The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3559 - Why You are a Domestic Terrorist; Historical Strike w/ Dania Munoz & Ken Klippenstein
Episode Date: January 14, 2026It's Hump Day on the Majority Report On today's program: We take a moment to compare and contrast the leadership styles of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Donald Trump. On day one of the largest nurses' ...strike in NYC history, Mayor Mamdani shows up to speak in support of the New York State Nurses Association. Meanwhile in Detroit, Donald Trump visits a Ford auto plant and, for a brief moment, is within shouting distance of plant workers. The workers take advantage of the opportunity to call him a pedophile protector, to which Trump responds with a "F** YOU!" and a raised middle finger. Dania Munoz, a Nurse Practitioner at Mount Sinai Main Hospital joins Sam to provide updates on the New York State Nurses Association strike. Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein joins Sam to discuss ICE and the leaked NSPM-7 memo that defines us all as "domestic terrorists". Check out Ken's Substack and support his important work. In the Fun Half: Kristin Welker presses Tom Homan over the FBI sting that allegedly caught him accepting a $50K bribe. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) addresses the National Press Club in DC over the future of the Democratic Party. Joe Rogan and Rand Paul spread lies and conspiracy theories about immigration. All that and more To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: DELETEME: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to joindeleteme.com/MAJORITY and use promo code MAJORITY at checkout. SUNSET LAKE: and use the code NEWFLOWER—all one word—to get 30% off their new crop of hemp flower and vape carts at SunsetLakeCBD.com Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com
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The Majority Report with Sam Cedar.
It is Wednesday.
January 14, 2026.
My name is Sam Cedar.
This is the five-time award-winning majority report.
We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA.
On the program today, Donnie Amunas, nurse practitioner of Mount Sinai, Maine hospital on the largest nurses strike in New York City history.
It's taking place now.
then Ken Klippenstein, independent journalist covering security in U.S. politics and publisher of the clip news on Substack on, well, array of things, not just the national security presidential memorandum 7, but also on reports that ICE is having a morale problem in addition to a fascism problem.
also on the program today
Washington Post
reporter's home raided
in an investigation into White House leaks
meanwhile as ice becomes
even more vicious
in its assault on Minnesota
now a total of six
federal prosecutors resign
because of the government's failure
to investigate
the killer of Renee Good
Meanwhile, in D.C., government shutdown six days away.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus says no votes for DHS funding without some strings.
Yet in the Senate, they quiver.
Whistleblower drops the largest ever ice leak in wake of the Renee Good killing.
Just a reminder to ICE agents, your names are out there and we will find them.
We will remember.
A vowed white supremacist returns to the Dallas immigration court.
Literally a guy caught writing stuff like Hitler was great.
White people rule immigrants are all dirty and should be kicked out.
All immigrants.
Trump regime shuts down the San Francisco Immigration Court, making it impossible to adjudicate over 120,000.
immigration cases. Some speculating this is a foreshadowing of a non-judicial deportation regime.
Initial ACA numbers are in. 1.4 million people have lost their health insurance.
White House renews its threat against Greenland.
Good news, New York Governor Kathy Hochel endorses legislation
to allow New Yorkers to sue ICE for civil rights violations.
And good news for China, China announces a record trade surplus.
Imagine that.
And Minneapolis unions and community groups call for a general strike on January 23rd in that state.
All this and more on today's majority report.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.
Thanks for joining us.
It is, as Amaviglin would say, if she wasn't off today, hump day.
But it's still, it is hump day regardless.
It feels like it should be Friday.
It feels like it should be Friday.
And it feels like it should be like close to Friday in late December of 2026.
Nevertheless, we hear, thanks for joining us.
Zane, I am a special update from this.
this morning's ice raids, they've added bashed up blockade cars to their convoys after
running them out of five locations, an ice agent in a crap box, busted up ACURA, tried to smash
me to keep me from following out a parking lot. Oh, interesting. This is just going to get
more and more aggressive. We've seen the rate in which this is increasing. We will talk about
this, obviously, more in the fun half. But you should know.
So, you know, one of the reasons why we're talking to a, I mean, it's regular practice around here on Wednesdays to be talking to union folk, labor folk, people are involved in organizing or striking or whatnot.
But the value of the New York, of the largest New York City nurses strike in history is not just in what's going to come out of it for the nurses.
but this is at a time when building community relationships,
between networking, regardless of what it's about,
is increasingly important.
If you live in a building, an apartment building,
get to know your neighbors.
Find a problem that exists and organize around that,
even if it's like, you know,
there's too much clanging on the pipes.
Even if it's something you don't think that you're going to be able to fix
because it's important that you know their names and they know your names.
And you have a sense of what's going on their lives and you have a, they have a sense of what's going on in your lives to some point.
Because down the road, we're watching this right now in Minnesota, the ability to react to what's going on there is a direct function in what kind of relationships people have in their neighborhoods, what kind of relationships people have in their community, etc.
So they're coming to a town near you.
And it really goes from like labor unions and DSA down to like running clubs that have been together.
Whatever like sort of social linkages you can make.
Now's the time to make.
Coffee clashes, book clubs, tenant organizing, any, you know, anything you can do to just increase your.
social network now is very important.
All right, let's compare and contrast, though, shall we?
The president of the United States, or no, I probably wish to start with this one.
As I said, we're going to be talking to a nurse practitioner of Mount Sinai, Maine
Hospital on strike.
Yesterday, the strike started.
No, I guess it was Monday, two days ago.
And there was no quibbling.
There was no debating.
There was no questioning.
What kind of support are they going to get from the political leadership in this city?
You did not have time to ask that question because it was already answered within the first hours of the strike.
Here is the new mayor of New York City putting on its soft shoes and out in front in this picket line.
How are we doing, everyone?
Every one of our city's darkest periods, nurses showed up to work.
Their value is not negotiable, and their worth is not up for debate.
We know that during 9-11, it was nurses that tended to the wounded.
We know that during the global pandemic, it was nurses that came into work even at the expense of their own health.
They showed up even when we didn't have protective equipment for them.
They showed up even as others were staying home.
Bottom line, they showed up.
The CEO of New York Presby, where we are today, made $26 million last year.
But for too many of the 15,000 Nizan nurses who are on strike, they are not able to make their ends meet.
They are not asking for a multi-million dollar salary.
What they are asking for is for their pensions to be safeguarded.
to be protected in their own workplace, to receive the pay and the health benefits that they deserve.
New Yorkers have a right to quality health care, as do the nurses who provide that care.
My job as mayor is to protect both of those rights.
There he is out on the streets.
And the footage after him walking, like, leaving the strike was nuts.
I mean, aside from the hundreds, if not thousands of nurses who are on these picket lines
screaming, you know, supportive things to him, people are getting out of their cars,
people rolling down their windows, like, you know, waving.
He's having to walk through the traffic because they can't, they can't, they're just going
to get, he's not going to be able to move three feet on the sidewalk because people are so
excited about this guy.
Yeah, people love me like that, too.
Well, that's an interesting point, Matt, that you bring up because Donald Trump also took a visit amongst the people the other day.
He visited a Ford plant.
Where was this?
In Detroit.
He's traveling.
I don't know if he's traveling around with Tony Dogeppel because Tony Dogeppel really wants to see all the, you know, they've committed to they're not going to just do the elites.
They're going to talk to real people, although he's talked to almost exclusively like, you know, Venezuelan leader.
It's almost exclusively everyone he's interviewed.
But I don't think Do Kapul was here.
Donald Trump was touring the plant and bless his heart.
He was willing to be within 30 or 40 feet of the unwashed, the, the, the, the, the,
the people who work in the plant.
And they were down in the,
what was it that they called it,
like we're in Shakespeare,
they would put them in the,
uh,
in the,
no,
the round is these,
but they're,
they're in the pit,
essentially,
you know,
the,
the wealthy patrons had seats,
but then everybody else has to sit in this like dirt pit.
Stand and look up at us.
Exactly.
And so everybody's there and he's walking across.
It's a very serene thing.
And then,
of course,
the problem is,
is that he's getting booed,
and heckled by the workers because they realize he's a douche.
