The Bulwark Podcast - Bill Kristol: The Murder of Alex Pretti

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

The Trump administration’s version of the Stasi murdered Alex Pretti in cold blood because he was exercising his First Amendment right to peacefully assemble and his Second Amendment right to carry a licensed firearm. But in MAGA land, those rights only apply to the people on their side, not all Americans. The few Republicans who are starting to feel queasy about menacing agents running around our cities should also recognize that they are complicit in the killings of Pretti and Renee Good because they funded them. As for the Dems, they should be considering maximalist demands—like ending the occupation of the Twin Cities—since the serial liars in the administration are acting like they’re above the law. Plus, Tim Cook and the other CEOs who helped fund the golden ballroom or showed up to the “Melania” screening Saturday night are also complicit.Bill Kristol joins Tim Miller.show notes Subscribe to "Bulwark Takes" for breaking news and weekend coverage Monday's "Morning Shots" For a limited time, save up to $300 on the Tovala smart oven when you order meals 6+ times, by visiting Tovala.com/BULWARK and using code BULWARK.

Hello and welcome to the Bullard podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday, so I'm here with editor at large, Bill Crystal. Obviously, we're going to spend the whole show today talking about the murder of Alex Preddy by agents of the state, ICE and CBP and Minnesota over the weekend. Usually have a little topic outline for us, Bill. We can have run through different issues. And today, I just have Bill Rants, Tim Rants, Bill Rants. So we're just going to take turns screaming into the ether in the hopes that. that resonates with somebody. Variety is overrated. You know, I think consistency of tone is very important in these shows. Since you and I have been, the last 48 hours, in a pretty angry, I'm genuinely angry and upset.

Wouldn't you say, I don't know that I've been as upset in the Trump years, really? Yeah, I don't know. I was pretty upset back around kind of Lafayette Square Time in the first term, but I've been rage tweeting. I've been fighting with everyone on the internet. I can't sleep. I was like rage posting instead of sleeping. over the weekend.

And I think I had my first cry of the Trump administration, too. I was going to have surprised that I didn't cry when he won. So I had my first cry. It's fucking terrible what they've done. And I do think it's important that the response is commensurate to the crime. And I think that is where my rage is emanating from. So I guess, obviously, over the weekend, folks haven't done this. You can make sure to sign up for the Bork takes feed because, you know, when stuff's

happening over the weekends or at night, we are doing live cover. So we talked about this a bunch, but that's the first show back since it happens. Just really quick, going through the facts, and then we can get to our rants. So this was Saturday morning, and Alex Preti, as a VA nurse, 37 years old, was videotaping ICE agents in South Minneapolis. We have a bunch of different angles of video at this point to see this, including in the lead-up. It was in the street kind of, it looks like maybe directing traffic or something, or it was unclear exactly what he's doing, but he'd move to the sidewalk and some ICBP agents approach

him and a woman. You can't really hear what the woman is saying, but they push the woman to the ground. He is still videotaping, Prattie, and gets in between the agent and the woman and tries to help her. And then he gets pushed to the ground. Piper sprayed right in the face at point-blank range. He's kneeling, and they drag him. And at this point, there are probably seven officers surrounding him, seven agents of the state surrounding him, masked, of course. And one of the ages you can see in the video disarms him. They see that he's carrying a concealed weapon. And they take his gun away from him.

And then someone shoots him in the back of the head. And then another guy starts shooting him from the front. And 10 shots are fired. He's shot 10 times and killed. Several of the ICE agents then flee the scene, basically. You see one of them cover himself in the mask more. another ice agent cheer it on, clapping, saying boo-hoo to the people watching. And then the ICE agents try to prevent local police from assessing the scene and doing what

police are supposed to do following a shooting. Local Minneapolis police refuse to leave the scene. But there's still a bunch of unanswered questions, including who killed them, where the video is from his phone, etc. So that's like the basic rundown of what happened. We can take it anywhere, Bill. Where do you want to start? Just one question. As I've seen contradictory things on this.

Do we know that they were ICE agents and not Border Patrol agents? It was CBP. Yeah, it was CBP. And some people said that, and I guess maybe I don't know what the right approach is. It's a fine. To me, it's kind of the same. They're both DHS. Totally.

It's within the Department of Homeland Security. They've been a de facto merged for these operations. I mean, they're doing the same thing. So ICE has become shorthand. But in this case, just to be precise, it was ICE agents that killed René good. and in this case it was border patrol agents that killed Prattie. And I guess the one other thing we should just say then is immediately after he's executed in the street, the administration immediately begins lying out of the gate.

