BREAKING: Vance Says ICE Agent Who Killed Renee Good Deserves Gratitude

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bulwark Takes – “BREAKING: Vance Says ICE Agent Who Killed Renee Good Deserves Gratitude”
Date: January 8, 2026
Host: Tim Miller, with Charlie Sykes, Tim Alberta, and Andrew Sullivan

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Episode Overview

This urgent episode of Bulwark Takes analyzes the White House press briefing following the fatal shooting of Renee Goode by an ICE agent in Minnesota. The episode focuses on Vice President J.D. Vance’s public defense of the ICE officer’s actions, his response to media scrutiny, and the broader, evolving government narrative around the shooting. The panel—Tim Miller, Charlie Sykes, Tim Alberta, and Andrew Sullivan—dissects the administration’s rhetoric, the media’s role, and the grave civil liberties implications raised.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Vice President Vance’s Press Briefing: Rhetoric & Reactions

[01:00-06:49]

• Performance over Empathy:

  • Vance’s appearance was described as “sickening and appalling,” (Charlie Sykes, [01:54]) focusing on attacking the media rather than expressing empathy for Renee Goode or her family.
  • “He showed absolutely no sympathy or regard for Nay Goode, who was killed yesterday, or for her family, for her orphaned children.” — Charlie Sykes ([01:54])
  • The panel notes the contrast with previous leaders who called for calm and empathy in similar tragedies.

• Shifting Claims & Accusations:

  • Vance alternates between labeling Goode a “domestic terrorist” and then retreating, later claiming he “doesn’t know what was in her heart or head.”
  • “If you don't know what's in her fucking heart, then you shouldn't have been calling her a domestic terrorist on Twitter yesterday.” — Charlie Sykes ([04:45])

2. Fact-Checking the Administration’s Narrative

[06:52-11:21]

• Media and Public Scrutiny:

  • Tim Alberta highlights that the administration’s central claim—that Goode tried to ram the ICE agent—is not supported by available video evidence.
  • The panel points out the administration’s refusal to allow independent investigations.

• Government Messaging Strategy:

  • Andrew Sullivan observes the administration has locked onto “domestic terrorism” for messaging, without factual basis, and is stonewalling local law enforcement investigation.

3. Law Enforcement, Use of Force, and Accountability

[11:39-13:16]

• Risk and Responsibility:

  • The show discusses ICE’s justification that the officer was previously injured in a car incident, making him “sensitive.”
  • The hosts argue this makes him unfit for street duty, highlighting the need for greater scrutiny and training.
  • “If this guy, if you think this guy is trigger happy because he's been hit by a car, don't put him in a situation like that.” — Tim Miller ([12:32])

• Policing Protocols:

  • Standard law enforcement practice dictates shooting at moving cars is reckless and ineffective—an obligation is to de-escalate and protect all lives.
  • “There should be a higher bar for police than for say, let's say it was a counter protester.” — Charlie Sykes ([13:16])

4. Capital Punishment and Street Justice

[15:17-18:09]

• Capital Punishment Rhetoric:

  • Vance claims deadly force was justified as self-defense, yet draws a dubious distinction between “justified” use of force and capital punishment.
  • The panel skewers the inconsistency: “As an agent of the state, you don't have the right to do summary execution in the street.” — Charlie Sykes ([17:31])

• Comparisons to Past Incidents:

  • The lack of proportionality and due process is compared with responses to Ashley Babbitt’s shooting during January 6: “Does he believe they had a right to shoot Ashley Babbitt? I guarantee you he would have said no, but what’s the fucking difference?” — Tim Miller ([16:49])

5. Pattern of Official Dishonesty & Lack of Accountability

[18:12-20:50]

• Persistent Falsehoods:

  • The administration is accused of habitually issuing false statements, which aren’t corrected even when disproven by video evidence.
  • “They just lie and they lie and they lie and they lie and they lie.” — Andrew Sullivan ([18:12])

• No Transparent Oversight:

  • Internal investigations remain opaque, and there are concerns the agent’s identity will never be revealed or held to public account.

6. Politicization of Law Enforcement and Targeting of Protest

[20:50-30:14]

• Ramping Up Enforcement:

  • The increased presence of ICE in Minneapolis (targeting Somali and immigrant communities) is tied to a national politicization of immigration enforcement.
  • Vance and others are alleged to be laying a theoretical predicate for targeting liberal and immigrant-support organizations.

• Chilling Effect on Protest:

  • The discussion flags attempts to delegitimize any protest against ICE—labeling “anyone tangentially involved” as a potential domestic terrorist.
  • “Just the idea that you would label anything like that funding terrorism is very, very sinister.” — Tim Miller ([29:13])
  • Examples include official action against an app that notified users of ICE presence.

