The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - No Mercy / No Malice: ICE Age

Episode Date: July 12, 2025

As read by George Hahn. https://www.profgalloway.com/ice-age/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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we're talking all about the WNBA All-Star roster with ESPN analyst and former All-Star herself, Chenea Gumake. She also tells us what she wants to see from the CBA negotiations. Plus, I'm sharing some of the record-breaking updates from the Euros in Switzerland. Check out the latest episode of A Touch More wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. of A Touch More wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. I'm Scott Galloway and this is No Mercy, No Malice. What would a modern day Gestapo with wi-fi and drones targeting people based on their identity, not their behavior look like? We know what it looks like. It's called ICE. Ice Age, as read by George Han.

President Trump is no longer fighting inflation, China, or AI. Instead, he's declared war on a manufactured threat. The enemy within. Immig immigrants, journalists, and professors. Our biggest threat, apparently, isn't Russian aggression or economic inequality, it's your Uber driver or anthropology professor. This is not only cruel and depraved, but stupid, as the chill being cast across the agriculture, services, and construction sectors will likely be more inflationary than the tariffs. More stupidity. Trump's goal is to deport 4 million undocumented people over four years.

That's about 3% of the U.S. workforce. 10 to 15% in several sectors dependent on immigrant labor. The big, beautiful bill signed into law on July 4th isn't about border security. It's a blueprint for mass detention and deportation. A $75 billion hammer in search of a scapegoat. Under the law, ICE gets funding that rivals the military budgets of Italy or Israel to build sites like the facility in the Everglades, nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz.

The goal? Fear. This isn't law enforcement. It's authoritarian cosplay designed to scare the electorate and silence dissent. Trump's war doesn't punish behavior, but identity, as immigrants from certain countries and ethnicities are targeted. Federal agents in full tactical gear swept through a park in Latino-heavy LA this week just to make a point.

The mayor said, it's the way a city looks before a coup. Question, what do storm troopers, the KKK, and ICE have in common? A mask. ICE has become Trump's personal praetorian guard. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Vice President Harris's running mate, was excoriated for comparing ICE to the Gestapo. But spare us the bullshit indignation. Masked agents in fatigues raiding churches and schools, separating families, is not modern America but 1930s Europe. Or is it? In the 2026 fiscal year, ICE will receive over $11 billion,

a 10% increase from current funding. The new law will more than double that. It authorizes the hiring of 10,000 agents, bringing ICE's force to nearly 30,000. In 1944, Nazi Germany had 32,000 Gestapo officers and $2 billion, inflation-adjusted, in funding. They were fighting a world war. Trump is fighting home health aides and Uber drivers. ICE claims it's targeting the worst of the worst.

But fewer than one-third of the record 59,000 immigrant detainees have been convicted of any crime. The rest? A, immigrants who didn't look like the typical Iowa voter. Trump's reach even extends to his political rivals. He publicly questioned the citizenship of NYC mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani and his former first friend, Elon. Mamdani has been a U.S. citizen since 2018. Doesn't matter.

Criminal now also means not for Trump. Mamdani has been a U.S. citizen since 2018. Doesn't matter. Criminal now also means not for Trump. The argument that immigrants are stealing jobs is a lie told by people who've never built a business or managed a P&L. Immigrants create jobs. They work jobs native-born Americans won't touch. They pay into Social Security, but rarely collect. Deporting them is an economic own goal.

The Cato Institute estimates the cost of mass deportations could eventually exceed one trillion dollars. The Peterson Institute projects a 1.2% drop in GDP if 1.3 million people are deported, growing to 7% if deportations hit 8 million. That's not policy, but see above, stupidity, hurting others while hurting yourself. Instead of militarizing immigration enforcement, we should be investing against the real challenge, AI.

The World Economic Forum says 9 million jobs globally may be displaced in the next five years. Anthropic CEO warns AI could eliminate half of all entry level white collar jobs. Imagine the population of Greece storming the shores of America and taking jobs, even jobs Americans actually want, as they're willing to work 24-7 for free. You've already met them. Their names are GPT, Claude, and Gemini.

Want to protect American workers? Train, don't terrorize. Trump's war on domestic enemies doesn't stop with ICE. He's coming for the press and the academy. Disney, Metta, and Paramount have all settled nuisance lawsuits with Trump for a combined total of about $60 million. All the funds go to his presidential library, where truth will go to be laundered, not learned. Newsrooms are folding or playing defense.

Breaking with a long-standing tradition, the White House is hand-picking press pool participants. Harvard, once America's aircraft carrier strike force of soft power, is now a mega-speed bag. Autocrats always come for universities, which train people to ask questions. The White House is threatening to defund billions in research, choke off international student visas, and criminalize campus dissent.

Nearly 300 top researchers have applied for scientific asylum… in France. In the 30s and 40s, some of the world's premier academics fled Europe for America. They brought quantum theory, chemotherapy, modern computing, and other breakthroughs with them. Oh, including the bomb. The rivers of elite human capital are now flowing in reverse and we're sending the scholars back How can we be this fucking stupid? This isn't a slippery slope But a vertical drop Trump has Congress kneeling courts folding and corporations cashing in. What's left is us. This was never just about immigrants, professors, or journalists.

It's about unchecked power that, unchallenged, is metastasizing. Democracy doesn't defend itself. We won't fight this with hashtags, but with votes, lawsuits, and courage. This is the moment we decide, are we citizens of a republic or spectators to its collapse? Life is so rich.