And one of them had the audacity simply because he has done everything in his power as
President of the United States to protect the legacy of one of the most infamous child
predators and child sex traffickers, Jeffrey Epstein.
one of the workers had the audacity to call him a pedophile protector.
Accurate.
I had him killed.
What are you talking about?
I didn't protect him at all.
He's dead now.
It might even be an understatement for what Trump said.
I don't know if you can read lips.
But what Trump says to them, I think he's telling him to vacuum.
You can read hands.
If you can read hands and fingers, you might be able to get the message to.
Here it is.
help so just keep this up just so we can go into the slow-mo here so pedophile
protectory points to the guy so f you f you and then just in case you didn't get it
there's mr president there's tiny tiny fingers that is a small little middle finger that is a tiny
finger i mean i don't know i i don't have the longest fingers either so i wouldn't and there's
nothing to be made from that uh but
And Donald Trump, I don't know.
It feels a little defensive.
I think the whole populist pro-worker Republican Party might be done.
Really?
So much fun while they were here.
Shout out T.J. Sabula, 40-old auto workers, local 600 line worker,
who made that and said, as far as calling him out, definitely no regrets.
But there are go-fundemies for the guy,
because there's probably going to be some kind of retaliation.
Hopefully not, but yeah.
He's raised $317,000.
Wow.
I mean, I'm not surprised.
In a moment, we're going to be talking to Dania Munoz,
nurse practitioner at Mount Sinai, Maine Hospital.
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All right, folks, we're going to take quick break.
When we come back, we'll be talking to Daniel Munoz.
We are back, Sam Cedar on the majority report.
Emma Viglin is out today.
A pleasure to welcome to the program, Donia Munoz.
She's a nurse practitioner at Mount Sinai, Maine Hospital.
She's in a bus, which they're using both for, you know,
to people cycle in to keep warm and to make calls like this one as they start to talk to the press.
Donya, welcome to the program.
I got to tell you, just so there's no conflict of interest here.
I was born in that hospital, I believe.
It was quite some time ago, probably before, not certainly before you were a nurse, probably before you were born.
But nevertheless, thanks for joining us.
There are 14,000 New York State nurses on or part of the New York State Nursing Association on strike.
Give us the background.
Why is this strike happening?
Yeah, so the strike is happening because right now the hospitals are in a sense holding our health care hostage.
They're saying that everything, all of our economic demands would be tied to our health care.
They want to make cuts to the current health insurance that we have,
and that's something that we are not going to stand for.
These cuts would basically trickle down and affect 44,000 of our members,
not just the people who are negotiating right now,
but also people who would potentially be negotiating contracts later on in the next couple of years.
And other things that we're fighting for also workplace safety.
We want to make sure that there's weapons detections and also enough security in our entrances.
And we want behavioral health tech to be able to de-escalate when we have patients who can become combative.
There's a lot of workplace violence that happens.
Nurses are getting injured on the job in regards to getting kicked and punched by patients and sometimes family members.
So we want to be able to have people de-escalate these situations and not necessarily have security involved.
patient safety is also one of the essential things that we're asking for, and that would mean having enough nurses for the number of patients that we have.
Last time, we were able to win very strong language to hold management accountable.
We were able to hire a thousand plus nurses because of the things that we won in our last contract.
They're trying to take that language back as well and make it harder for us to hire and retain nurses.
Also, respect is one of the biggest things.
They terminated three of our nurses the night before the strike.
They've been basically trying to silence us for speaking up in regards to our union and the things that we're doing and what we're working towards.
So there's a lot of things that are happening and a lot of things that we're fighting for.
And give us a sense of like the hospitals and, you know, what kind of hospitals are we dealing with?
We deal with nonprofits.
And we should say, some people make a lot of money.
at these nonprofit hospitals.
But private hospitals, like, what is going on in the sort of the broader sort of like a hospital
landscape?
What kind of hospitals do your members work at?
So they are private hospitals, but they're also, I believe, I'm a mistake, a nonprofit
hospitals.
We're talking about, like, New York Presbyterian Hospital.
We're talking about Mount Sinai.
I mean, hospital, even once, if you're in the Bronx.
But from my understanding, New York Presbyterian,
and Mount Sinai are the ones that are really trying to make the cuts to our health care fund.
And that's what's basically going to trickle down and affect other members because they're on the board.
Like these people are like board members. These people are like board members and they're basically,
like I said, the ones responsible right now to kind of like negotiate our health care funds.
And because we're in negotiations, it's like different things happening all at once.
But because we're in negotiations for our contract, they're telling us that they won't be able to sign off on the health care rates for this the next three years because last time it cost them too much money and that's something that they're not willing to do again.
So like I said, the health insurance is a very big problem.
Like nurses need health care.
As we know last time with the COVID pandemic, a lot of nurses got sick.
They lost their lives.
So health care is one of those things that are non-negotiable for us.
How long have you guys been in negotiations?
Like, I mean, how long, like, why strike now?
So we've actually been in negotiations since October.
And honestly, a lot of these issues that we are presenting at the table are things that we have discussed prior to October in our monthly, like, labor management meetings where we talk to management.
We tell them the needs of the nurses.
And that's where we escalate issues.
So like the workplace violence thing are stuff that we've talked about for many, many years.
But in regards to negotiating this year, we started our negotiations in October.
Some tables started as early as August.
And it is not a surprise to Mount Sinai that we negotiate every three years.
The union has been here for many, many years, I believe, more than 40 years.
So this is just part of what we do.
It only has been in the last, well, since the last car.
that we did go on strike. And even prior to going on strike, we were trying to negotiate with management, telling them our demands. They kept calling them voluminous and preposterous and saying that we were asking for too many things. But we're still going to continue to advocate for our needs. The strike, we didn't want to have to strike, but they left us no choice. And even today, they have yet to reach out and say that they're willing to negotiate with us. We are well.
ready to talk to them, meet them at the table.
We haven't heard from them.
New York Presbyterian yesterday was supposed to meet with their nurses,
and they canceled on them last minute.
So these hospitals don't seem to want to have conversations with us
when we are ready to talk about it.
And it seems like they're, again, continuing to tie it back to health care,
saying it's too expensive,
and that unless we're willing to take cuts,
it seems like they don't want to even speak to us about anything else.
I mean, it sounds like almost like
they've goaded you guys into striking.
Honestly, that's really what it feels like.
We didn't learn about the health insurance cuts until, I believe, Saturday or Sunday of this past week.
And they didn't even tell us that, you know, the health care was going to be such an issue up until maybe like two weeks before our contracts expired.
And just to add, you know, more fuel to the fire, they were forcing us to train our replacement through these travel nurses.
The hospital's saying that they don't have enough money to pay us.
And then here they are hiring travel nurses that they're paying $8 to $10,000 a week.
And if we do the math and they're paying them $8,000 a week,
if they hire $1,500 nurses, that's $12 million in a week.
$12 million they can choose to invest in us, in our health care,
and in hiring more nurses to retain patients not just during a strike,
but also every single day when it matters.
Let's talk a little bit about this traveling nurses thing because this became a very big thing in the wake of COVID.
And, you know, we've talked to a lot of different nurses on strikes at various places around the country.
But this traveling nurses thing, it's basically like they are, they're scabs.
I mean, I don't know what else to say.
I mean, that's, it's just the description.
but they are used to break unions.
I mean, this feels like this is an attempt for these hospitals to really try and undermine the unions here,
as opposed to like we're negotiating stuff.
What, I mean, what's your sense of that?
And how successful have they been?
I mean, look, that's a lot of money.
And if I'm a traveling nurse, and this is what I've been doing, and, you know, I get to travel six to eight months out of the year or something to find work, you know, I may take that job, particularly in this economy.
Now, we should say health care is a burgeoning business because we're just an aging population.
But give me your sense of like how successful you think they've been in hiring these scabs and just what the union strategy is going forward to do.
deal with this?
I mean, I think you definitely hit it right on the head.
It is a way to union bust.
They've been union busting since the beginning.