7. Renee Goode: Humanizing the Victim

[30:14-31:49]

• Personal Detail:
  • According to AP reporting, Goode was a 37-year-old poet, Christian, and mother of three, with no protest background or criminal record beyond a traffic ticket.
  • “Her ex-husband said she was no activist and that he had never known her to participate in a protest of any kind.” — Tim Miller ([30:35])

8. Vance’s “Debt of Gratitude” for ICE Agent

[31:49-33:48]

• Rewarding Violence:

  • Vance insists the ICE agent deserves “a debt of gratitude,” inflaming the panel.
  • “He can't say the investigation is ongoing. He can't say we're going to get to the bottom of what happened. We have to. That's it. Just.” — Andrew Sullivan ([32:21])
  • “This is J.D. Vance being a fucking prick ... it's all a performative political positioning that he's doing and he's not expressing any genuine empathy for the victim.” — Charlie Sykes ([32:34])

• Memorable Close:

  • The episode ends with hosts denouncing the administration's rhetoric as dangerous, dishonest, and predictably performative, reflecting a disturbing new normal in American political discourse.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Empathy Lost:

  • “He showed absolutely no sympathy or regard for Nay Goode, who was killed yesterday, or for her family, for her orphaned children.” — Charlie Sykes ([01:54])

• Calling Out Hypocrisy:

  • “If you don't know what's in her fucking heart, then you shouldn't have been calling her a domestic terrorist on Twitter yesterday.” — Charlie Sykes ([04:45])
  • “You have an obligation as a public servant as somebody that works for all of us for starters, to show your face. And number two, to use discretion.” — Charlie Sykes ([13:16])

• On Law Enforcement Training:

  • “You're not supposed to shoot at moving cars because ... if you shoot somebody and kill them moving car, they press the gas.” — Charlie Sykes ([13:16])

• Double Standards:

  • “What’s the fucking difference if that’s his view of capital punishment for starters?” — Tim Miller ([16:49])
  • “As an agent of the state, you don't have the right to do summary execution in the street.” — Charlie Sykes ([17:31])

• The Systemic Problem:

  • “They just lie and they lie and they lie and they lie and they lie.” — Andrew Sullivan ([18:12])

• Chilling on Protest Rights:

  • “Just the idea that you would label anything like that funding terrorism is very, very sinister.” — Tim Miller ([29:13])

• On Vance’s Performance:

  • “I don't know, man. Fuck him. Like what an insect. ... He can't say the investigation is ongoing ... That's it. Just.” — Andrew Sullivan ([32:21])
  • “This is JD Vance being a fucking prick ... it's all a performative political positioning that he's doing and he's not expressing any genuine empathy for the victim.” — Charlie Sykes ([32:34])

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [01:00] — Discussion opens, recap of Vance press conference
• [01:54] — Charlie Sykes critiques Vance’s rhetoric
• [06:49] — Extended analysis of “we don’t know what’s in her heart”
• [11:46] — Vance’s justification based on ICE agent’s prior injury
• [15:34] — Vance discusses “capital punishment”
• [18:12] — Pattern of dishonesty from authorities
• [22:47] — Increased ICE operations in Minneapolis
• [25:00] — Vance on “left-wing network” and chilling protest
• [30:14] — Humanizing Renee Goode with personal background
• [31:49] — Vance: Agent “deserves a debt of gratitude”
• [32:21] — Panel response: outrage at lack of empathy and accountability

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Tone and Language

The conversation is raw, urgent, and unfiltered—punctuated by explicit language and a palpable sense of anger and urgency. The hosts blend analytical rigor with emotional candor, working to hold power to account and foreground the human stakes of an immediately unfolding tragedy.

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For listeners who missed the episode:
This summary provides a comprehensive breakdown—from the administration’s rhetorical maneuvers to the personal cost for Renee Goode’s family and the alarming implications for civil society and protest rights. The Bulwark team delivers a bracing indictment of the White House’s “performance” and the accelerating normalization of force and misinformation under the guise of law and order.

Transcript

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[Tim Miller]

All right, we're live. Tim Andrew, live. We just watched a press briefing from J.D. vance, the Vice President, and Carol Levit, the White House Press Secretary, defending ICE's actions yesterday, castigating the members of the media for daring to report that they shot a woman who was quite evidently trying to flee the scene. They insist that the, you know, don't believe that. That she was trying to ram this officer. I have so many thoughts. Honestly, I'm exhausted by what I just saw, but I'm gonna let Tim kind of marinate a little bit on this, because this is when Tim's at his best. So what did you take from JD's 30 minutes of berating the media and demanding that we pay respects to ice.