Like before we even have any videos, they'd already leaked to Fox that he had a weapon. Fox posted a picture of his gun as if that absolved them of their murder. It was like the first thing I saw after seeing the video. So very fast, they send that to Fox. And then very fast CBP, Bovino and others from representing the administration talking about how Prattie was there to cause maximum damage, was there to massacre. Multiple people used in the administration used worded massacre was his plan before we'd seen all the angles just without even a second of waiting or pretense, like they immediately start

smearing the man that they had murdered. I think there was an email. They sent very quickly to outside friends, to who. were going to repeat all of us, that it was, as they put, an illegal alien they had murdered, which, of course, was a total fiction. And then it turns out the undocumented immigrant, they allegedly were even seeking on this particular operation. I can't remember anymore. It doesn't exist or is already in jail. It's one of these typical... Yeah, no, they had lied about him as well. And they lied about everything. It's so many lies.

They had said that this operation was to go after someone that the Department of Corrections was keeping from them and passing over to them and that he was a violent criminal. But then they said the person's name and the Department of Corrections. Shout out to the Minnesota Department of Corrections. This is where we are. They've had to create a rapid response page to respond to all of the lies coming from the federal government about what the local Bureau of Prisons is doing in Minnesota. But they put out a thing that said, the guy you're talking about was not in our custody,

and we looked at his record, and his only criminal record is traffic violations like 10 years ago. You did excellent immediate podcast on Saturday. I did something with Sam Sunday morning, and Adrian actually, Keroski, which was, I think, quite good. They were both excellent. And as someone said afterwards, you guys focused a lot in the lying, but, you know,

killing is worse than lying. And I take that point. But the lying is important. Well, for one thing, it so much goes to their motives and what they're doing. You can imagine things going terribly awry. It happens, obviously,

and with police forces and other circumstances, and someone shoots someone under some mistake and apprehension. Or maybe there's one bad apple, and he really does shoot someone. It takes pleasure in it. That's terrible, obviously. But you could imagine the department as a whole, the organization as a whole, reacting in a certain way,

that would mean that you didn't have to say that organization is utterly and totally rotten from the top down. On the other hand, if the organization goes into 100%, not even cover-up, cover-up would be much too mild a term, flat out lying, slandering this man who was killed who serves out to be very admirable and impressive, ICU nurse at a VA hospital. But even if we weren't, I mean, it just killed. in cold blood and the lying is just up and down the scale, so to speak. It does say a lot. So obviously, the killing is the most terrible thing. But the lying is so indicative. It's why it has to be just uprooted root and branch. This isn't the case of it's a police department that's got

some problems. It's got one subdivision that's got problems. It's got some bad apples. They don't really like disciplining their own people. So they kind of don't give them as tough of time as they should. We are so far beyond that with this rotten. I mean, it is something like something out of East Germany or earlier Germany. Yeah, on the killings being worse, Minnesota Police, this from David Beer has been doing good coverage of this. Minnesota police has not had to shoot anyone in a year. So like the idea that this is the kind of thing that happens, you know, that law enforcement's a tough job and that, you know, sometimes you get into these situations and the police have to defend themselves. Well, in Minneapolis,

police haven't had to discharge their weapon in a year. But in this year, we're now January 26th, there's been a single homicide committed by a resident of Minneapolis, two now, two homicides by the masked agents of the state that have come into the city. So like none of any of those other defenses you have laid out, the people have offered in the past of law enforcement, where it's a gray area where they've acted, you know, maybe used to excessive force they should have. Like that's not the case here. Like this is just a totally unnecessary and pointless invasion of the city based on the pretense that there was some Somali fraud in the daycares. And how that justifies just roaming through the cities randomly menacing people and racially targeting people and killing people.

To your point of it needing to be gotten rid of root and branch. I mean, the response to this, from my vantage point, like, needs to be get these fucking people out of Minneapolis immediately. Like, get them out of Minneapolis immediately. And I think that a lot of times there can be, you know, politicians are trying to decide, like, what's the art of the possible? What can we do here? Once they've killed two people, I don't really see any other potential. solution besides getting them out. I should say this morning before I get your response. Donald Trump has offered his solution this morning, which is that he sent in Tom Homan,

who I guess is the moderating force in this administration, even though he said tons of noxious shit on Fox about who he wants everybody to be deported, even if they're not violent criminals. And, you know, he allegedly took a bag of $50,000 in cash. But he's more moderate than Miller, Nome and Lewandowski, you know, who have bloodlust for the people of Minneapolis. But Trump has sent him into the city. I guess that's That's going to be his effort to try to calm down the handful of people in Republican world that are a little bit queasy about this. But that is nowhere near acceptable as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, totally agree.

I think it's a good point. It is an effort to calm down, as you say, the people in the Republican world who are a few more of them are a little more queasy than they have been. I can't say they're really standing up here. No, but until Holman rejects and repudiates the lies, corrects the lies, on the record, on camera of all of his colleagues, it's worthless. I mean, that he's just a nicer face for the same thing. They should get no credit for this kind of token, I don't know, what you call it. And here's the other thing that you say that what they have to do is repudiate the lies

and do so on the record and tell the truth about what happened. We're taping this in the morning. Maybe by the time this comes out this afternoon, we will know the answer to this question. But as mentioned, we don't know who the fuck killed him. We don't know who killed Alex Pretty. Like, we are living in a country right now where masked agents of the state, roam the streets, shoot people, kill them, American citizens, okay, then flee. And then they're protected by the government.