Like I said, they have been trying to silence our nurses.
They've been giving people who have never had anything on their record final warnings.
They suspended one of our nurses early on while we started this campaign in negotiations.
And like I said, they terminated three of our nurses the night before the strike.
So it's just like any single time that we're.
trying to raise our voice and advocate.
They're pushing back.
When it comes to the travel nurses, we did send them a review for information.
So the union sent them a review for information when they were hiring the travel nurses.
Mind you, they hired a lot of them before we even dropped our strike notice, which is something
that should not be done.
They have 10 days to prepare once we drop our strike notice.
They were hiring travel nurses way before then.
We asked them for review information to see who are the nurses that were that were
they were hiring, what were their qualifications, what was their reasoning for being there?
Because we knew that it was probably in preparations for the strike, but they never admitted
that we did not receive any information back in regards to that. And then we sent them a cease
and desist to tell them that they needed to stop hiring these nurses, and also that we shouldn't
be the ones to train these nurses because these are our replacements. And obviously, if we're
training them, then it's going to be harder for us to come in afterwards.
And what does that mean in regards to our job security, right?
So we did all of these things, no response for management.
And I understand, you know, everyone needs a job.
You know, you see these contracts.
It's a lot of money.
But you're right, it definitely undermines the movement.
And the movement here is to make sure that we can have, you know, fair living, fair wages, health care, safety, all of these things.
And another thing I will say, even the governor and her executive order,
undermines the movement. It undermines the nurses. It undermines patients. Her putting out that
anybody could come here and basically practice and making this a crisis, it's not a crisis.
Who's responsible for this are the executives. The hospital executives making millions of dollars,
and Governor Hodgell is basically helping them by basically saying it's a state of emergency.
Anybody with a license can come. That's not just for nurses. That's for doctors.
It's for nurse practitioners, PAs.
And what we need is our government to back us and put pressure on the CEOs, the one percenters,
that basically have caused us working people to be here scrambling and taking what I keep telling people crumbs,
when what we deserve is so much more, you know.
And again, it's just undermining the cause.
And this is going to trickle down to everybody else.
If we don't have health care and we know the cuts are coming,
everybody else is going to be affected by this as well.
So wait a second.
So Hockel signed an executive order basically opening the floodgates to the scab workers.
I mean, again, you know, if it's a pejorative, it's only because of that's what they're doing.
You know, I don't mean it as a majority, but it's the best way to describe it.
When you're coming in, undermining union workers and undermining, you know, labor solidarity, you're a scab.
So Hockel is basically put up a sign open for business when it comes to people from around the country.
So do these are these different hospitals?
I mean, New York Presbyterian, the guys making $24 million a year as a CEO of a not-for-profit.
It seems profitable for him, I have to say.
but are these are these different hospitals and i know a mount sinai is also a a not-for-profit
and uh i think their their CEO makes a very uh humble six seven million dollars a year um
maybe we'll get to just sort of like just i don't you know new york presbyterian's
job can't be that much more difficult than the mount sinai hospital job
You know, so I don't know how there's a five times disparity on their pay, but it sort of puts a lie to the idea of like, well, CEO has to make 100, 200, 500 times more what a nurse makes because what they're doing is so great.
I mean, you wouldn't see that argument between those two CEOs.
But putting that aside for a moment, how do they negotiate?
Like, are they part of a New York City Hospital Association that's supposed to.
or are you negotiating with each different administration?
So each table is negotiating with their like HR and labor relations like committee,
the C&Os, which is like the nursing officers, like the chief nursing officers there.
And then there are lawyers that are hired by the hospitals from,
and then there's one specific like group in our table called the League of Voluntary Hospitals.
and it seems like they've been talking to other hospitals.
So at Mount Sinai, we have them.
And they're also unlike the trustees.
So it's just like it feels sometimes like a bit of a conflict of interest.
If these people are the same ones who are setting rates or who know about the rates that are being set for like our health plan and our pension and things like that.
But yes, the CEOs don't come to our tables.
I haven't seen my CEO at our table during negotiations.
We're NYP.
I don't think they've seen their CEOs.
We've actually marched to our CEO's office and tried to deliver our strike notice to our CEO.
He did not meet us or greet us.
So these people who are putting out all of this information, they've been sending emails to, you know, to our, to the people inside the building about what's happening with the nurses and the strike.
I don't know if they actually know what's actually happening because I haven't seen.
them at our tables, to be honest.
Give me a sense of like, well, so if I understand you correctly, you have people who are
sitting on these sort of like board of trustees that I guess are representing the hospital's
interests, broadly speaking.
There are also people who work in the business of setting the rates for the health care
that they are saying it's become too expensive.
So they have to cut back on it?
Exactly.
it doesn't make any sense.
And then again, they want to charge it.
It doesn't make any sense from your perspective.
But from their perspective, like, they're having their cake and eating it too.
And then literally then taking even more cake home and eating that as well.
Give me a sense of like putting aside from what they want it, they're looking to cut from you guys.
New York City, like the rest of the country, has gotten progressively more expensive.
particularly obviously rents. I mean, Mom Dani gets elected with the argument that New York City needs to be made more affordable.
How are nurses doing with just in general the cost of living lately? I'm just curious from, you know, from your perspective, how many years have you been nursing?
I've been a nurse since 2018, so what are the eight years?
You've been doing this for almost eight years now. Has it become, I mean, how, give us a sense of like,
the level of difficulty it is with the cost of living these days.
I mean, I think everyone knows inflation is such a problem.
Like, it just sometimes you go to the grocery store that the eggs are $8, the eggs are $3.
Like everyone is trying to deal with it and keep up with it.
And as you said yourself, rent is expensive.
All of these buildings being built in the city and they're affordable to some, but not to all.
It affects every single one of us.
And I mean, kind of like what you're saying, like if we're trying to make New York City more affordable, who are we making it more affordable for? And hopefully our mayor will be able to make a difference because things are expensive and everyone is struggling just to make ends meet. And nurses, too, what I will say is the nurses on strike right now are not getting a paycheck. We are here and we are outside. It is cold. We're not getting a paycheck. People are telling me, how long is it going to last? I have to pay my mortgage.
I'm here because this is important. I have to pay rent. There's people on the line who are pregnant, who have a lot of comorbidities. We don't have health insurance right now. The people on strike are out here because it matters and because they care. So we really need the hospitals to come to the table, negotiate with us in good faith, and meet our demands when it comes to health care. And they don't even want to sign off on their pensions. They have the rates for the pension for the next three years. They don't want to sign off.
on it. It seems like
they just don't want to
negotiate and again,
things are expensive. We're also being
affected by that as well.
Just give us a sense of what folks
can do to help support you.
We are encouraging people to come join us
on the picket line, but we're also
encouraging people to call
Governor Hocel, tell her to be on the right side of history
here, to her to put pressure
on the CEOs and the
hospital executives that tell them to give
us our health insurance. We want to go back in there and take care of our patients. The community
is supporting us. We have patients that stop by after their visits and they're like, we're with you
guys. The community is with us. We need our officials, our government officials to stand with us.
A lot of our senators stop by today, assemblymen and women are stopping by, but we know where
the pressure needs to be. It has to be in Albany. Governor Hojo needs to come down here.
She needs to make sure that these hospitals are doing right by her New Yorkers. And we are her
New Yorkers, not the top 1%.
And people should note, I mean,
this executive order
she's doing, I mean, clearly,
you know, this is the thing, is that
government
puts its finger on these scales
one way or another every
single time. There is no such thing as
a government that exists that doesn't
pick winners and losers.
And the question is,
who are they picking? And it feels
like right now, Hockel,
in the context of this fight, is
picking the hospital management, if she's opening the door for scab workers and, you know,
putting up decorations for them to come, essentially.
I mean, that's where she's landing.
So people should contact her email, call, whatnot, because this is, she's made a decision
on whose side she's going to be on in this instance.
Yes.
