombas. Please keep asking about my 2026 resolutions. Sure, I've got the usual goals. Read more. Not going to do that. Hit the gym. Learn how to crochet. Also, not going to do that. But this year, there's a new one at the top of my list. Get comfy. Well, it's going to be hard for me to do that. But you know what? Bombas is going to help. They're bringing serious comfort to all my everyday go-tos. The all new Bamba sport socks are engineered with sport-specific comfort for running, golf, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, and all sport. For those every day around the house resolutions, Bombas also has you covered with the comfiest footwear imaginable. We have bomba socks in our house.

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Ben opens the piece writing that when he walked into the Oval quote, The President was standing next to a couple of doctors clutching pieces of paper labeled talking points. At one point, Caroline Levitt said that when we all see Trump dozing off during meetings, he's not sleeping. He's actively listening. He's engaged in active listening. That's what it is. And then there was this gem where Trump talked about his father, his own father.

And he said, quote, he had one problem. At a certain age, about 86, 87, he started getting, what do they call it? And then Terris writes, quote, Trump pointed to his forehead and then look to Caroline Levitt for the word that escaped him. And she said, Alzheimer's. And then Trump goes, like an Alzheimer's thing. Well, I don't have it. Any other favorite parts of this piece? It's quite extensive.

The other part of the Alzheimer's back and forth is Trump has asked if he thinks about his father's Alzheimer's much. And he says, no, I don't think about it at all. You know why? He said, because whatever it is, my attitude is whatever. And telling a reporter that you don't think about Alzheimer's at all because whatever is kind of a hilariously bad way of convincing someone you don't have Alzheimer's. Like, maybe you just forgot. There's also, I also love that he, he starts the interview by threatening to sue New York

magazine and says, there will be a time when you can write about my bad health, but it's not now. That might be in two or three years. At that time, quote, no one is going to care, I guess. It's like, buddy, you're still president in two or three years. If you have like declining health and potentially Alzheimer's in two or three years, it's actually a very big deal. The whole story is just fucking hilarious back, like the back and forth. But with, Ben Terrace who writes it brilliantly. So the mystery of the Trump MRI and why it was ordered remains. There's a very funny part in the story where Trump says having that MRI was the worst fucking thing I ever did. I blame them talking to the doctors. They wanted me to take it. And because I

took it, people want to say, oh, there must be something wrong. And then Trump turns to the doctors and says, can you explain why you ask me that? And then the doctor says, we asked him to do it because he had a scheduled trip at Walter Reed. While he was there, I asked him if we can complete some additional physical things that we were planning on doing annually. And he was like, okay, we'll work it in for the schedules. And it wasn't an MRI. It was a computerized tomography exam of his chest and abdomen. And for not any reason, Trump adds, what? No one ever, what are you talking about, guys? why did you why did you give him

some kind of an MRI like scan of his chest and abdomen and my ongoing belief or theory is that Trump doesn't want anyone

to know that this was about his prostate that is what I think this is that is my theory about this that he doesn't want anyone to say it was for prostate

and so they all have to talk around it and that is one but it was of his chest and abdomen you go all They, they, they, going all the way down.

You had a prostate exam? What? No, no, no, no. But I, yes, obviously, I know that there's two ways at it. Honestly, I sort of did a lot of prostate exams in my sort of my 20s. But the, but sort of like in a kind of, you know, sort of not a clinical setting. Administered or? Yeah.

Yeah. But, but. Got it. You have a theory. You're diagnosing. Anyway, I think he didn't want. I think that. that he doesn't want people to know that he was getting something looked at at his prostate.

That's what I think is going on. That's my ongoing theory. I think that Ben Tires is a brilliant reporter who got access to the White House for ostensibly a story about the president's health. And the story he ends up writing is really about just like aging dictator thinking about his death that is that is, because he realizes that he doesn't have that much longer. He says at one point when he was at Jimmy Carter's funeral, within 10 years, this is going to, going to be me, you know, according to one source in the story. And the coterie of sycophants around him who just like live to make sure that they are praising him publicly and curry favor with him so that like they are the chosen one. And Marco Rubio is some quotes that are, at one point,

Marco Rubio was asked about his health and he says to Ben Terrace, the guy is too healthy. He's too active. He's too. Marco Rubio thinks he's too healthy. He's too. He's too. Markerubio thinks he's too healthy. He's too healthy. The North Korea shit in the story is amazing. Like there's, so he, Ben Terrace has three different people, a few different people about Trump falling asleep in meetings. You read the, the active listening one from Caroline Levitt. Marko Rubio says it's a listening mechanism. That's his spin on it. And then Will Sharf, who's the goober who does the science secretary, staff secretary, is asked about this. And he says he's always awake, always alert, always knows what's going on. It's not dozing. Sometimes if he's thinking about something, and I made that mistake at first too, he had

stops a pose. So it's a listening pose when you close your eyes and not your head to your chest. What's funny about that, too, is like the piece does acknowledge that his hearing is getting worse. Yes. I will, I want to defend, I'm going to say this, I would like to defend Christy Noam. When she made that point about the hurricanes, she was joking. Oh, yeah. That was clearly a joke. I think people have tried to suggest that she was like, like kind of giving him credit on the end. I think there are enough people without a sense of humor that have not taken that as a joke that I've seen. Yeah, I think the problem is that you could imagine it being real. You know what I mean, given the tenor of the other comments. It's a lot about his legacy and what he's thinking. One