And according to the Bevino Press Conference, they've been reassigned to another state. So these guys are like somewhere else in the country doing who knows what. That is totally insane. Like when you talk about East Germany, in a free country, you don't get to anonymous assassinate citizens on the street. Okay? There has to be accountability. This is not about doxing or going out to the person.

There has to be accountability. These people should be indicted and charged by the local officials in Minnesota. And then they can defend themselves like anybody else could in a court of law because nobody is above the law. Like, we're not even close to that because at the time of this taping, we don't, we don't even know who fucking killed them. We think that it's multiple people that fired their weapons at home. We don't know.

We don't know the names of the other people around. We don't know the name of the guy who was clapping after they killed him. We live in allegedly a Democratic Republic where these people, these agents are representatives of us. They report to us, the people, not to Cory Lewandowski and his lover at DHS, right? They do not have the ability. They should not have the ability to be anonymous in the carrying out of their duties. they are representative, unfortunately, or sadly, of what Border Patrol and ICE have become, or at least what the leadership of Border Patrol and ICE wants them to be.

I think it's really, this is an obvious point, but maybe one that gets a little lost. Leadership, and I mean up to the President of the United States, but certainly including Christy Noem and Bovino and at home and for that matter. This is what they've been cheering for two months. This is what they've been encouraging for two months. This is what they've been praising for two months. Actually, yes, literally a murder. the murder of Renee Good.

But also the pepper spraying and the beat and the hitting and the tough guy, all the toughness, they're reveling in it. They're encouraging it. So you're some guy down in the ranks there. This is what my bosses want. So that's what I kind of mean by the organization is so rotten. You don't even know how to begin to fix it. Maybe you can't get rid of the whole organization tomorrow.

You should. But certainly get them out of the goddamn city, you know? Yeah. It's literally secret police. Get them the fuck out of the city. That's the answer here. Look at the vice president, for example. His response to the murder of a U.S. citizen was to do a long post lamenting how mean people

are being to ICE. And he tells a story that's probably fabricated because he's admitted to fabricating stories in the past about how ICE agents were eating lunch somewhere. And somebody called and told their friends that the ICE agents were eating lunch there and then a bunch of people showed up there and shouted them down and yelled at them and they were and blew their whistles in their face. That was J.D. Vance's response to the secret police killing somebody. The poor secret police, people are blowing the whistles too loudly and they're yelling at them

when they should have a peaceful lunch. That's the vice president. Same vice president who said that they should have immunity for their actions. So, yeah, it is not at all surprising that they feel like they can kill people in the streets without even being named, without any, you know, having any response. for their actions. So maybe it's that. I also would like to throw out onto the table that these guys also just have no

idea what they're doing and maybe just shit their pants. Okay. And that's what the grenade good situation looked like to me. The guy doesn't know what to do. He's got a weapon. He doesn't know what to do with it. She's pulling towards him for one second and like he starts firing on her. It kind of doesn't matter at some level, whether they're cowards or bloodthirsty.

But I think both options are important to throw on the table. All right, everybody. I've been too busy rage posting to be cooking, and so I'm grateful for our sponsor who's making that as easy as possible on me. This podcast is sponsored by Tovalla. Tovala is a smart meal delivery service, fresh meals, and a smart oven that does the cooking for you. Tovala makes it so easy. You just scan the meals QR code, pop it in the oven, and it cooks everything perfectly. Steams, bakes, broils, automatically, no guesswork needed.

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You can save up the $300 bucks on the Tovala smart oven when you order a meal six plus times but heading to tavala.com slash bulwark and use my code bulwark. That's up to 300 bucks off when you head to tavala.com and use promo code bulwark. One last time, that's T-O-V-A-L-A dot com. And make sure you use my promo code bulwark for up to 300 bucks off the Tavala smart oven. Remember, well, Chavala dinner is taken care of. Before we get to the Democrats, I want to talk with just one more thing about like the actual killing and what happened. Because no matter the situation, this would be outrageous, right?

like not really in my life like and i guess maybe you could go back to like the kind of the 90s stuff with root you know ruby ridge or you know waco or something you know and there's a ton of differences i was like trying to think about the last time that like the federal government like literally killed americans right and you know i guess you could account the drones of some of american citizens who were with the terrorists over there but like in this case like an American citizen not breaking the laws and the government killed him and then smeared him and is protecting his murderer. What he was actually doing was exercising the most basic fundamental American rights allegedly, right? Like Alex Preddy was exercising his First Amendment right

to assembly, speech, his videotaping agents, she's allowed to do. He's expressing a second amendment right to carry a weapon. He was doing so legally. He was permitted to do so. And the government's literal stated rationale for killing him is that they did not like the way he was exercising those two rights. And we have some audio on the second one, but do you have anything on either of that before we listen to these fucking morons? No, it's really a key point, though. Yeah, they're killing him because he's being a conscientious citizen who actually is trying to, in this case, monitor what agencies of the federal government that have already committed murder and many, many other crimes. crimes, I would say, are softs. He's trying to help out fellow citizens by monitoring them. And in the more particular moment of the murder, he's trying to help a woman who's been thrown to the ground. Yeah.

