The President's Daily Brief - PDB Afternoon Bulletin | January 8th, 2026: Iran’s Protesters Just Crossed a Dangerous Line & ICE Shooting Sparks Outrage

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: Violent clashes spread across Iran as nationwide protests enter their twelfth day, with demonstrators crossing a dangerous new line by burning regime symbols—including statues of Qassem Soleimani—signaling that the unrest has moved beyond economic grievance and into a direct challenge to the regime’s legitimacy. Later in the show—an officer with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shoots and kills a woman in Minneapolis, sparking public anger and renewed scrutiny of federal immigration enforcement as authorities investigate the incident. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief PDS Debt: You’re 30 seconds away from being debt free with PDS Debt. Get your free assessment and find the best option for you at https://PDSDebt.com/PDB  ZBiotics: Visit https://zbiotics.com/PDB for 15% off Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right. Let's get briefed. First up, violent clashes are spreading across Iran as nationwide protests enter their 12th day, with demonstrators crossing a dangerous new line by openly attacking one of the regime's most sacred symbols. I'll have those details. Later in the show, an ICE officer shoots and kills a woman in Minneapolis, sparking anger, protests, and renewed scrutiny of federal immigration enforcement. But first, today's afternoon spotlight. Violent clashes erupted across Iran last night as anti-government protests moved into their 12th day with security forces and demonstrators confronting each other in multiple cities nationwide.

Now, I want to point out that development's on the ground in Iran are changing and happening minute by minute. This is a very fast-breaking situation. so we will be providing further updates tomorrow and as it continues. Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency, which is closely aligned with the regime's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, reports that two police officers were shot and killed by armed individuals in the southwestern town of Lortigone. Now, videos circulating on social media show tense standoffs between protesters and security forces, with gunfire clearly audible in the background. In other footage, security forces appear to fire live rounds and tear gas into crowds.

while demonstrators respond by throwing stones. According to the U.S.-based human rights activists news agency, protests have now spread to 111 cities and towns across all 31 of Iran's provinces now. Those facts alone, of course, for the regime would be alarming, but what's happening next is even more telling. In some of the most dramatic footage to emerge so far, protesters are seen toppling and burning statues of late General Qasem Soleimani. Now, Soleimani wasn't just a military figure, He was the longtime head of the Quds Force, the external operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the RRGC, the unit responsible for exporting Iran's violence and influence and terror across the region and beyond. After Soleimani was killed in a U.S. airstrike back in 2020, the regime moved quickly to turn him into a legend, a hero of the regime. Statues bearing his likeness appeared across Iran. Murals went up, streets were renamed. He was elevated into a near mythic martyr.

part military hero, part religious symbol. Now, so those monuments weren't just decoration, they were physical reminders of the IRGC's power and reach and willingness to crush dissent. And that's precisely why protesters are targeting them now. By tearing down Soleimani's image, demonstrators aren't simply venting anger at the regime. They're directly challenging the institution that enforces the regime's rule. They're rejecting the fear that the IRGC relies on to maintain control. And in Iran, that's an extraordinarily bold and dangerous line to cross. What we're seeing in the streets right now is no longer limited to economic grievances or calls for reform. It's an open assault on the symbols

of power that have kept the Islamic Republic intact for decades. The regime understands that, and its response makes that clear. According to reporting from the New York Times and BBC news, Iranian security forces have intensified their crackdown as the protests persist. Live ammunition has been used in multiple locations. Arrests are mounting. Journalists, students, and even family members of demonstrators are being detained. Internet disruptions and communications blackouts have become more frequent, and the regime has now moved to pull the plug completely on internet access and use, potentially signaling a further aggressive crackdown. It's the behavior of a regime trying to reassert control through fear. For years, Tehran has relied on a simple equation. Repression works if people believe

that resistance is futile. The RGC exists to enforce that belief. But sustained protests, especially protests willing to attack sacred regime symbols, threaten that foundation. What makes this moment particularly volatile is endurance. We're not talking about a single day of unrest or isolated demonstrations. These protests have spread across multiple cities and regions, and they've continued despite lethal force. That persistence matters. It forces the regime into a choice, escalate further or risk signaling weakness. So far, Trevran has no surprise chosen escalation, but escalation does come with its own risks. Every additional death, every mass arrest, every image of regime brutality widens the gap between the rulers and the ruled,

and every statue pulled down, chips away at the aura of inevitability that the regime depends on. Of course, as we've noted in recent days, these protests don't mean that the collapse of the Islamic Republic is inevitable, although it's looking more and more likely. But significantly, the protests have moved beyond the economic grievance stage and into a direct challenge to the regime's legitimacy. When people stop fearing the symbols meant to intimidate them, something fundamental begins to shift, when protesters are willing to confront not just the state but the enforcers of the state, the calculus changes. The coming days, of course, will be critical, not because they guarantee an outcome, but because they'll reveal whether the regime can restore fear without permanently breaking

what remains of its supposed legitimacy. All right, up next. An ICE officer shoots and kills a woman in Minneapolis, triggering protests and fierce backlash over federal immigration operations. I'll be right back. Hey, folks, Mike Baker here, and now it's a new year. Of course, I suspect you know that. It's 2026, and of course, that means maybe a time for a fresh start.