Where else can people get information?
is there websites where if people want to come down and support you guys as you're striking or
bring you a pizza or something like that where where should they go yeah that's so sweet people have
just been coming to the picket lines and just handing us food and handing us different things there's
different picket lines there's one at new york presbyterian hospital both the allen hospital
and their campus on the 168 street mont if you're in the bronx as well has different picket stations
Morningside in the West, which is our siblings on the west side, you can stop by there.
We're there from seven to five every single day, asking them to come to the table to negotiate fairly.
So you guys can stop by and support us in that manner.
Also, we do have our Nizna website, Nizna.org, where you can find information.
And they have been very present on social media.
So the Nizna Instagram and the Nizna Facebook page, you can see more about the movement and the things that we're doing and the progress that
making.
Great.
Is there a strike fund that people can donate to?
There is a strike fund.
Yes, we can get you that information after the show.
I don't have it with me right now.
But there's not a strike fund.
There is a hardship fund.
There's a hardship fund for people who right now, you know, can't afford to be on a strike lens,
but want to be.
But yes, we're taking donations.
So definitely we'll put you in touch with the people so that you guys can say that to everybody.
Okay, great.
And we will put those links on our podcast and YouTube description.
Donnie Aminos, thank you so much for your time today.
And good luck.
And stay warm.
Thank you so much, Sam.
Take care.
Goodbye.
Bye-bye.
All right, folks.
We're going to take quick break when we come back.
Ken Klippenstein.
And again, we will put those links.
So if you want to support these folks, I mean, even just walking down there and taking a couple of passes on a picket line,
I remember during the SAG strike, you know, the amount, after you've been out there for a couple of hours,
the amount of energy and joy you get from just somebody coming by and honking their horn a bunch of times is a lot more than one would think.
I mean, the reassurance, it's sort of like, you know, people you hear when that couple decided to stand up to ice with the delivery driver in their basement,
the whistles of their neighbors, I think, heartened them.
It gives courage.
And yeah, here's this New York State Nurses Association.
They got a bunch of links here, including this hardship fund here.
So we'll include this in the show notes.
And nurses are always on the sort of like the, I want to say sort of the front, they're the tip of the spear a lot of times when it comes to like union activity.
Nurses, teachers, just from my experience are.
And part of that is because they have a direct relationship with the public in that they serve the public, right?
Like, you know, teachers have relationships with their kids and with their kids' parents.
And nurses have relationships with their patients and their patients' families.
And so they're very, very connected to the community.
And so get out there, support them in the way you can.
Hockel's office in New York State. We'll put a phone number and an email address and just say,
like, stop siding with hospital management in us. Reminder that she works for Zoran now.
May not want to phrase it that way, but maybe someone else can take another pass.
Exactly. We'll let Matt do that on Twitter. We're going to take quick break when we come back in
Klippenstein independent journalist, publisher of the clip news, of clip news, I should say,
on Substack with a bunch of different stories.
He just published a piece about 21 secret ice programs revealed.
We'll talk to him about that.
We'll be right back.
We are back, Sam Cedar.
On the majority report, Emma Viglin is out today.
It is a pleasure to welcome back to the program.
Ken Klippenstein, who has been doing just amazing work over at Klippeltenstein.
clip news, his substack, in uncovering the, I guess the programmatic, the programmatic machinations
of rolling out this fascism in this country.
I mean, I don't know how else I articulate it.
Like, we see on the ground these jackbooted thugs, but in the, you know, between there
and the administration, there is, it is backfilled with.
you know, would be laws.
And this is the, this is the sort of the, you know, the scary shit when fascism comes to town,
what they do is try and make everything fit within a, you know, so-called legal framework.
And that's what they've been doing.
And nobody's been reporting on it better than you, Klan, Ken, I should say.
And I really appreciate you coming on to talk about it.
As far as I know, you were the first person to report on this NSP.
PM 7, the National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, right?
Or at the very least, I know you've got an early copy of it.
I can't remember now because it was more than 35 minutes ago,
and I don't remember anything prior to that.
Yeah, that's right.
The initial reporting on it was kind of interesting.
So many outlets just got it wrong because they confused it with the presidential
designation of Antifa as a terrorist group,
and it kind of shows you how much they're able to hide in this bureaucratic morass of
national security because it's so complicated that even the people, the practitioners don't often
understand the full extent of what's going on. And now is that like, why do they do that? Like is that by
design? Is it so that they can internally say, look, here's the memorandum. What you guys are doing
is legal? I mean, is that what's going on here? Yeah. So in the case of the Trump directive,
another reason that I don't think it was taken very seriously outside of shows like yours, which have been
fantastic about having me on and people seem engaged and seem to care about it, which is part of
my puzzlement at Congress not making more of an issue of it, because everyone you tell,
anyone I tell, I'll just quote a few parts from it. It defines terrorism along what are called
indicators or indicators that the document, which is you can go on my newsletter and read it.
It's right there. I'm not making this up. I'm not editorializing here, although it's going to
sound like I am. It identifies indicators of terrorism as being anti-Christian sentiment, anti-American
sentiment, anti-capitalist sentiment, anti-quot, traditional family values, whatever that means. So this casts a
very wide net and it's not symbolic. I think another part is that Trump says so many crazy things.
I can empathize with media's frustration with knowing when to take it seriously or not.
But I think what was missing here was that context realized that NSPM 7 stands for national security
presidential memorandum 7. Presidential Memorandum is very serious. There's only seven of them.
That's what the 7 refers to. Six is classified. They're usually classified. When Carter had his own
memorandum in the 1970s, changing the nuclear posture of the U.S. vis-à-vis Russia, this created a huge
backlash, and there were protests, because it was understood that that is a high-level strategy
articulation to all of the federal government that, hey, guys, this is our new priority set for
the next four years. So it wasn't rhetoric. This was like a reorganization of the national
security state around terrorism as defined by those indicators I was just describing.
And we should also say that I don't know that we have had a more compliant executive branch.
And by that I mean, in terms of like these agencies, I don't know that we've ever had the amount of turnover and the amount of political appointees in these agencies.
So to the extent that this memorandum would have the force of law or a force of regulation,
it's a directive to an incredibly compliant national security state at this point.
Yeah, it can't be stressed enough how different this Trump administration is in regards to national security.
That's what I focus on in my newsletter.
In the first term, you know, there are certain through lines between each term.
but Tulsi Gabbard is Director of National Intelligence.
He tried to get Gates and didn't quite pull that off.
Got Bondi,
who's probably the most pliant Attorney General in U.S. history,
and that's an extraordinarily powerful position.
You have Cash Patel, you have Pete Hegstaff.
So those guardrails in the form of people familiar with the institutions
that have some kind of self-definition of themselves as like,
I'm someone who cares about the Defense Department is in his.
institution, that doesn't really exist anymore. So I think that point is well taken.
When we hear reports, and we've had six members of the DOJ Civil Rights Division, quit in the
past like three or four days because of the failure of investigating Jonathan Ross, the,
I believe it's Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who was responsible for shooting,
and killing Renee Good.
They have resigned because of the failure to investigate that.
However, we're also hearing that the FBI is investigating both Renee Good and her partner.
I don't know if she was officially married to this woman, but when we talk about investigation of people
who hold anti-traditional family values, I mean, I know what traditional family values means
because, you know, 20 years ago, this was the debate that, you know, brought George W. Bush to make a primetime appeal to the American public as to why we should change the Constitution to outlaw marriage equality.
And this is, that me, I mean, when they say anti-traditional family values, they're talking about gay people who are married or coupled.
and I imagine also, you know, trans people or any type of setup that isn't man, woman, boy, girl, and picket fence.
And so this is grounds for them to find that Renee Good and her partner were essentially domestic terrorists.
Well, NSPM's fingerprints are all over this.
because if you go, and again, the document is public, you can read it.
They describe anti-ice sentiment and threats to ICE as terrorism.
And there was a follow-on directive from Attorney General Pam Bondi,
which explicitly mentions the details that describe the incident perfectly.