Who wasn't doing anything wrong. I guess he was filming. It was it. You've seen these videos in other cases, right? We focus on the murders for good reason. But again, this is to why they must be removed. Like, I've seen a bunch of videos now of these guys pushing women to the ground, right? And so they feel like they have total carte blanche to just rough up American citizens who they perceive to be annoying them in any way. I want to go, though, to the Second Amendment part of this because this has just been unbelievably revealing. As listeners at the show now, if there's anything I've lived out on more, it's guns over the past 20 years. you know, I have felt like the arguments being made by the pro second amendment side were bad faith for a long time now.

And one said argument is that the reason that we need to have this right to bear arms is if a tyrannical government cracks down on us. That's what's different in America, right? Like in America that we the people have the power to protect ourselves from a tyrannical government. Well, now that exact scenario is playing out. A tyrannical and lawless government is cracking down on American citizens. One of them decided to arm themselves. That's what the Trump administration has been saying to rationalize that killing. Let's listen.

And there's no evidence that he brandished the gun whatsoever. But he brought a gun. He was disarmed before he was. He brought a gun. Have you ever gone to a protest, Jonathan? I mean, 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. What? 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. That was soybean farmer, Scott Besant, talking about how he brought a billboard. I would like to see a picture, Scott Besant, Scott Billboard Besant, at a protest with a billboard, skeptical that that's even true. But it's Bessent saying that you don't bring a gun to a protest. And then you have Cash Patel, the FBI director, saying that it was illegal for Alex Pready to be carrying his weapon. It's just not true. He was a legally permitted carrier of a firearm. And so I think what they've revealed is that this is just all who whom, right? It's like we don't actually have a principled belief in the Second Amendment in any way. Like, we just think that our guys should be able to carry

guns if they want and show up to the Capitol and show up to the Michigan Capitol and menace people and we can carry guns. But if the bad guys are carrying guns, if the libs are carrying guns, we get to kill them. That's basically where they've landed. Just to be clear, it's a concealed carry state. He had a permit, apparently, and he had a concealed gun. He never brandished it. He didn't pull it. They seem to have found it when maybe on him, you know, holstered, if that's the right word, when they push him to the ground, took it out and threw it away. I mean, that's what's so appalling, obviously. And then they just merged it all together. What do you expect?

Someone comes to a protest and brandishing a gun or, you know, what do you expect these guys to do? But panic and shoot him as a fee, as if this was a standoff of someone waving a gun around. Utterly and 100% false. I agree. Scott Besson, he is really the worst. You should get on his case more.

He is disgusting. You haven't been giving him enough of a tough time. He is revolting. He is fucking disgusting. The only protest that he went to probably was at Yale when the Yale tries to do something decent. Like, I don't know, let in more minorities or Jews or treat women equally or something. And it probably got him all upset because, you know, he was attached to the old Yale. I mean, I don't know what the hell.

But he's such a phony and such, he's so creepy. And the way he thinks that's a clever point he's making against John and Carl. Bluh. I thought some mic drops. Like, oh, he deserved to die, Scott. He deserved to die for carrying the weapon. Like, that's what you are saying as the Treasury Secretary as a representative of the government. It's foolish.

And all these people, it just makes me so upset because, like, for what, 20 years now since Columbine, they have made this argument over and over again that, like, the mass murder of children and the schools is just something that we have to live with because in a free country, we should need to be able to carry our weapons to protect ourselves from the government, or that you need to have a good guy with a gun needs to be there in case a bad guy with a gun shows up so that he can protect people. It's like, this was a good guy with a gun. trying to protect people from a tyrannical government.

That's what Alex Freddie does. He should be the poster boy for them. And instead, they're smearing him and saying that he deserved it. I don't think going forward there is any reason if there ever was in the past to take any of their arguments about this seriously. Because they obviously don't care about the Second Amendment. It's power only. That's my fucking rant about that. Absolutely right.

But they don't care about any of the amendments or any of the civil rights. But this is one of the ones that conservatives like to Republicans. like to cite it's particularly dishonest or hypocritical. We should throw the fourth on there as well about unlawful search and seizure. I mean, they've basically said they can do that now, too. They can go into people's houses without a warrant. So they're just totally shitting on the first, second, and fourth amendments, and murdering people for exercising and defending those amendments.