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According to the Department of Homeland Security, DHS, the incident unfolded Wednesday during a targeted immigration enforcement operation in South Minneapolis. Federal officials say ICE agents were attempting to carry out arrests when they encountered repeated interference. René Nicole Good reportedly inserted herself into the operation, refusing commands to exit her vehicle and continuously obstructed agents as they worked. Now, DHS says the situation escalated when Good used her car as a weapon, moving it toward officers after repeated warnings. At that point, federal officials say, an ICE agent who was standing in front of the vehicle one,

fearing for his life, reportedly, fired three defensive shots into goods vehicle. She later died from that shooting. The agent involved has not been publicly identified, and the shooting, of course, remains under investigation. And that framing matters because from the federal government's perspective, this wasn't some random encounter or a traffic stop gone wrong, it was an enforcement operation that escalated after a civilian repeatedly refused lawful commands

and turned a vehicle reportedly into a threat. But witnesses at the scene, well, they tell a different version of events, and this is where the narrative splits. Several bystanders say Goods vehicle was boxed in by agents, with one positioned on either side of the SUV as another attempted to open the driver's door. It's say one agent stepped back and fired through the driver's side window. That dispute, whether the vehicle is being used aggressively or was merely trying to maneuver away is now central to the investigation, and there are considerable videos from various angles that are available to the investigators and, of course, to social media, which is busy parsing this out. Looking at videos from the scene posted online, Goods' SUV stopped in the middle of a residential

street as ICE agents approached and ordered her to get out of the car. She's heard telling them to go around. Moments later, the vehicle reverses and then moves. forward. As the SUV narrowly passes and ice agent shots are fired. The vehicle continues down the street before crashing into a parked car. Fidler officials stand firmly behind the agent. Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem defended the shooting as an act of self-defense labeling the incident, quote, domestic terrorism. She said an ice officer was struck by goods vehicle, treated at a hospital, and later released. Now, the streets of Minneapolis today have been filled with protesters confronting federal agents chanting, quote, shame and go home, among other things. As crowds grow into the

hundreds and thousands, ice was seen deploying tear gas as scuffles broke out to disperse the chaos. As of now, the investigation is being led jointly by the FBI and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The ICE shooting isn't unfolding in isolation in Minnesota. It's happening as federal investigators are already knee-deep in a fraud scandal that has put Minnesota's liberal state government under intense scrutiny. For years, federal prosecutors have been investigating what they describe as a sprawling web of fraud across Minnesota's public assistance and social services programs. We've talked about that before here on the PDB. Estimates cited by investigators suggest losses could approach $9 billion U.S. dollars that's funded by taxpayers, so in other words, taxpayer dollars.

Federal investigators have repeatedly said that fraud cases are not about an entire community, but they are about how clusters of related non-profits and service providers, many operating within Minnesota-Somali immigrant community, were able to exploit weak controls across multiple state programs. In case after case, prosecutors alleged the same pattern. Rapid enrollment, inflated billing, fake claims, and kickbacks, all moving through interconnected networks that state regulators struggled or declined to confront early. That reluctance, investigators say, wasn't accidental. It was shaped by political sensitivity, fear of discrimination lawsuits, and a governance culture that favored access over enforcement, a combination that allowed the

schemes to expand for years before federal authorities stepped in. If you want to understand how Minnesota got there, well, we have to start with an organization called Feeding Our Future. The COVID-era nonprofit claimed to partner with restaurants and meals sites to provide food to children. Instead, prosecutors say it submitted fabricated meal counts and invoices siphoning roughly $250 million in federal funds. The organization's founder, Amy Bach, was convicted last year. More than 75 defendants so far have been charged, and feeding our future was only the beginning.

Federal investigators have since uncovered fraud and housing stabilization programs and autism-related care services. Prosecutors alleged providers enrolled with minimal vetting, submitted inflated or fake claims, hired unqualified staff and paid kickbacks to clients. Investigators have been blunt about why this happened. Many of these programs were initially designed with, quote, low barriers to entry to expand access, particularly for the Somali immigrant community, but lax controls and limited documentation

requirements created an environment where fraud flourished unchecked. The scandal exploded into the national spotlight last month after a viral video by YouTuber Nick Shirley showed federally-supported daycare centers in Minneapolis sitting empty or closed during operating hours, fueling allegations of widespread billing fraud. The video was amplified by the Trump administration, and in response, the White House froze $185 million in federal child care funding for Minnesota and announced changes to how states must submit Medicaid-supported daycare claims. So as the federal pressure mounts over the fraud scandal, the political fallout intensifies.

Minnesota governor, Tim Walts, whom you may remember as the vice presidential pick for Kamala Harris's failed presidential campaign, dropped his gubernatorial re-election bid amid the oversight failures under his watch. So as it stands now, as both investigations continue, Minnesota's reckoning isn't just about one confrontation or one fraud case. It's about what happens when enforcement is resisted on the street and deferred in government offices for years. And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Thursday, the 8th of January. Now, if you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at PDB at thefirstTV.com. And of course, if you'd like to listen to the show ad-free, well, you can do that. It's very simple. Just become a premium member of the

President's Daily Brief by visiting PDB premium.com. I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed. Stay safe. Stay cool. If you used Babel, you would. Babel's conversation-based techniques teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world, with lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers. Babel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babel today. Get up to 55% off your Babel subscription right now at babble.com slash Spotify.

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