[Charlie Sykes]

It was a truly sickening and appalling performance by the vice president. That's what it was. It was a performance, and he did it as a show. He decided to go out there and decide to castigate the media in order to butch himself up. He showed absolutely no sympathy or regard for Nay Goode, who was killed yesterday, or for her family, for her orphaned children. At times, he would kind of smarmily, like, backtrack and talk about how it's a tragedy. But the performance was mostly talking about how she was a domestic terrorist. She's in the wrong. You know, she shouldn't have been there. That, you know, what happened to her was appropriate. He talked. He, in a very sarcastic, nasty manner, talked about how he felt Bad for her because he thinks that she must have been brainwashed to have to show up there. And this is just sickening behavior. Like, even if you were on the side, which I have not, and we'll talk about that, this was an appropriate action by that ICE agent. Like, even if you were on that side, like, what we would have expected our entire life from the leaders in this country is in a moment like this, in a hotly contested moment, for someone to up and speak and talk about the tragedy and the victims and trying to lower the temperature. You know, there's this big meme on the right. Like, people got very mad at Barack Obama because he showed too much sympathy to. Was it Michael Brown? Right. Like, that was so radicalizing to a lot of people on the right. Ben Shapiro talks about this a lot, that they were too radical. It was Trayvon, not Michael Brown. Is Barack Obama could have been my son. Yeah. Trayvon Martin could have been my son. That was so offensive and radicalizing to them that Barack Obama picked aside in that encounter with Trayvon Martin by taught, by showing empathy for the deceased. And that was the thing that riled them up. And now here we are with now the Vice President of the United States not only showing no empathy, but insulting and maligning the person that was killed in Minnesota yesterday, doing so with lies. You just have to say this bluntly, lying about what happened. And he repeatedly talked about how she tried to ram the officer. The one time he kind of was pressed on that and backtracked a little bit, as he did sort of make it aside, coming about how he can't know what's in her heart. It's like, okay, J.D. if you can't. If you don't know what's in her fucking heart, then you shouldn't have been calling her a domestic terrorist on Twitter yesterday. Right. If you don't really know what is in her head at that point, then you shouldn't be saying that she was trying to ram and kill the police officer. Because they're. You know, based on the video that we've seen, every piece of evidence shows the opposite. She's trying to get away from the police officer. Like, again, you could say she should listen. You should listen to law enforcement. Like, what she did was inappropriate. I again, could quibble with all of that. But that's not upsetting and insulting and appalling. He is lying about her. He's saying that she tried to ram the officer. We can all see the video. She's trying to get away from the officers. She's not trying to kill them. You could defend the officer and say he misinterpreted that in the moment and made a tragic decision. There are a million ways you could talk about this that I might disagree with or quibble with. That would be within totally responsible things for a leader to say when we're, when the intentions are high and when we're still investigating. He does not do that. He paints her as an enemy. He paints her as a domestic foe. He lies about her. He shows no sympathy towards her. And he does so in a lecturing, condescending, smarmy way, acting like if anybody doesn't have the fucking black heart of coal that he has that, then, then. And, and if anyone is sympathetic to her or on her side, then they are crazy. Like they're crazy and wrong. And it is just like it's, it's totally, totally sick. And, and I find him to be repulsive.

[Tim Miller]

Why don't we play. Let's play the part where he says he doesn't know what's in Renee Good's heart. And then, Andrew, you made a very, very valid point on X that I want you to pick up on after this video.

[Charlie Sykes]

You presumably watched the video yourself.

[Tim Alberta]

There's not the slightest doubt in your.

[Charlie Sykes]

Mind, having viewed it, that this the.

[Tim Alberta]

Victim, you still believe that she deliberately.

[Charlie Sykes]

Tried to ram him despite, despite seeing this video.

[Tim Alberta]

Look, I don't know what is in a person's heart or in a person's head. And obviously we're not going to get the chance to ask this woman what was going on. What I am certain of is that she violated the law. What I'm certain of is that that officer had every reason to think that he was under very serious threat for injury or in fact, his life. What I'm certain of is that she accelerated in a way where she ran into the guy. I don't know what was in her heart and what was in her head, but I know that she violated the law and I know that officer was acting in self defense.

[Tim Miller]

All right, Andrew, what do you make?