Some group called the Minnesota gun owners did put out a statement, I think, condemning all this and saying this is not right. The federal government should not be saying that this guy can't have a gun in a legal way in Minnesota. I don't know where the national NRA has been and I don't know how big this Minnesota gun owners group is. So there should be an investigation. And there's been some lip service to it. But all those statements they come with,

oh, they also have to do. But oh, the liberals have been getting a little out of hand. Right. Okay. They need to calm down as well. They need to stop escalating. It's just like, no, no. If you believe in rights for people,

like those rights extend to people that you hate and that you don't like. That's what it means to live in a liberal, pluralistic society. They don't believe we should. love than one. I guess that is the point here. Like there is two gradients of people. There are people that are fully on board with the authoritarian project who only think that the Constitution is applicable to their supporters and friends. And then there's like a second level of people that are a little bit queasy about that, but like not queasy enough to do anything. They're just

kind of hoping that, you know, maybe cooler heads might prevail. And that's, you know, your Dave McCormick's Kevin Stitt, Oklahoma Governor. There have been a hand full of Republicans who have said things like, oh, we need an investigation. It was okay for him to be carrying a weapon. But like, none of them are attacking, are going after Trump. None of them are saying that the agents should be out of the streets. None of them are saying that they should be unmasked, right? Like, you know, there's a handful of people that are a little bit, which is good, better than nothing, that have gotten a little queasy, but nothing even close to matching the affront to the rights of the people of Minneapolis. Yeah, totally. They'll also,

journal editorial last night was, they seemed to put it most in terms of what it's turning Trump politically. They didn't seem to terribly, you know, to go on a great length about this man who was murdered or anything like that. But nonetheless, Trump should pause the operation in Minnesota, which I, you know, was good and is a little bit further than some other people have gone. Didn't not just let's have an investigation or were perturbed, you know, but, which I can just get to the Democrats, can I read a sentence from that fucking Wall Street Journal editorial? Because again, it's like, it had horrible, both scientists. No, go ahead.

You got to hand it. I'm with you. It's fine. It's better than nothing. I was sort of disgusting. Susan said, you know, that's even the journal. They seem to be coming around. And I mean, she just did the headline.

And I sort of read it. And I was like, you know, I guess. But oh, my God, I can't stand it. Go ahead. Here's the key sentence. Videos and event aren't always definitive. But this is how it looks to us. Preddy attempted foolishly to a sister woman who had been pepper sprayed by agents.

Multiple agents then tackled him. and he had a phone. Like, is that necessary? Was that necessary? The agents came up and pushed her to the ground. Then the agents pepper sprayed him in the face. So if anybody acted fucking foolishly, it was the people that escalated the situation to such a degree that a guy, a VA nurse, got shot 10 times in point blank. So, you know, I just, I want to be encouraged by the fact that the New York Post and Wall Street Journal and some of these other people are at least, least, you know, trying to get Trump to tamp it down. But my rage kind of overtakes that, that feeling.

Totally where you are. I mean, analytically, it might give a little bit of, you know, nudge to some Republicans. But even so, to nudge them to where, from, you know, from A to A minus, not to where they should be, which is about, you know, Z by this point. So, yeah, I'm not hugely encouraged by that. And they had some nonsense about how also, you know, everyone on both sides has been very irresponsible. It's like, oh, why aren't Walls and Fry telling Minneapolis citizens to stop, you know, recording ICE and to stop interfering with their operations? And it's like, what?

Why is that their job? The opposite. The opposite. Don't we need to, isn't the proof that we need to have some videos? We can't trust a word that the government says, that the federal government says. And the Minnesota cops can't be. They're busy desperately trying to stop violence and do their job and stop ICE from committing even more violence. I suppose.

Minneapolis citizens have been really admirable, I've got to say. Amazingly admirable. And so, again, but the journal can't say that, of course. So then at least they come out for a pause, whatever, in the Minneapolis operation, which now puts them to the left, so far as I can tell, of even most Senate Democrats who I don't think are calling right now. I mean, if the journal is saying that Trump should pause the operation, it would also logically follow that Congress could require Trump to pause the operation.

If they think it pause is a good thing, what do they care if Trump does? it, or if Congress says you got no funding for troops, ICE or Border Patrol troops in Minneapolis. But that doesn't seem to be part of the core demands yet that I can tell. Some people have said it, of course, some Democrats, but the stories about Chuck Schumer, I know you were following this pretty closely, so I defer to you. But I don't think the withdrawing the actual troops who have killed, as you say, you've committed two-thirds of the homicides in Minnesota so far in 2026, withdrawing those people.

And we're doing nothing. They're contributing nothing to the city. They're causing chaos and murder and, you know, assaults and businesses call it if you care about that. People can't go out, of course, to the restaurant. I mean, everything else, all they are is a terrible visitation on the city of Minneapolis that's dated, Minnesota. And I don't know, I just really hope Democrats see the light and think about it seriously for a minute. I mean, what is the case for these people being in Minneapolis? There's just no case for it.