It talks about threats to ICE agent as including, quote,
impeding or interfering with ICE operations,
which to be clear is illegal,
but they've cast it now as some kind of domestic terrorist,
threat to the officers, which if you watch the video, you can say that, you know, her car being
parked was blocking things, but there's just no evidence. I mean, I don't see how anyone can watch
that and say that there was some kind of violent intent there. I just don't know what to say about
that. But anyways, that is explicitly mentioned in the Pam Bondi follow-on directive that was in
response to NSPM 7. So what that means is the whole of federal law enforcement and the
intelligence community has been tasked with finding examples of that, and it's created a psychological
environment where they see that as terrorism. They see it as aggressive. That's been one of the
most alarming parts about reporting on this is realizing how much these guys really believe that stuff.
And it might sound like rhetoric to us, and we can laugh it off. But, you know, a person's
information diet is, first of all, like the federal bureaucracy you're working in there and then maybe
you have conservative media, you're going to be bombarded with these stories about these, you know,
hordes that are coming to kill you or whatever. And some number of
of people do believe that within the agency. So anyways, I think that also gives context into why
they're trying to find evidence of terrorism associates of goods, because another part of NSPM 7
is mapping out the structures, finding the, quote, funding. I interviewed one person that had gone
to an anti-ice protest in Arizona, and he described to me getting, he had video of this on the ring
camera. I published the video, you can watch it, two FBI agents visiting him, and asking him,
one of the questions he described to me was, what can you tell us about the
funding of this operation. And he's like, funding of the operate, what do you mean? They say,
you know, the protest. And he said, as they kind of went back and forth, that he realized,
they really believe this stuff. Like, he tried to tell him, he's like, it was spontaneous.
Like, we just see deportations. People were upset. I saw it on Instagram. I just went out there.
They're like, yeah, but who's running it? They really believe. There are elements within the,
the FBI and federal government that think that there's going to be some shadowy cabal that they're
going to go and find. And so I think that's what's happening in the, in the background here.
Yeah, I think it's very easy for people to underestimate the depth in which I just remember, I mean, back in 2004, I remember talking to a, he was maybe a sergeant at that point.
I think we had him on the show.
He had written a book, and we had him on for the book.
And then we started talking to him in the way in the run up to the RNC.
and this guy was seemingly normal in many different ways,
but was absolutely convinced that the,
that there was like all sorts of,
that the hordes were going to come descend on the,
I mean, they were geared up,
and that's part of what is done.
Like they are stoked and stoked and dipped in these sort of like conspiracies,
but we should also say this both has the impact of,
of creating a mentality amongst these feds.
And it also provides a legal framework for them,
or at least an instructive framework in which the way they should behave,
and some semblance, at least in the leadership,
that they have justification for what they're doing.
Let's talk about the, I mean,
you've written a bunch of different stories.
I'd like to hear.
There's so much here to cover, unfortunately.
It is insane.
You had two pieces, really, I guess now three that we should talk about, and maybe we could talk about them in unison.
You just had a piece that came out exclusive on secret ICE programs that you've revealed.
Let's get to those in a moment.
But you wrote a piece a couple of days ago that ICE is okay with Renee Goods killing, but simultaneously, immigration agents are terrified.
of the ice backlash after the shooting.
Talk about that paradox and what's going on.
I mean, we can see in their behavior since you wrote the first piece on the ninth
that their answer has been doubled down.
Totally.
Yeah, so there's a huge disjunct between their public bravado within hours of Renee Goods killing.
Homeland Secretary, Christy Noeem, basically dressed.
dragging this poor woman's corpse through the mud and saying she's a terrorist. Imagine getting killed in an addition. I mean, you know, some number of people are going to think whatever they're going to think about the video. But to take, okay, you can say, you know, maybe this woman should have out of a car, did the, what was the psychological state of the cop? What, you know, were the reasons he was afraid? You can have a debate about that. But to say she was going to kill him and she was a terrorist within like two hours of the thing, not only struck me as absurd, as I talked to people in the Department of Homeland Security,
a lot of them thought that as well.
They can't say so publicly for the same reason that anyone
in a job isn't going to want to go out and criticize their employer.
I don't want to overstate things and give you the impression that
the majority of ICE agents think that.
That's not true.
But there's a sizable minority within the Immigration Services Border Patrol ICE
that do think that, including in senior ranks,
because they look at this and they think it's not good for a number of reasons.
One, just basic moral reason that a lot of people had revulsion watching it.
But another one is the effect that it's going to have on the agency that's destroying any reputation federal law enforcement might have had, not just ICE, but federal law enforcement generally, as was described with me by people in the FBI recently. You mentioned at the top of this segment, Justice Department people resigning over it.
That's exactly the stuff that they're worried about, just from a purely cynical self-serving point of view, that it's going to destroy the public faith in these institutions that has been very carefully put together.
over the last, you know, 50 years or so since Watergate and all that. But, but yeah, talking to
folks, I was surprised because I've, you know, I've been covering national security for about 10 years now.
And so I know people at these different agencies. And when I posted them, I was kind of thinking,
all right, time to get an earful about why I'm wrong about this or whatever. And that wasn't what
my experience was. I wouldn't say their views are the same as mine or that they're lefties by any
means. But it was a lot closer to my point of view on this and a lot farther from the
administrations. So I think part of what we're seeing when the administration gets out there and you
have Vice President J.D. Vance saying it was terrorism. President Trump says she was going to kill him,
the Homeland Secretary. It's like they're creating this unified front that doesn't actually reflect what
the attitudes are behind the scenes and in the bureaucracy. We've got a lot of footage. I mean,
yesterday we dedicated a significant portion of the show to just, you know, playing clips from out of
of Minnesota and they were horrific.
And since within the past 24 hours, we have clips now of, this came out of California.
I guess it was a week or two ago maybe a guy getting shot in the eye with a pepper ball.
We have clips of a woman being headed to the doctors just being yanked out of her car and
slammed onto the ground.
They're clearly doubling down on this and they're getting more.
aggressive. When you talk to your sources, I get that there, you know, there's some, there's a
cohort that is worried like the optics of this a bad, the PR associated with this is bad.
But do any of them have a fear that we are seeing the precursor to something that is worse and more
expansive. I mean, when I look at this stuff, I'm starting to see them, you know, widen the scope
of what they think their authority is and basically blow through the guardrails and the structures
that are placed around different law enforcement agencies, right? I mean, different agencies have
jurisdictions, different agencies have different. And as more and more,
resources go into ice and they become more and more fanatical, it feels like they're becoming
more and more expansive to the point where, you know, uh, hypothetically, we're 16 months away
from them banging down your door saying like, you, you're not sure, you shouldn't be doing this,
uh, you know, interview type of thing. I mean, that may be, that may be, uh, hyperbole.
It, but it may not be like, it feels like we're headed to in a certain trajectory. Do they have a,
Do any of your sources have that sort of like concern, or is it more just like, these guys are, you know, these guys are jokers and they're screwing things up for us?
Do they have concerns about where this is leading?
I would say that their concerns are probably a little bit more subtle just because institutionally, DHS was created in response to 9-11.
ICE is younger than I am.
Homeland Security is younger than I am.
It was created, yeah, it was creating like 2003, I think, replaced INS, which.
used to be under the Justice Department.
So what was once a question of criminal or civil law under the Justice Department
became elevated to a national security question.
And so to your point, I think it's an important point because that's kind of what is in ICE's
DNA, which is to be a national security entity and to treat immigration as a national
security threat.
So I think you're right to raise those concerns because they certainly have the power to do
a lot of that stuff.
When people look at ICE, they think of what's called enforcement,
on removal operations, the guys that literally go and grab someone and arrest them.
But that's actually a minority of what ICE is.
Or that's actually just one part of what ICE is.
They have another wing called Homeland Security Investigations.
And those guys, they've been tapped to since before any of this, they were investigating
protesters in Colombia for Hamas ties.
They're basically an internal FBI within Homeland Security that operates under ICE.
You guys might have seen yesterday there was this absurd story.
it's going to sound like I'm making this up,
but I encourage you to go.
It's in CNN, you can go read it,
about how HSI,
the ICE component I was talking about,
purchase something that they thought
was a Havana syndrome like gun,
and they spent like 10, at least 10,
it was eight figure sum,
at least $10 million on it.