[Andrew Sullivan]

Yeah, I mean, it's somewhat along the lines of what Tim said a minute ago. Right. I mean, this has been completely core to, to everything that the White House has said about this incident since it first happened yesterday. You know, the first words out of the mouth of the DHS spokeswoman, Trisha McLaughlin, she put it up on X, were this was an act of domestic terrorism. This driver deliberately targeted our ICE agent, JD Vance in that briefing. He said that Renee Goode aimed her car at the ICE agent. The President yesterday said that she willfully and viciously, you know, drove her car into the agent. So they've been, every one of them has been saying this, has been this. The central component of their messaging for slandering this, this woman who was killed yesterday. And J.D. vance gets the tiniest bit of pushback here. I mean, the question isn't even good. I mean, the guy's kind of like, he's almost like embarrassed to ask because he's like, you know, you're, you know, you're kind of lying about this. You know, how everyone alive has seen the video and it doesn't at all describe what you're, what you're talking about in terms of, like, there's no possible way that any sane person would watch that and see a deliberate act of, I'm going to go kill an ICE agent now. You know what I mean? And so, so there's. That's put to him. And immediately he retreats back to, well, you know, we can't really know. We can't really say. And, but, but, but you guys want to accuse the ICE officer of murder. And like, again, like, like Tim said, like, that is a, that in a, in a good world, in a, in a, in a sane world, that would be a thing for a court to decide, for a jury to, to look at all that evidence, unpack it, decide whether, you know, Minnesota law permits, sees that as reasonable suspicion of fear, whatever. Like, all that stuff. That's not going to happen, by the way, because the White House is obstructing any efforts by local law enforcement to open an investigation into this. They're all going to apparently handle it internally at dhs. So that's going to go great. I'm sure there will be a lot of accountability there. But just the fact that their whole narrative of this fight falls apart under just the tiniest little puff of scrutiny here really just shows that they have nothing. I mean, they have nothing here. They're just hollering domestic terrorism.

[Charlie Sykes]

Until. Can I say one more thing about this? He says it doesn't know what's in her head. Earlier today, the vice president again posted about her calling the deceased a deranged leftist. That's what he called her this morning. It's unimaginable that another president or vice president would smear somebody that had just been killed like that in the past. He calls her a deranged leftist. What does deranged mean? Deranged means mentally unsound or insane. So this morning, he Said he does know what is in her head, that she's a deranged leftist who tried to kill the cops.

[Andrew Sullivan]

And he insinuated again at the briefing that she might have been connected to these domestic terrorist leftist groups. The same people who throw bricks at ICE agents. All this stuff, it is completely. He goes one way and then he retreats. Look, I'm not saying this, but I am saying, I mean it's, it's, it's totally like you said, performative and, and really, really gross.

[Tim Miller]

And he also then contradicted himself after that by saying he has no evidence that she has any tie to these groups. He knows nothing. I mean, let's just call it what it is. Like this is Orwellian stuff, right? He knows nothing about this person. He doesn't know anything about why she was there. Does admits that he knows nothing of her motivations, but knows enough to say that the state had the right to kill her. And that's what this is. I want to talk about just two things. One is JVL's try it today because it's a great read and people should, should read it top to bottom. It's fantastic. But there's a part up top just to get everyone's bearings correct that goes through in bullet point form what a normal process would look like around a tragedy like this. I'm not going to read every bullet point, but the last two are very valid because we just witnessed the Vice President speak to this. Jvale writes, if during the encounter something went terribly wrong and the officer used deadly force, there would have been an investigation. As Andrew notes, there's not really two federal officials in the officer's change of command would have said some version of, quote, there's an ongoing investigation and we will comment once we have all of the facts about this tragedy. The nation's political leadership would have responded with empathy and calls for calm, forbearance and unity. And that's just like we just had the act. Exact opposite of that to a degree that was like unsettling for me because he just goes out there and says, yes, this officer had the right to shoot and kill this person, even though I don't know why she was there, even though I don't know what her motivation is. I'm going to misrepresent this video and say she was trying to kill him and he had the right to kill her.

[Charlie Sykes]

I will note there's one orphan is going to watch that video by the way too.

[Tim Miller]

It's crazy.

[Charlie Sykes]

That's why you don't act like this. Like what?

[Tim Miller]

I will just know. And I want to play this. And I'm going to talk at the tail end of this, the video about him blaming the meeting, saying the ICE officer was injured before. I want to play this because it raises another series of questions for me. I'll. I'll pick it up on the other side.

[Charlie Sykes]

Okay.

[Tim Alberta]

The way that the media by and large has reported this story has been an absolute disgrace and it puts our law enforcement officers at risk every single day. What that headline leaves out is the fact that that very ICE officer nearly had his life ended, dragged by a car six months ago, 33 stitches in his leg. So you think maybe he's a little bit sensitive about somebody ramming him with an automobile. What that headline leaves out is that that woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation in, in the United States of America. What that headline leaves out is that that woman has. Is part of a broader left wing network to attack, to docs, to assault, and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job.