None. So get them out. There was never a case. for it. There's never a case for it, right? From the beginning, it was, it was pretextual nonsense. Even if you took them at their word that they cared about this fraud. Yeah, send it auditors. Yeah, they're fucking auditors. What are wire masked people like pushing women on the street? The other reason why this just gets my goat the most is that I do, I do really still care. I do just really want to live in a free country. Like, the exercise of our rights as citizens is like the whole point of the country.

All right. And to have these fucking assholes saying that, oh, the Minnesota citizens shouldn't exercise those rights quite as vociferously. They should shut up. They should calm down a little bit. You know, we don't need these mouthy lesbians out on the street, you know, annoying our agents. And it's like, no, that is not how things work. How quickly they have flipped the don't tread on me, like, motto to like comply or die is their new motto. Comply with us or die. And that is such bullshit. It is not the obligation, actually, of Tim Walz and Jacob Fry to try to tell the citizens to not exercise their rights. The opposite, frankly. They should be encouraging them more. And I think Walls and Fry have done great. The DC guys, to your point, let's go back to Schumer. Here's what his plan is.

Restrain, reform, and restrict ICE is the new thing. Fine, whatever. I don't care. But do we need that? Get the ad wizard. in here for this sort of stuff. I just speak plainly. Then here is the plan.

One, Schumer says he has the votes to block the DHS funding bill. I hope so. Good. They need 60 votes to get it through. They're only 53 Republicans. Who knows, Federman probably votes for it. It's 54. And then you need six other ones.

Schumer says that there aren't enough Democrats to provide the votes to the DHS funding bill. It's good enough first step. They're going to ask for real investigations into the murders. Oh, wow. We're doing murder investigations now. Awesome. Maybe we can know who fucking killed him, including an end to impeding the state and local investigations. An end to masks and arrest quotas.

Three, they'll try to advance the other five spending bills, which are relatively bipartisan without DHS. All of this would require Senate Republicans to agree into the House to come back before Friday. Both seem unlikely, so we'll probably end up in a shutdown over it. We should end up in a shutdown over it. these are all fine steps. The response needs to be commensurate with the crime. And these guys, the Democrats, should be in Minnesota marching with people and they should have a stated beginning

negotiating position of, we'll just keep the government shut down until you get these fucking goons out of the city. That should be their stance. See what Republicans do. Maybe they end the filibuster over it. I don't know. maybe then they come to some deal where we get some more of a compromise solution. That's fine. But I don't know. If we have to listen to Trump, be congratulated for his maximalist position. If I'm going to seize Greenland, how about the Democrats start with the correct and maximalist position and then see what Republicans do?

It's not that maximalist position. There are actually many more maximalist things they could demand, which maybe they shouldn't say. Maybe it should get them off the streets of every city. I mean, what the hell are they doing? And let you know, if this paperwork they have to do back in the time, the office. If they have to go to a prison, this is really what ICE normally used to do, pick someone up whose term has ended and who's an undocumented immigrant and then bring him to the airport to deport him according to legal proceedings. That's okay, maybe they can do that.

They don't have to literally get rid of the whole agency. That's fine with me too, frankly. We've already compromised a little bit by making our demand to get out of the streets of Minneapolis. But it is, it fits the offense. So it makes a certain amount of sense. Yeah, sure. I just think that's a starting point. I don't see, I, I don't see any reason to do anything with the administration or to give them any power that they could take, you know, until at least that's the starting point. I have the Rokane list of things. Do you want me to go through that? Let me just say what thing.

Yeah. Before we get to Richard Rowe, it was good. I thought they need to make clear that the Republicans, if they do not go along, if they're not getting them off the streets of Minneapolis, they are complicit. The Republicans in the Congress, not just the administration. They need to hang this around their neck and they need to attack them. They never do that. of course, they're colleagues, and that would be inappropriate, and they're the Appropriations Committee together.

So they'll attack Trump and Christine Ome a little bit, you know, she's really bad. They won't say you, my Republican colleagues, sitting right next to me here, you are complicit. You're making this possible. If you deserted Trump, we could get to 60 votes and end this occupation of Minneapolis. It's rather small number, actually, Republicans. You funded the murder. You funded the murder.

You knew these guys were not going to be true. And now you're insisting on ongoing funding to keep this whole, occupation and assault going. So I think really making clear it's the republicans and Congress who were also complicit is important. Okay, that was my ranch on that. Correct. This was all predictable. We all said this was going to happen that when they put 50, whatever it was, you know, billions upon billions of dollars into ICE, the department funded more than any other with more money than the Israeli military. Like when they gave ICE all this money, everybody knew that ICE was going to try to staff up really quick and bring in a bunch of people who did not know how to do the job

that they were tasked. Like, we all saw this coming. Everybody warned about it. And the Republicans did it anyway, and they funded it. And two people are dead. The Republicans funded the murders. They knew that this was a risk. They put no constraints. Congress can do things. They can put constraints and rules on the funding packages, on the budget packages to make sure that the people that were sending into the streets of American cities are respecting everybody's rights. Republicans, Democrats, or otherwise, and they didn't do it. So you're exactly