That was ICE, Homeland Security,
but nobody knows that
because people don't know what Homeland Security investigations.
Like, if you look at their badge,
it says ICE.
H-I on some of these jackets occasionally, and they're ICE.
Yeah, exactly.
And they, and this is an army basically of thousands and thousands of these federal agents that,
they've certainly had a shot in the arms since Trump when they've had their,
ICE has had its law enforcement budget tripled.
But even before that, the Department of Homeland Security's badge carrying, you know,
gun-carrying officers actually outnumber the FBI.
It's a larger police force than the FBI.
People don't know this.
not just ICE, but, you know, federal protective services.
You know, they have all kinds of different things.
So it's kind of like this national security colossus has sort of been growing to this point
where previous presidents didn't push it as far as it could go, but Trump is more than willing to.
And he's taking full advantage of what they can do.
Let's, I want to just stop for a moment and just sort of like ruminate on this.
So the people fully understand when it goes from INS, under the,
DOJ, it is part of law enforcement. It's under a law enforcement structure where they have very clear
lines of delineation of what they can do. They have, you know, it's all within sort of an infrastructure
that we deal with on a daily basis, you know, even with local cops. They, you know, they may have
a different geographical jurisdiction, but they're within the context of the chief law enforcement
agency of the country, which is the DOJ.
When it moves into this DHS, and DHS is created in the wake of 9-11, and it was very
controversial at the time, but Democrats were, if you think they capitulate now, that time
was rather despairing.
But they're in this sort of netherworld when they become national security, right?
Because there's no, there isn't the same.
infrastructure to deal with a national security police force.
Yeah, in some ways what Trump is doing, I have to look at it.
And I think there's a response that this has to be illegal.
This hasn't happened before.
And unfortunately, I don't think the law is going to provide much solace because, again,
this is kind of what Homeland Security was designed to do.
It was designed to be a counterterrorism entity by the Bush administration.
And thankfully, those powers were pushed as far as they could have been, but that doesn't
mean that they can't be.
because again, that's what it's for.
And it's just, you know, it's interesting.
I was talking to an ICE agent once years ago.
And he was describing to me how he,
I think he used to work for INS before that,
and then he moved to HSI with Homeland Security Investigations,
the ICE component.
And he was upset.
And I asked him, you know, why are you upset that you got moved to ice?
He goes, because now we work with the guys that are hated
and seen as these deportation guys.
Like, no one wants to talk to us.
We can't, like, people are afraid of us.
I'd much rather go back to how it was before.
And I asked him, I said, how common is that view?
He said, we made a big fight about the badges, just said ice on it.
We didn't want it to say ice on it.
So it's like these divisions that have existed within the department have been there for years since before Trump.
And so I think what we're seeing now is kind of like a lot of this stuff coming to a head
because it wasn't really litigated in the past, even though it was clearly an issue.
And what does it mean that it's coming to a head?
Like is it, is it, is there any of this?
Or is it by coming to a head, you mean it's just sort of a merger?
and blossoming.
Well, I mean, the powers that they kind of always had legally,
you now have someone in the White House
who's willing to just stomp his foot on the gas
and not care about what the backlash is.
But he's still using a car that was built
by the Bush administration
and could have been used that way at any point.
I think past presidents were a little more restrained
by considerations about, like, public backlash.
But it's like they feed on this stuff.
I mean, it's like they enjoy it if you look at how they responded to the protest Minneapolis.
It's like this sense that there's some sadistic pleasure in it or something.
I mean, they're explicitly deploying these things in the states that it's going to have the most public opposition.
So there's this whole kind of sadistic partisan dynamic to it, I think, that exists.
Yeah.
Are they aware of that in the agency or do they care?
Oh, yeah.
Totally.
They're aware of it.
They care.
I mean, I encourage people to talk to.
other reporters to talk to these guys because there's different layers.
There's Washington, which has its own thing, and that tends to be the most political.
But at the different field offices, you talk to these guys, like, there are a lot less like
the picture that is, like, when the Department of Homeland Security's Twitter account
posts these just insane, I don't know what even what to say about them, you know,
depicting joining ICE as that famous painting of the, like, white angel colonizing the West and
driving Native Americans out.
They literally posted a photo of that.
They posted another one saying deportation of, what was it, like, 50 million,
the equivalent of like half the country.
They said we're going to deport them.
Like that messaging is designed to attract a different cohort to ICE in these agencies,
not just because they have money come out of their ears.
They have more money than they know what to do with with that tripling of the enforcement
budget, the law enforcement budget that I mentioned before.
But also because as I reported on Monday, where ICE was, what was it,
Border Patrol seeking volunteers to help with the Minneapolis deployment, all that says that
all that means that their kind of rank and file existing cohort is uncomfortable with a lot of
this stuff.
So they need new blood that is going to be ideologically aligned.
And that is a huge part of these crazy memes because you get someone that responds to that,
you can be sure they're going to be okay with something like that.
Right, right, exactly.
All right, so let's talk a little bit about the ICE programs revealed.
I haven't had a chance to read this piece.
It just came out.
That's not your fault, Ken.
It's my fault.
But give us a sense of what these programs are.
So I was talking to a military intelligence guy several weeks ago, and he made an interesting reservation.
He says to me, you guys in the media are getting it.
He's in the intelligence community.
So he sees a lot of stuff that we don't see.
And he says to me, you guys are getting this all wrong.
He says, you're treating like this like it's just about the deportation.
So I was like, what do you mean?
Isn't that the whole point?
He goes, that's part of the point.
And he said, but Trump has also cast this as an invasion and characterized it as an invasion
by narco-traffers and cartels that he wants to go to, in his words, war with.
And he says, in his point basically was that these ICE operations and immigrants,
they're basically cannon fodder for the war in cartels because when ICE gets an immigrant
and as these documents show, they can interrogate them and dangle citizenship over their heads
and say, if you don't work with us, you're gone, your family's gone.
And as those documents that I just published right before I came on the show reveal,
intelligence collection from the immigrants that ICE is targeting is a central component
of the war that's taking place.
So it's much bigger than just removing people, although that's obviously something the administration
cares about.
It's also mapping out and getting data on these groups that, as I'm being told,
will eventually result in some kind of special operations in Mexico, in other parts of Latin America.
So like you said before, you mentioned before that you have this sense that there's this,
there's something bigger going on here.
Absolutely.
It's much bigger than just the deportations.
I mean, they've already shut down the border to the point that no one else is coming in anymore.
They've achieved like one of their main objectives, but that's not as only one.
So expand on that for me.
So the relationship between this is all the, so this would suggest that it fits into a larger sort of like, this is, you know, the Donroe doctrine.
And this, there's part of DHS, which is being weaponized in service of this Donrood doctrine, which ostensibly would be that we control this Western Hemisphere.
And I guess the, the, would suggest that the biggest challenge to our authority is these cartels.
Where does like, where does this intersect with the CIA, which in many respects is, you know, use the cartels as, I would suspect has probably like, fertilized the ground that these cartels have grown in.
if not midwife, you know, some of these industries in some way because in service of other
sort of like national security agendas, I mean, and like what's the theory behind we're going to
send special ops and to take out different cartels here?
Is it really just a way to sort of make it, is it to make it more palatable for U.S.
corporations to go into a country or to stabilize these places or to put in strutely?
strong men who are not challenged by, you know, internal cartel.
What is, what's the end game?
Well, Trump and the administration have made it very clear that they want the governments of Latin America to be pro-US.
And that carries with it all kinds of things about trade and capitalism and the things that you were talking about.
So there's no question.
But I think a really important part of this is the way in which they have used the narco-trafficker designations to basically make the case legally.
And that case is classified.
It's there's an office of legal counsel classified memo essentially making the argument that the drug flow into the U.S. because of the body count, which is significant to be fair, you know, opioids and things like that, represents the body count of like an actual war and this constitutes a war. And so we can take advantage of war.
Not necessarily, A, coming from Central and Latin America, where what's creating the body count, we should say.