[Tim Miller]

Okay. He doesn't know anything about the woman. Again, he admitted it later on. But the thing that caught my eye was this ICE officer who apparently has been hit before, had 30 stitches put in his leg and according to JD Vance, therefore is justified for being trigger happy. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. No, no. If this guy, if you think this guy is trigger happy because he's been hit by a car, don't put him in a situation like that. That's obvious. Why would you deploy someone who you admit is trigger happy? It's just totally irresponsible. This administration's entire approach to justifying what happened is both kind of repulsive, but also doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me.

[Charlie Sykes]

He's worried about. And again, I. Look, if this guy got hit in the car in the past, that, that's horrible. And I do think that I don't impugn everybody that wants to like, look, these are hard jobs and I. People that want to go do law enforcement, sort of the country, I respect their touchy situations. Like, why is he standing? You know what I mean? It's like this. The theory of the case here is that this guy's trigger happy because he got ran by a car before. And so what he does is he goes and walks and stands right in front of the driver of this car and starts scream like at them. A stationary car. Like the whole thing doesn't like that. This is not an excuse. Like you have an Obligation. Like you have an obligation as a public servant as somebody that works for all of us for starters, to show your face. And number two, to use discretion. To use undue discretion. Like there should be a higher bar for police than for say let's say it was a counter protester that went to stand in front of her car. Right. And you get into a moment. Right. Again, this would not be to excuse that. But I'm just saying like you're a law enforcement official should be trained and, and there have been. I talked with Ryan Groom about this today. So be up shortly. Like if anybody that's covered police and these sort of incidents there, there's training and there are rules about how to deal with moving cars. You're not supposed to shoot at moving cars because it doesn't do anything to stop them. For starters. Usually if you shoot somebody and kill them moving car, they press the gas. Right. So it's not. That is incorrect training. You know, you are the people that are public servants are there should be there to de escalate situations like this. Do everything possible to not create additional violence. And so it is like the opposite of an excuse to say that this person was in a situation where they would be expected to be to be trigger happy and nervous. It's like, no, they're trained to treat situations like this where you're dealing with somebody who did not have a weapon. And again she's in her car, people are like, oh, the car's up. And it's like she didn't have a weapon. Everybody calmly went up to the car, tried to talk to her and then she storms away. It's like, okay, that's evading police. You have her license plate number, you can go to her house and you know like, you know, it's that same.

[Tim Miller]

There's so many other ways to deal with this. Just so many other ways to deal with. I want to talk. Let's play the clip of him talking about capital punishment because this one really like perked my or whatever. The phrases got my attention. Yeah, let's pray this one not saying.

[Tim Alberta]

That funding some of this stuff justifies capital punishment. Nobody would suggest that the reason this woman is dead is because she tried to ram somebody with her car and that guy acted in self defense.

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[Tim Miller]

I have so many questions about this. What I was hoping was that someone in the White House press car at some point would have said, do you believe the Capitol Police are right to shoot Ashley Babbitt? I mean, that is what he's saying, right? Like, does he believe they had a right to shoot Ashley Babbitt? And I guarantee you he would have said no, but what's the fucking difference if that's his view of capital punishment for starter.

[Charlie Sykes]

She was breaking into a capital. So that's one difference. But yeah, the thing that it's funny that he caught what caught my ear on that is that like, he says that capital punishment isn't the crime for the people that were allegedly funding her. That's interesting. Why was capital punishment the crime for her?

[Tim Miller]

Because she was attacked. In his view. She was attacking and trying to kill.

[Charlie Sykes]

Right into her head. Like she was trying to storm the. There's no evidence for that. There's like, this is why we have a justice system and juries and try, like, you don't. As a, as an agent of the state, you don't have the right to do summary execution in the street. Okay. And so if he's not for capital, it's like the whole, like, none of it makes any sense. Like, he's trying to, like, make himself sound as reasonable as possible by doing the condescending shtick. But I, Yeah, I thought the. I thought that was interesting. I was like, why did he say that? He's like, oh, it's not a capital punishment crime to. To. To fund these protests, but it was capital punishment for Renee Goode.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. I don't know, Andrew. Why did. Go ahead.