right. They funded the murders. Here's Rokano's list of things. Vote no on DHS funding bill. Repeal the $75 billion in funding for ICE and qualified immunity for ICE agents. Investigate and prosecute every single ICE agent who broke the law, impeach Nome and Bondi,

end the Kavanaugh stops with racial profiling, and end the militarization of ICE, codify a use of force. standards so courts can enforce the law against rogue ICE agents, tear down and replace ice with an agency that has actual oversight. I don't see any issues with any of those. That's what I would do, too. Those are good. It's good. It's a much more serious as a matter of actual policy. It's a much more serious response to a real problem than Schumer's sort of, you know, to a few things that vaguely sound tidy bit restrictive. I mean, I'll take it if they're going to block the DHS funding. I mean,

seven appalling Democrats voted for the DHS funding bill in the House, including friend of the show, Marie Luzon Camp Perez, who has lost friend of the show status officially over that vote. I've got some more people I want to yell at. Does that sound good? Excellent. It's not just the Republicans that funded these murders. There's a bunch of donors and companies that are supporting Trump and enabling him and knew that this was going to be on the agenda.

I want to mention just for specific, the 37 donors, to Trump's ballroom? The inauguration donors were bad, okay? Because we all knew this is going to come. The ballroom donors, that happened after this had all started. So they knew exactly what they were doing. And they decided it was more important to suck up to Trump and give them the Trump Memorial Ballroom in D.C.

Then actually, I don't know, maybe support efforts to protect the rights of their own employees. It's going to read through them. Altria Group, Amazon, Apple, Booz Allen, Caterpillar, Coinbase, Comcast, Hard Rock, Google, HP, Lockheed Martin, Meta, Micron Technology, Microsoft, Next Era, Palantier, Ripple, Reynolds American, T-Mobile, Tether, Union Pacific, the Adelsons, the Glazers, they own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Harold Hamm, some other individuals, Kelly Leffler, the WinkleVos twins. All of those people are totally complicit in this. I've not heard from any of them. Maybe I'm missing it. If people see some, something of a CEO of one of these companies or one of Trump's big donors speaking out. I will gladly share it.

I went to Tim Cook's feed. You notice Apple was on there. Tim Cook went to a screening of the Melania movie on Saturday night after the murder. Tim Cook hung out with Trump and Melania, watched the movie, laughed, shared a rosé. I went to his feed. Here is his last post. Today we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy of. service and his commitment to justice and his belief that every one of us has the power to make a

difference. I guess Tim Cook doesn't think he has the power to make the difference, even though he's the CEO of one of the wealthiest, most cash-fussed companies in world history. I don't know. Color me not really impressed with posts about someone's commitment to justice who died 60 years ago when you can't speak out at all when your fellow Americans are being killed in the streets. It's not just that you're not speaking out. You're funding the people that are doing it and partying with them in D.C. I'm sure at the White House Saturday night that Tim Cook took his moment with the president to sort of ask him to really rethink some of those policies and maybe remove Stephen Miller and kind of stop being a horrible, nativist, racist, bigot and defender of violence and killing of our fellow Americans. So don't you think he did that?

I mean, it would be a little awkward probably. It wouldn't the mood of the rosé as the rosé was being passed. But, you know, I'm sure he courageously said, took the moment to 60 seconds to say the right thing. You asked for people to send in if they saw any public statements. I'd like even like a reported account of any private sentiment being expressed ever, ever in the last year by any of these people to Trump, not to do anything, except, of course, for terrorists. Because that could hurt their business. That's different. Yeah, they do mention tariffs.

I just pulled up a report about the Melania screening. There were 70 guests in the Eastern. And imagine fucking showing up to the White House after that murder. It's just, it is disgusting. It is despicable. Like, I was enraged all day. And imagine being like, you know what, I'm going to put on my suit and tie and go to the White House and sit here for this screening of an 104-minute documentary by Brett Ratner, actually,

who faced multiple sexual harassment allegations. But he's back in the good graces now. Other people who went there included Andy Jassy, Amazon, Eric. Juan, Zoom, and Lisa Sue, AMD. A military band played Melania's waltz. As guests entered, glove waiters served commemorative popcorn boxes. Each guest received a free-framed screening ticket. I would like to take a shit on one of those.

This is just truly enraging the idea that these guys did this and that they're funding it and supporting it and saying nothing. They need to be made to feel like the cost of this behavior. is worse than the cost of maddening Trump and having the tariffs tick up 5%. Because I think that it's probably worth playing chicken with him because Trump keeps stock going on the tariffs and he does actually care about the stock market going down.

He doesn't care about people dying. And so I think that people should be encouraging the CEOs of any of those companies. In any way you see fit? You're absolutely right. I'm sickening. January is when we recommit to the habits that support our health and well-being. And naturally, we start looking at what

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He was running for governor of Minnesota as a Republican. He's a lawyer. He was actually representing Jonathan Ross, which is an interesting choice. He took the case pro bono, but you couldn't take it anymore after the weekend. He said, I can't look my daughter's in the eye. And Sam running as a Republican. He dropped out of the race and said that what they're doing is they're targeting people based on their skin color. So it's possible.

