The MeidasTouch Podcast - All Hell Breaks Loose as Trump Turns LA Into War Zone

Episode Date: June 8, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump’s ICE raids turning Los Angeles into a War Zone as Trump attacks the community and the community resists. JubileeTV: For $25 off your order, head to https://GetJubileeTV.com and use code MEIDAS Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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were. So here's where ICE raided. They went to the courthouse, Roy Ball it's called, which is in downtown Los Angeles, and they were waiting for people in the bushes, waiting for people inside the courtroom. And when immigrants showed up for their court proceedings, they were immediately detained basically regardless of their status and thrown into the basement. And then they were kind of one by one interrogated. And then the ICE agents would determine who they were going to deport after detaining

them all in the basement. These were people who were just going through the lawful process as part of their court proceedings and showing up. Then you had ICE agents target Home Depots in downtown Los Angeles, just immigrants who were there who just wanted to work, who would normally kind of hang out in the parking lot area. You had ICE ready to kind of raid the parking lots where people were just waiting, immigrants were just waiting and hoping to get work for the day. And then the other area that ICE was raiding is multiple locations of something called Ambience, which was these factories, Ambience factories, which is like apparel and clothing.

And so you had the ICE agents raiding Ambience apparel locations in downtown Los Angeles. And people were pissed. It looked like a war zone in Los Angeles. Let me show you what went down. Here's another video of, and you can see the kind of militarized ICE agents and DHS and ATF. I mean, they turned downtown Los Angeles into a total war zone. I want you to watch this. Also, you know, again, these ICE agents were getting very violent with people who were

just there observing and others who were there just to kind of protest their presence and others who were there to just let immigrants know their rights. The president of the California chapter of the SEIU, someone named David Huerta, was assaulted and arrested by ICE agents during an ICE raid in the warehouse district of downtown Los Angeles. Let me show you the video of what went down there. Really sick stuff.

Here, play this clip. We We just got a statement from SEIU California President David Huerta. This comes from SEIU. David Huerta, president of SEIU California and SEIU United Service Workers West, was injured and detained at an ICE raid in Los Angeles today while exercising his First Amendment right to observe and document law enforcement activity. Tia Orr, Executive Director of SEIU California, made the following statement, SEIU California members call for the immediate release of our President David Huerta, who was injured

and detained at the site of one of today's ICE raids in Los Angeles. He is now receiving medical attention while in custody. We are proud of President Huerta's righteous participation as a community observer, and keeping with his long history of advocating for immigrant workers, and with the highest values of our movement, standing up to injustice regardless of personal risk or the power of those perpetrating it, we call for an end to the cruel, destructive, and indiscriminate ICE raids that are tearing apart our communities, disrupting our economy, and hurting all working people. Immigrant workers are essential to our society, feeding our nation, caring for our elders, cleaning our workplaces, and building our homes.

California Senator Alex Padilla, who I've had here on the Midas Touch Network, issued the following statement, the ICE raids across Los Angeles are a continuation of a disturbing pattern of extreme and cruel immigration enforcement operations across the country. These indiscriminate raids prove once again that the Trump administration cares about nothing but instilling harm and fear in our communities to drive immigrants into the shadows. It will not work. This fear-mongering is not going to change the fact that immigrants are valued members of our communities who contribute to our society and economy, and my office will demand accountability for today's actions.

I want to share with you some additional video. This comes from the Citizen app right here, and you can see ICE raiding the warehouses over here. I'm only going to show about 24 seconds of it, but it goes on and on and on where immigrants were hard at work contributing to Los Angeles and to our economy. Here, play this clip. Are you, yeah, are you able, are you seeing my shot at all? Oh, okay. Yeah, their helicopter, their chopper observing the response to the ICE agents, because the people in Los Angeles,

especially in downtown LA, were letting these ICE agents know that they were not okay with what was going on, that this was not acceptable. And here's how it was described on ABC. These ICE agents know they will be met with resistance, but not quite sure they knew it would be at this level today. Here, play this clip. Everyone has left that area. Right, and I do believe that these agents, the FBI,

the ICE agents, they know they are going to be met with resistance. I'm not quite sure if they thought it was going to be to this level today, the way they saw people surrounding these vehicles leaving, trying to keep them inside the area. And then once more reinforcements came. My kids won video calls with grandma and grandpa, but my in-laws get confused trying to join on their phone. I want seeing their grandkids to be easy and fun. This podcast is sponsored by Jubilee TV. Did you know over 37 million U.S. adults provide unpaid care for an elderly loved one? Being a caregiver for seniors is challenging. Support their

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that I sent you. Thank you. You know, one of the things as well that was, you know, very disturbing was to see the LAPD working directly with ICE agents. Let me show you what went down here. This was outside the Ambience Factory on East 15th and South Santa Fe Avenue. And to have LAPD using their knowledge to help ICE attack people in the Los Angeles community is really just disgusting and unforgivable here. Let me show you this clip. Let's play it. I'm sorry. And here is another overhead chopper view of what was taking place when you had dozens of FBI, ATF and DHS agents in camo fatigues with guns out here.