Right. Yeah. And I fundamentally disagree. I don't, you know, it's obviously.
a tragedy that so many people die, but no one is like ramming these drugs down people's
throats. Like there is a social problem here that we have 50,000 people a year who die on the highways.
We have probably more than that who die because of the oil, uh, that Venezuela ships. Right.
Then the drugs. Um, and I would argue we've also probably, uh, I don't know, uh, at least added 10, 15,
20,000 people who are going to die this year because of lack of health insurance. So it's a little bit,
selective.
Oh, yeah.
It sounds to me, I mean, but that's the legal justification.
That's illegal.
Yeah, exactly.
And I think to give him his due, I think it's very clever in the sense that if you look
at polling around the opioids and, you know, I live in Wisconsin, I'm here in Wisconsin
right now.
I'm in the Midwest, like here in particular, and I'm sure all over the country, it is a very, you
know, sensitive issue, opioids.
And I think Trump picked something.
You said before that opioids don't come from, that's all true.
But it's as if he picked the most socially kind of like sensitive issue you can that people are really raw about for, and I think they're right to be and feel as though something should be done.
And he's offered them a solution that, you know, there's no evidence that it's reduced the drug problem.
It's not necessarily real, but it scratches an itch.
And it's, yeah, exactly.
It's gratifying.
And I encourage people to go.
I look, because I was just curious, why do people support this stuff?
And you look at some of the replies.
It's not about like imperial hegemony or anything.
It's so many other plies are like, yeah, F these people, I know my cousin died of blah, blah, blah.
And, you know, those people should be given an explanation about why here's a different plan for how to address that.
That's real pain for a lot of people.
And it leaves and it makes it very easy for someone like Trump to come in and say, hey, these weapons of war, like we're going to use it to make these people suffer that have been destroying your life.
And so it forms not just the legal basis that we've been talking about, but also the social basis for.
it. And if you look at polling, it's a lot more split than you think. And again, it's not about
wanting, it's not usually about wanting to conquer other countries. It's, it's this sense that,
that nobody's out there going. I've been really waiting for somebody to come in and institute a new
Monroe doctrine. It is rather, I have problems in my hometown. I've seen too many people I know.
There's real pain. I mean, you can also see this in the context of just like the talking points
from the right when you, you know, you see on cable news when people talk about, we have no authority to blow up these boats.
Are you really defending drug dealers?
Right.
Okay.
So, lastly, do you have a sense of what's next as this gets expansive?
I mean, they're obviously going to go, who knows how long they'll be in Minneapolis?
We had a report, you know, we had an I. I. Amber the other day yesterday who was talking about, I can't remember where in Massachusetts it was, but seeing a shipment of a brand new SUVs to an, in Burlington, Mass, to a nice facility there. So presumably, you know, there's a couple of places that are getting sort of like teed up. Nobody knows necessarily where those are going to be. But do you have a sense both.
geographically, what's going to be next and operationally.
Like, because it really does feel like what we've seen in the past four or five days week
is these feds, because it's a mixture of ice and DHS and DHS and DHS and or HSI, I should say,
an ERO, which is the enforcement removal and CBB, the border patrols.
guys. They seem to have gotten the message, be more aggressive with protesters, be more aggressive
with observers. Somebody just at the beginning of the show today, I am did said, it looks like
they're taking junkers, beat up cars and using them almost like a smash up derby to stop
people from following them when they leave the facility in the morning, which has been a tactic.
by observers.
Do you have a sense of like what's on the docket,
like how they expand or they sort of do it?
Like,
do you have a sense that they have a playbook?
Oh, yes.
Or are they making this up as they go?
No, well,
I would say it's both.
You can't underestimate how much they are like freestyling
at any point in time,
but within these broad sort of intuitive contours that they have.
And so like when you see the arrest of Maduro,
for instance.
They don't seem to have much of a plan for what they're going to do for the person that
replaces them.
But they do have an idea that we'd like to have a pro-government, pro-US government in Venezuela
and regionally as well.
So, you know, when I talk to folks in the military, they think it's very likely that there
will be other similar operations throughout Latin America.
And there's some amount of, like, testing the waters to see how things are received.
And if that's what they're basing their decisions on, the media hand job that Trump got after
that major operation is just going to like affirm all of his most aggressive instincts because
nothing you know no one was killed amazingly we're going to land in greenland i mean i it just seems
to me to me like completely obvious that we're just going to show up one day and we're going to be
there we're just going to say it's ours but trump said explicitly they asked and i said what could
what could like stop you he says only my own morality and what that is is a challenge to congress
to say that's him saying i dare you to do anything
And Congress is given no indication they're going to do so.
I don't mean giving inspiring speech.
I don't mean write a letter.
I don't mean, I mean, I always enjoy your impression as Chuck Schumer.
He said after the Maduro arrest, he said very explicitly, we are not willing to use the budget to coerce Trump and the executive branch into behaving differently on this.
Well, that's the main point of Congress, the power of the purse.
It's literally the only leverage point you have.
Yeah.
They don't care about the letters.
I hate to break it to Chuck Schumer,
but they don't care about the letters.
They don't want to break any hearts here, yeah.
But it's like the fact that they're not willing to do that,
that means there's not going to be any breaks
because, I mean, unless the Republicans, like,
become willing to stand up to their party's most popular leader,
and I don't know how long.
So that's not going to happen.
So it would have to come from the Democrats.
And the leadership has all said explicitly.
That's off the table.
Like, and I'm not saying you have to just, you know,
refuse to fund anything.
But it's like, you can.
can target certain programs and create headaches and things and create a kind of negotiation
structure, but they're completely unwilling to. And when they say they're unwilling to,
that's even worse because then it's like telling the White House, oh, don't worry,
nothing is going to happen on our end. Yeah, I don't know if Schumer's going to be able to hold that
position, frankly. I think that's going to be, he's been saying that for days, but I don't know
if he's going to be able to maintain that because
I
it's an insane position
to have and
it's basically all your leverage before anything
has even happened? Why not at least
be like a little bit mysterious?
Like, oh, I don't know. I'm going to think of it. We won't even say that.
He is
I mean this is a separate conversation but
the reason why he won't pretend
that he's going to actually
do something is because he doesn't want
the idea to exist.
Exactly.
That he would do something because then he'll be obligated.
And, you know, the killing of Renee good, if it wasn't, were it not for the killing
of Renee good, I don't think he would feel any pressure.
And now it's just sort of like every time these images are on TV, he's like, damn it,
damn it.
How am I going to get away with just?
Because his whole strategy is if we don't exist, nobody's going to be mad at us and
they're going to vote for us in the fall.
It's a strategy.
I don't think it's an advisable one, but that's what it is.
It's absurd.
Anything else you think we should know at this point, Ken?
I want to stress the big picture point here of that it's not just ice.
It is part of a colossus of different.
I mean, we've mentioned Border Patrol, Federal Protective Services, Homeland Security
investigations.
They have created a hell of a hammer, and it's looking for a nail right now.
And I hope that the coverage can start to reflect that more because what we're facing is much bigger than just the individual horrors that we see every day as important as those are on videos.
Let me ask you this.
Based upon what you know of the people you talk to, right?
Like the cohort that you talk to is probably not the proud boy cohort of this apparatus.
You'd be surprised, but yes, generally.
But okay, generally.
I talk to a lot of people.
When if, and this may be a little bit outside of your portfolio, but in terms of like,
what could, what reform, and obviously I would love there to, we to switch back to the
INS thing and hopefully down the road we will, but there's obviously not the power to do that
necessarily now.
But what reform could be required?
to pass the budget bill, for instance, that would act as a, as a constraint on these people.
In other words, like, from my perspective, the biggest ask, the best ask would be, we will fund DHS, but no masks.
Like, would the idea that these people have a certain amount of exposure create some
self-editing and self-censoring in terms of their behavior, you know, because obviously, like,
we're trying to just sort of like hang on for, you know, eight months now and then from there,
it's a different strategy. But is there something else that might have that impact?
You make a good point about the masks, because that just goes to show that there is a continuum of
ways that you can push back on this. This, I, Schumer and, you know, people like Senator Cory Booker,
who yesterday also said that, you know, a shutdown is off the table.