It's possible for someone to do this. We get made fun of and said it's fantasy politics to say that, I don't know, should maybe Susan Collins switch parties or refuse to pass this? He's the head of the appropriation committee. Should she resign? It's possible for somebody to resign out of principle. Chris Mattel did it. He's the best we got right now. Some person in the Trump administration somewhere could resign.

You know, there are a lot of political appointees, a lot of who could just say enough is enough and walk away. I emailed Susie Wiles this weekend. This is the level of my age, rage. You and she go back to Jeb World or no? We go back to the John Huntsman campaign. The Hudson campaign. She was my boss. She was my boss in the John Huntsman campaign.

I emailed her when the administration started, but we haven't spoken since. And I emailed her telling her to, but like, I'm just, I. I'm unbelievably appalled and that the Susie I knew would be better than this. I know that does no good, but that's what I have. That's where my mental state is right now. That's good. That's good. You did that. If anybody has Scott Besson's email, please send that to me.

And I'll be happy to send him a few notes as well. I have a few thoughts for him. I have one more thing. And then I just, I want to end about Alex Pruddy. Because the murder has gotten so much attention, right? But the way that these guys are acting in the streets is just so far beyond what should be acceptable. I watched this video this morning of a guy. who's in his house, who's at his house on the stoop, I guess.

And a bunch of ICE agents are harassing somebody in the street. And he's shouting at them out into the street, right? Like, stop, what are you doing? Stop, stop, stop. And then agents come up to his house. And he's going, I'm on my property. You can't come here. This is my property.

I can yell at you on my property. And they don't. They run up. They tackle him. And they say you're being arrested. This guy got arrested just for shouting from his own front porch. You know, there was another video that I saw this morning. of these women, and it was unclear exactly what they were detained for.

They said they were helping school kids at a bus drop off when there were ICE agents around. But they get put in the back of the ICE detention car and one of the agents has a seizure. And one of the women that they detained helps him and helps resuscitate him. And then they handcuff her again and still take her to the Whipple building. These are not just some random isolated incidents. This is not about, oh, local authorities aren't complying by handing over violent criminals to administration. Like, throughout the city, they are just menacing regular people and feel like they have total carte blanche to do it. And to me, I just think that just circles back to our whole conversation about what the required response is to this.

And again, the extent which it goes to the top, when J.D. Vance said absolute immunity two or three weeks ago. And people said, no, no, that's not quite legally right. it's qualified immunity, which is very incidentally too qualified. It's too hard to get people, federal officers charged or convicted of real crimes. But there is no absolute immunity. But he said it. And the truth is there is absolute immunity. The truth is this federal government is never, ever, ever going to charge any DHS, ICE or Border Patrol agent with anything.

Unless they don't go after someone. And then they'll be charged with, I suppose, you know, failure to do that. They'll be fired, I suppose. But that is the definition of lawlessness. That is the definition of dictatorship and authoritarianism. The government forces are above the law. They could use the law to go after you with fake charges, of course, impeding law enforcement is some vague federal statute.

They always talk about that one. And then it turns out impeding is blowing a whistle or taking a photo or just being there, right? So they use the law when they want to. They could ignore the law when it suits them. That is not a free society. I want to talk about Alex Pruddy. So his parents found out a statement that I'm going to read. We are heartbroken, but also very angry.

Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he'll not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the hero term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Please get the truth out about our son. he was a good man. There's another thing.

I'll just read the post. He writes, RIP, Alex Preti. He was my dad's ICU nurse. He read my dad's final salute at the VA after he passed away. I never wanted to share this video, but his speech is very on point.

I want to play it. Today we remember that freedom is not free. You have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it. May we never forget and always remember our brothers and sisters who have served so that we may enjoy the gift of freedom.

So in this moment, we remember and give thanks for their dedication and selfless service to our nation in the cause of our freedom. In this solemn hour, we render our honor and our gratitude. He had his freedom snuffed out by the state, not in a foreign war or anywhere, but in the streets. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I quoted it this morning. We owe it to him, I think, to really. serious about stopping this and stopping the whole thing from the top down. I really feel that the morals, we talk a lot of politics on this show and all the time and the bulwark and everyone else

does too. And that's, of course, important and fine. You've got to have political ways to stop it. But the moral imperative to stop what's happening, I've never felt it more strongly. I think that today. Okay. We'll leave it there. Thank you, Bill. We'll be back tomorrow with another edition of the podcast. Obviously, thoughts are with Alex Pruddy and his family. And by tomorrow's show, I'll come back with some stuff that everybody can do from an action-oriented standpoint. I should have that today, but I'll have that for you all tomorrow. All right, we'll see you all that news. Sometimes my burden is more. It's not dark yet, but it's getting from there.

The Bollard podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Thank you.