Play this clip. But a bit still with guns out here play this clip. But a bit still quite tense out here. Back to you. Well, Carlos, as we continue to watch this with you, I'm noticing as you saw ATF agents, we we saw those vans. If I can't hear is because as you might imagine, a bit chaotic out here. We're connecting again. Can I think I can hear you now. Okay, so Carlos, you mentioned ATF agents, but you also said Homeland Security. We saw ICE agents, you said, but they have mostly

focused on just the one building ambiance, correct? And now as they leave, we're starting to see more tear gas and what looks like fireworks. So the crowd is continuing to engage with the officers who are very methodically starting to leave the area. And it does sound like we're having a hard time communicating with Carlos. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to point out to here, our screen there on the right and Carlos's shot are both live. But what we want to point out here here, our screen there on the right and Carlos's shot are both

live. But what we want to point out here is how these officers are now leaving. The ATF officers are very slowly moving and you'll notice that some on the ground are trying to get the people to move out of the way. We have a piece of video that showed the vans as they were departing with some of the people that had been detained in those vans. And were departing with some of the people that had been detained in those vans. And it was a very different scene.

You can see that they've gotten the people and they put them in these vans. And as these officers, these authorities started to leave, it was a very strange sight to see because they started to leave and there were people who were protesting trying to keep these vans from getting out. And the video seen here is deeply troubling because these officers look, there's that person in front and the officers.

This was another disturbing incident where an agent actually pulled his gun out here. Let me show you this. Multiple simultaneous federal raids happening involving homeland security, leading to clashes in downtown LA. Stu Maddell live up in SkyFox to tell us all about it. Stu? Hey Sandra, this is going to be one of two locations, or actually three locations that SkyFox has been over this afternoon.

This one seems to be the most active. Now this is going to be in the downtown Los Angeles area near the corner of 15th and Santa Fe. This is the Ambience headquarters. That is one of the other places that they were targeting in downtown. The showroom actually in the downtown area off of 15th and town. But they've also been hitting up the Home Depots, at least two of them, in the Los Angeles area as well. I can tell you since SkyFox has been here, they've been putting at least five people inside that van that you see right there. Now it has definitely gotten a lot more tense out here in the last couple of minutes, and LAPD has arrived as well. Usually LAPD stays away from any of these types of raids, but in this case, it is crowd

control is why they're here and what's going on. Moments before we went live there was a large crowd in front of this gate right here. They opened that gate up to allow a van that looks like the one that's in there, possibly to take away some other people or even maybe some of their own FBI and other agents that are in that area, because there is a number of them, meaning probably about 20 or more inside that fenced area. While that was going on, a large scuffle took place. People were trying to block the van. Agents came out and were actually physically fighting with some of those protesters and one of them got tossed to the ground. That person taken into handcuffs later, but

that was when the crowd really started to gang up on those agents. They brought them inside the store, inside this building, and that's the reason why the fire department is here. The fire department showed up basically for medical use or to check out the injuries to that person they took into custody. Take a look at what's going on. LAPD, they've been arriving, they've been setting up a skirmish line out here trying to keep the public away from that

front gate. Now, in addition to downtown Los Angeles, we also are aware of ICE conducting raids throughout the greater LA proper area, like in Torrance, for example. This has been a story getting a lot of attention here in LA. A Torrance boy, nine years old, was detained by ICE with plans to deport him to Honduras. The community is outraged. Earlier this week, residents in Torrance were scrambling to find out what happened to nine-year-old Martir Garcia Lara, a fourth grader at Torrance Elementary School. Teachers and PTA officials believed he was being held at a federal immigration facility with his father, but cannot get firm

answers. And then it turns out that that's actually what went down when he was basically taken into detention by these ICE agents. Really sick stuff going on here right now and across the country. You'll recall the reports we previously did on San Diego, Memphis, in Florida, in Milford. It's across the country, but we're going to keep reporting on it here on the Midas Touch Network. So thank you very much for watching and hit subscribe and let's get to 5 million subscribers. Can't get enough Midas?

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