They make it sound as though the only option is this maximalist, like you shut everything down and throw the economy into free fall or something.
There's a way they could say, okay, you have my vote, but one thing, not the masks, or just something, like, or you can ask for more than that, a lot more than that, or you can ask for half of that.
Like, there, to just.
There's a huge continuum, but I'm curious from your perspective, what has the most, what would have the most salience in terms of, of, of, in his,
inhibiting ice.
I would say, and by ice, I'm saying all of this.
I would say just changing the policy around use of force,
because that policy protects them both legally and also administratively.
And so if you look at what the policy is,
I'm sure you've talked about on your show,
is basically the subjective sense that they were in danger.
Right.
If you could change that, you could add other things,
you can make things specific to cars.
There have been, what, like almost a dozen,
ICE involved shootings of people in vehicles.
So clearly there's a misunderstanding
about what the rules are around vehicles.
You could strengthen those.
Basically anything with respect to the...
Are they doing that stuff?
Because there's latitude in the policy,
or are they doing it because, you know,
according to Miller yesterday on CNN and DHS
and our vice president,
they have total immunity anyways.
And so, you know, the policy,
stuff doesn't seem to be, I mean, there's a policy you shouldn't be getting in front of a car.
I mean, that's the thing is that like, I'm wondering if any of these policies are actually like,
yeah, it's a policy.
We don't give a shit.
Like, who's there to say you broke the policy as opposed to like that's, I mean, to me,
the mask thing seems like at least there's a threat that in the future, if Chuck Schumer's not
the Senate leader and, you know, it's president AOC.
or whatever, you could be in big trouble because we know who you are now.
Yeah, I think that makes sense.
Body cameras could be another thing because, I mean, the only, I mean, God knows what would
have happened if we didn't have all these cameras that happened to be at the incident.
And they clearly are very happy to just flood the zone with their account within like
two hours of the thing, even if it hurts the subsequent legal case.
So it's really important that there be some relatively objective.
accounting of what these things are happening. That could be another one. I mean, there's a whole
range that even just the idea that they're all carrying guns as opposed to, like if you go to the
UK, it's more like the SWAT model where cops won't necessarily carry gun or they won't carry
heavy gun. They have to call someone in based on the severity of the incident or whatever. I mean,
that could be another model they could approach. But I guess a whole other one was just looking at the
use of force guide. They have not updated that since 2023.
So this massive unprecedented deportation program, there has been no attendant change to policy
whatsoever.
They literally, if you can search the, I published it, it's redacted, but I found a copy in a
court lawsuit, a full copy.
You can search, it's like dozens of pages long, doesn't make one reference to the word
protester, civil unrest, civil disobedience, none.
They have literally zero policy for this thing that they are facing every single thing.
day and in and which were the circumstances in which that woman was killed.
So that could be another one.
I mean, I could go on all day with different ideas for what they could do.
And could those changes in policy be the underlying principle of potential state lawsuits.
For instance, Kathy Hochle is allowed for a civil.
So if they're policy, you know, you could go.
go into a state courthouse and say ICE has this published policy, they clearly were treated
me in a way that was contrary to that policy, that becomes a leverage point for them.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So, you know, I'm not a strategist in this way.
I can tell you what comes to mind, but this is something Congress should be debating.
And Congress's role in all this has been disgraceful.
Right up to, you know, I mentioned the use of force policy.
That was not public.
If you go on ICE's FOIA page, Freedom Information Act Library, you click on a
on it. It's like 40 pages long. The entire thing is blacked out. And it's not even classified
that's something Betty Thompson on the Homeland Security Committee could easily have, you know,
when he was in the majority, you forced him to just release. And the idea that, oh, we don't have
the majority now. Yeah, of course you don't. What do you think was going to happen when you did?
Trump was running for president again and you didn't want to have any transparency. It's just so
frustrating. And they all criticize. They're like, oh, the Republicans are so loyal to Trump, which is
obviously true. But you guys are too when your president's in office.
and that's the only time that you're going to get anything done and they don't do anything.
So much isn't public.
The list of programs that I report recently, these are huge sweeping national programs.
We don't know any of it except Congress.
I know for a fact that they know about this stuff.
And for whatever reason, they never revealed it.
Ken Clippenstein.
Oh, I'm sorry.
One more question.
I don't mean to hold you so much.
Washington Post reporter just had her house rated a couple hours ago.
I saw that.
It was thinking, oh, God.
not is there a chance for this story today, given the secrecy of the programs that I get subpoenaed or something.
So, God willing, that doesn't happen, but we'll find out.
Is it, I mean, it must be scary.
Yeah, I'm more worried about my sources than myself.
Like, my sense is that it's a huge pain.
It's very expensive, can be legally ruinous, all of which is bad, but I'm more worried about the sources.
And they're making it clear.
This is what they're attempting to do.
Ken, Klippistine, folks can go and read your work, and I hope they do at the clip news.
On Substack, we'll put a link to that, of course.
I've literally just seen two.
I am saying we just signed up for it.
I'm glad to hear that.
Go check out Ken's thing and follow them on Twitter, too, or X or whatever it is.
Yeah, please keep up the Schumer impressions.
I love that content.
That's my favorite same content.
I will do it until he steps down.
So I appreciate it.
Thanks, Ken.
All right, thanks.
All right, folks, ran a little late today.
Surprise.
Important stuff.
Nice to do the show while we still are free.
Yeah, exactly.
Just keep waiting for that knock on the door.
I already have it.
I already know what I'm going to say.
I got it all from Clippenstein.
That's it.
It's funny because mine is I got it all from Sam.
Yeah.
We just all.
I got it all from Brown.
Pointing.
Just gives me a packet every morning.
Exactly.
That reminds me.
I got to get our signal account set up.
Folks, it's your support that makes this show possible.
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What's that?
That's a weird looking bag.
What's that?
Oh, it's a co-op in Madison, Wisconsin.
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All right, folks, see you in the fun half.
Three months from now, six months from now,
nine months from now,
and I don't think it's going to be the same
as it looks like in six months from now.
I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now.
But I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow.
What?
What is that going on?
It's nuts.
Wait a second.
Hold on for a second.
The majority.
Emma, welcome to the program.
Hey.
Fun pack.
Matt.
Who fun.
What is up, everyone?
Fun pack.
No, me keen.
You did it.
Fun, crap.
Let's go Brandon.
Let's go Brandon.
Fun crap.
Bradley, you want to say hello?
Sorry to disappoint.
Everyone, I'm just a random guy.
It's all the boys today.
Fundamentally false.
No, I'm sorry.
Women's...
Stop talking for a second.
Let me finish.
Where is this coming from, dude?
But dude, you want to smoke this?
Seven, eight.
Yes.
It is you.
I think it is you.
Who is you?
No sound.
Every single...
Fricking day.
What's on your mind?
We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism.
I'm going to go to life.
Libertarians.
They're so stupid though.
Common sense says, of course.
Gobbled euk.
We fucking nailed him.
So what's 79 plus 21?
Challenge met.
I'm positively quivering.
I believe 96 I want to say.
857.
210.
35.
501.
1⁄.
380.
911, for instance.
$3,400.
$1,900.
$6.
$5,4.
3.3.
trillion dollars sold. It's a zero-sum game.
Actually, you're making me think less.
But let me say this.
Poop.
You can call it satire. Sam goes to satire.
On top of it all, my favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like everything you do.
Without a doubt. Hey, buddy, we see you.
Folks, folks.
The week being weeded out, obviously.
Yeah, sundown guns out.
But you should know.
People just don't like to entertain ideas anyway.
I have a question.
Who cares?
Our chat is enabled, folks.
I love it.
I do love that.
Look, got to jump.
I got to be quick.
I get a jump.
I'm losing it, bro.
Two o'clock, we're already late, and the guy's being a dick.
So screw him.
Sent to a gulaw?
Outrage.
Like, what is wrong with you?
Love you.
Bye.
Love you.
Bye-bye.
Thank you.