[Andrew Sullivan]

Just to go back for. For one second to the. Just, Just what we were Talking about before with the, The. The officer supposedly having been through this traumatic thing in the past. The thing that I just found so surreal about watching this, I mean, like, he's up there lying just sort of blatantly about all this stuff that just happened yesterday on video that we've seen. And like, we're supposed to just buy his framing of, of like a bunch of other stuff that happened long ago in the past. I mean, like, this is, this has been a pattern with DHS and a lot of these brushes of, of law enforcement with. Or immigration enforcement with protesters and things. I mean, they just lie. They just get up there and they lie and they lie and they lie and they lie and they lie. And like, you, you're in like, this no man's land where, like, you can't check these things. And there's never. These. The internal investigations aren't happening. They're not going forward. There's no accountability. We may never know this guy's name. You know, I mean, like, he might just vanish into the, into the system. And all you have is, you know, the evidence of your own eyes and the ears on one hand and then the spin and the lies and the wagon circling, coming out of DHS on the other.

[Tim Miller]

And it's. There was a moment yesterday where they said, and I, they said our ICE officers have been shot at. And I mean, I might have missed something. And it's totally possible they have. And of course, as Tim said, this is tough work. Like, whatever you think about the ICE mission, it is tough work to like, be put into these situations. I could not for the life of me find the, the instance of some ICE officer being shot up.

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[Tim Miller]

There's been stuff thrown at them for sure. For sure. But that's not an insignificant little detail. Right? Like, have you. I couldn't remember an instant where they've been shot at.

[Andrew Sullivan]

They falsely accused people of, of pulling guns on ICE agents before. This is just something I pulled up from, from Aaron Reichland.

[Tim Miller]

Pulling guns was different obviously than being shot at, but.

[Andrew Sullivan]

But it's. The dishonesty is the point. I mean, let me just read this. Like, right after Trisha McLaughlin put out her statement, he posts this on X. Do not trust. This statement demand that DHS provide hard video evidence of what happened. This is before the videos were even circulating in Chicago after a CPB officer shot a woman. Trisha McLaughlin's first statement claimed she, quote, rammed the car and pulled a gun. Body cam proved this was false, and DOJ dropped all charges. I mean, like, they they lie and then their lies are disproved, but it doesn't matter. They just keep using those lies as though they're true to support more lies and more lies later and more narratives and more like justifications. And it's just this total edifice of dishonesty and invented narrative. And this is what's behind the institution that wants to put more and more and more and more of these people on every street corner in America. I mean, am I, am I going crazy? Like, like this is, this is their response to the way. I don't know, it's all.

[Charlie Sykes]

No, it's, they. Look, part of this is, I mean part, part of this is they want the outrage because they want people to self deport. So part of this is like actually intentional. Part of it is Orwellian spin and defending themselves and whatever part of it is intentional. That's why they do the snuff films because they want people to be scared. They want people to self deport. And so, so part of this is like bluster wwe. But like the real life part of it is what you just said, Andrew. It's. Yeah, it's like, yeah, they're ramping this up and there was, it was a big piece in the New Republic, I think a couple of years ago on, on the ramp up of Border Patrol agents in the first Trump term where they added a bunch and just all the problems that were there, right? And you know, because it's just like you're hiring a bunch of people in a short time. The types of people that are volunteering from are like people got kicked out of police forces and you know, this kind of thing and there were just lots of problems. It's like this is where we're at now where you've got, where there's this huge ramp up. They're trying to hire a bunch of ice people instead of being on the border. They're in American streets, they're in neighborhoods and this is a neighborhood right in Minneapolis proper, like, like 30ish blocks from downtown. But it's like if you're, if you're ramping up about, like this is inevitably going to happen, right? Like again, like if they, if they were, if there's this, a more judicious and meticulous process, they wouldn't be putting, even if this is true, it wouldn't be putting somebody that had a bunch of stitches that had been ran to a car in the situation. They'd find something else to do until, you know, he'd gone through therapy and figured out you know, and like been ready to get back to deployed. That's how this stuff works.

[Tim Miller]

Do we even know why they were.

[Charlie Sykes]

In the neighborhood, Cane out there? You know what I mean? Like, they're just high. They're just taking people off and like throwing them into city streets they're not trained for. And this guy acted in a way that was against all of the protocols for training in a situation like this.

[Tim Miller]

Do we guys, do we know why they. I haven't seen the reporting on this, but do we know why they're in that specific neighborhood? Has that been answered?

[Andrew Sullivan]

Vance said in the briefing that they were just doing sort of door to door immigration enforcement. It is notable that they have stepped up ICE operations in Minnesota in particular due to all of these, you know, fraud stories that are going around and this specific new focus on.