Republican operative with ties to the administration said he doesn't think of legacy in terms of policies enacted. It's buildings he can leave behind and prizes he can win. And then you get a direct quote from Eric Trump saying he's having more fun building this ballroom than I can possibly tell you. And it's like this is go do that i mean reading this on a day like today we were talking about everything else i'm like this is exactly what's going on in there exactly he's making money he's wants the prizes he's trying to like rent it he's talking to marco rubio about like pendants in a chandelier at the state department and he's like you don't have enough you don't have enough pendants there and then suddenly he's got 12 different samples for rubio to choose from because he's he's trying to be a fucking interior

decorator like this guy is the president of united states and all he can think about is what is immediately around him, what he has, the nice things around him, where he can put his name. This is it. Everyone's like, what's his psychology? Who's this? This is all there is. And the thing is like, he is so diminished. You know, you go look at the, like, the speeches he gave from 2016 to now.

He's a much like kind of his, his, he's much less able to find words. He's constantly searching for words he can't remember. he's slower. His sentences make even less sense than they did before. Like it all gets categorized into, oh, he's nuts, but he's really like aging in front of our eyes. And that's just something we do now with about, you know, 60% of American presidents. We just watch them age before our eyes and then later we get the reporting about how bad it was. And they all think that retirement is the same as death. And they all know somebody who retired and they died so that everyone clings. And that's clearly what happened with Biden. It's clearly what happened with Diane Feinstein, like countless senators. And Trump is

admits it in this piece too. It's an old father's line of this. Can I read you guys one hilarious quote? I thought this was so funny. So the context for this quote is Trump talking about how his parents lived well into their 90s. And he says to Ben Terrace, I had this friend whose mother died at 49 of a heart attack. His father died at 51 of a heart attack. He's now 60. I said, you're fucked. He watches everything he eats, but you can't beat genetics. Imagine saying that to your friend. Their parents died young and the guys tried to be healthy. He says, you're fucked? The other is how much he hates exercise. It says that recently after he'd been dealing with swelling in his lower legs and ankles owing to his circulatory condition, doctors recommended he walk more.

He asked his staff if there was anything else he could do instead. Besides walking? No, that's about the lowest lift you can wear it. We'll dangle you from your fucking ankles in the diplomat in the dip room. What are you talking about? Yeah, walk uphill for 15 minutes. It's also like, you know, your circulation problem from being so. perfect from having such perfect health.

And just in case you're wondering whether these doctors are on the level, the piece ends with, he point blank turns to one of the doctors and he's like, you were one of Obama's doctor too. Quick, who was healthier? Me or Obama. And like instantly the doctor's like, you. You, sir. Yeah, Donald Trump.

Not the guy 15 years. I love that. The 235 pounds 79 year old man. Yeah, and love it's your point. It's like he is old. He lives an unhealthy lifestyle. Like being president's a heart. hardest thing in the world. The hand thing is weird. The MRIs are really weird. If his staff was just

normal about it and they're like, yep, he's slowing down a bit, but like look at his schedule. He's worth of Davos, did like seven press conference today. I think that would kind of be the end of it. But they do this North Korea shit where the doctors have to say he's healthier than Obama. They got RFK Jr. in the story quoting Dr. Oz being like, I tested the hard way and this man's testosterone is off the charts. And it's like, what are we doing? He's a high tea guy. It's gross. And it's like, you know, like if they would just chill out, I think people wouldn't care as much. the same time, like, there's all these Democrats who want Trump's age to be the same as Biden's age, but they kind of forget that Trump isn't running again. So there's just not the same level of

interest in what comes next for him. Yeah. Trump isn't running in. And again, and again, Trump has always been about a hundred times crazier than Joe Biden. So that is a, that is a, I cannot conceive of what is going on in that White House presidential bathroom. When this guy is eating nothing but burnt red meat and diet coax. He does not exercise. God only knows what kinds of just like no one, if anyone in, if America could see the shits that this man is taking,

the question about him being. What, then what, then what? They'd all be like he's got to go. He's got to go. That would be it. That would be it. That's the articles of impeachment would finally move.

I think so. I think so. Just fucking white knucklet it in there. There's no fiber in this fucking diet. There's no fiber. I honestly think it might be one. Maybe not much is going on in there. I don't know that to say.

I think this might be one, like basically, whenever he goes on those all night, truth, social things, that's the shit of the week. That's the one time where he's just grabs the white marble he's had installed and unleashes what could, like from the bowels of hell, something God forsaken.

You ever seen the movie The Last Emperor? When like the, it's about the emperor of China and these like these aids, like examine smell like the new king's shits. Do you think that's what like Stephen Miller and those guys are up to? Apparently that's what Rubio and Vance are doing because the other thing is he has not decided which of them he wants to succeed him. And so he tells Vance, you're my guy and he tells Rubio you're my guy. Of course he does that. Your farts smell like flowers, sir. I think they smell more like perfume, sir. I think they're more like baked cookies, sir.

Meanwhile, while they're like praising him in these cabin meetings, he's asleep because he's like, they're fucking boring. He's practicing mindfulness. By the way, CNN's reporting that DHS suspended Greg Bovino's access to his social media accounts because he spent yesterday responding to people criticizing him. Wow. So maybe this guy's really getting slapped around a little bit. I can't believe the first administration official whose social media account has been suspended was Greg Bovino. Really hit him where it hurts. I guess.

Unbelievable. All right, that's our show for today. Love it. Stay safe and warm in Minneapolis. Come back soon. That is our show for today. And Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.

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