[Charlie Sykes]

Did you see this, the video from the Minneapolis airport yesterday? Like simultaneous got lost. So simultaneously and all this was happening. They have ICE agents going up to the Uber and cab drivers at the airport because they got a lot of Somalian, Somali, excuse me, Uber drivers and stuff. And so they're like these conference there were like, these were going. It's one of the things, if they hadn't killed somebody in a different place in Minneapolis, this would have been the thing on social media yesterday was that there are a lot of these confrontations with like Somali Uber drivers shouting at Bavino was there and some of their ICE agents being like, why do I have to show you my license? Like, you know, why are you targeting me? And so I think that they're just, you know, have chosen Minneapolis for, for political reasons.

[Tim Miller]

Again, let me, let me add it, let me add to what you're talking about, Tim, because I do think one other element of what they're trying to do here beyond the immigration stuff and the self deportation stuff is I think they're trying to lay the predicate to a degree to go after liberal institutions that tend to fund pro immigration stuff. And so you had this moment and well, let's queue up the video about who threw the brick. You have this moment where he sort of talks about like, well, who paid for the brick? And it's like, you know, maybe people are paying for bricks and handing them to agitators, but maybe there are bricks lying around that.

[Charlie Sykes]

I got a brick in my backyard right now.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it's not like, I don't know if people need to like have bricks paid for. But that to me was a real tell. Like they, you know, they want. And of course now the actual News here is they hired the special counter, they're going to hire a special counselor, appointed special counsel to look into all this stuff. And combined with the Somali fraud stuff that they're doing, they're going to go pretty hard legally on institutions that fund the welfare state and pro immigration initiatives, and those tend to have ties to liberal funders. And so I think there's a real legal political component here too. But let's play the brick clip and you guys can react on the other side.

[Charlie Sykes]

You just suggested that this woman who was killed, Renee Good, is part of a, a broader left wing network. Who do you think is behind this broader left wing network?

[Tim Alberta]

Well, it's one of the things we're going to have to figure out. But here's the way that I put it. When somebody throws a brick at an ICE agent or somebody tries to run over an ICE agent who paid for the brick and who told protesters to show up and engage in violent activity against our law enforcement officers, you see just with this most recent terrible incident in Minneapolis, you see friends of this woman's or other people who are eyewitnesses saying basically that she was there to engage in obstruction of a legitimate law enforcement operation. How did she get there? How did she learn about this? There's an entire network, and frankly, some of the media are participating in it, that is trying to incite violence against our law enforcement officers. It's ridiculous, it's preposterous. And part of our investigatory work is getting to the bottom of it. Who's funding it, who's supporting it, who's cheerleading it. And of course, if there's illegal activity, us related to that, we're going to get to the bottom of that and prosecute it where we can.

[Tim Miller]

So that, that's pretty chilling in its own right because basically saying is that we're going to go after constitutionally protected protest and First Amendment rights.

[Charlie Sykes]

Right? Yeah.

[Andrew Sullivan]

I don't know how else you would read it. I mean, it's, it's, it's the, the, the, the, what this is doing in this argument right here is it's creating sort of like a presumption of like, culpability on the part of anybody who ICE might have a brush with anywhere at any point in time where, you know, if things get hairy, the person was a domestic terrorist. I mean.

[Charlie Sykes]

Right.

[Andrew Sullivan]

That's, that's all it is. And he, he, again, when pressed, like we played in the clip earlier, he will say they have absolutely no reason to believe that's actually true other than that they, they kind of think it might be, they don't know what's in her heart or whatever. But, but this is an infinitely replicable template for them to be, to say, well, you know, how'd this person get into this camera, into this video frame at all with this ICE agent who is, you know, performing violence on them? Well, it must be something, must be something criminal, must be something that, that, that shows them to be, to be a terrorist who, who, who is justified in having state violence applied toward. And like I say, like they could apply that to literally any, any, any footage of, of ICE doing anything to.

[Charlie Sykes]

Anybody as they've been laying the predicate. We're going after the groups for a while, Sam. It's one of the things I was surprised didn't happen. It could have. I think it's going to happen more this year. And I interviewed what a couple days ago now, Imran Ahmed, who, you know is, they tried to pull his green card and deport him because of his advocacy on essentially anti hate speech on the Internet. And so that's one way, you know, you can go after leaders of groups who are funding this sort of thing if they're not American citizens, if they're here on green cards. I, I would have thought the tax that, you know, I don't have to give them ideas that this sort of thing would have gone through treasury at this point. But, but they definitely want to do it. I don't exactly, it's unclear exactly why they haven't, frankly.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. I will just say our colleague Adrian, who writes subtle masses, you know, he, he interviews groups and he's done it in Chicago and elsewhere who do monitor ICE and are trying to look out for ice. And they're doing it because they are trying to protect communities that are going to be harmed by ICE and because they do want to organize some sort of protests around ice. And there's nothing wrong with that.

[Charlie Sykes]

I mean that is good actually. Good actually. It should be happening. Yeah. People have a right to go into your neighborhood in a free country. And again, like her, Renee Good's spouse said that she was not an activist, part of activist.

[Tim Miller]

Right, we'll get into that. Sec.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah, yeah. But, but whatever her role is, in a free country you are allowed to go around your neighborhood and blow a whistle and say, hey, people in the neighborhood, there are cops going door to door here. That is something that's not allowed in China or North Korea, but in a free country we can do that here, and execution should not be a punishment for it.

[Tim Miller]

100%. Just the idea that you would label anything like that funding terrorism is very, very sinister.

[Andrew Sullivan]

Can I add one more thing on the, on the subject of that specific thing because that is an area where they have already actually taken action right about against, you know, for instance, a guy who developed an app that would, that would, you know, give you a push notification if, if there was sightings of ICE in your neighborhood or things like that, which is exactly the same as, you know, if you're on Google Maps or whatever. Sometimes you'll get like a pop up, like hey, there's a speed trap up ahead, something like that. Literally exactly the same thing. But they, they went after this guy legally, they got his app removed from App Store. So like when we're talking about, you know, possible future action against different groups that are related to this, obviously like Tim says, there's a lot more that they could be doing but they have already begun and it's, and it's all again part of this same thing to label with the broadest possible brush anybody who is tangentially involved in doing anything that ICE finds unsavory, a domestic terrorist.

[Tim Miller]

I'm going to talk a little bit about Renee Goode because I think it's important to remember her and talk about who she was. This person also sort of dispel some of the stuff that J.D. vance was talking about on there. And then I'm going to play this last clip which is JD Vance talking about who we should express gratitude for. But first about Renee Goode. This is just from the Associated Press. It's a piece that came up, looks at her life. She's 37 year old, mother of three. She had recently moved to Minnesota. Born in Colorado, she had never been charged with anything involving law enforcement beyond a traffic ticket. She was a described as a poet, a writer and wife and a mom she had and she said she was currently experiencing Minneapolis displaying a pride flag emoji on her Instagram account. Her ex husband said she was no activist and that he had never known her to participate in a protest of any kind. He described her as a devoted Christian who took part in youth mission trips to Northern Ireland when she was younger. Malik Goode, or Macklin Goode, I should say leaves behind three children, a daughter and her son from her first marriage who are now ages 15 and 12 and a six year old son from her second marriage who's now orphaned. JD Vance says he doesn't know anything about what was in her heart in that moment, but he knows enough that she should have Been killed because.

[Andrew Sullivan]

She.

[Tim Miller]

Drove in the wrong direction. I want to talk, I want to leave on this Last clip of J.D. vance talking about gratitude. Let's play it afterwards. Andrew, you go and then Tim, you close us out.

[Tim Alberta]

Everybody's saying a prayer for that. That agent. Look, in the past six months, he has been hit twice by a motor vehicle. One time, the first time it led to over 30 stitches and very serious injuries to his legs. This is a guy who's actually done a very, very important job for the United States of America. He's been assaulted, he's been attacked, he's been injured because of it. He deserves a debt of gratitude. And I think the media prejudging and talking about this guy as if he's a murderer is one of the most disgraceful things I've ever seen for the American media.

[Tim Miller]

Andrew.

[Andrew Sullivan]

I don't know, man. Fuck him. Like what an insect. Like, just. He can't say the investigation is ongoing. He can't say we're going to get to the bottom of what happened. We have to. We have to. That's it. Just.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sullivan]

The vice President.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah, I like, it's. Again, it's not real. It's not even real. Okay. Going back to the Obama, Trayvon or Trayvon thing, like, at least I felt like Obama was being genuine. He did feel genuine emotion for that person. This is JD Vance being a fucking prick. He doesn't really, he doesn't really feel a debt of gratitude for this guy. Guy. Like, it's all a performative political positioning that he's doing and he's not expressing any genuine empathy for the victim. And you know, again, having the back of law enforcement in tough situations is one thing, but like this guy that shot Renee Good did. So if you just look at the still shots, like the second and third shot that he, that he released from his gun happened when she was like, still dead, but also well past him. Like he's on the side of the car, like to the, the second and third bullets going through the side window. So like the, the, you know, J.D. vance trying to use him and martyr him and what Kyle Wittenhouse him or whatever for political ends and pretending like he's doing it out of some genuine gratitude is fucking appalling and despicable. And that's just what we've come to expect from our vice president.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, definitely, definitely depressing press conference for sure, but totally expected. I went into it being like, I, I knew exactly what he was going to do. Everyone knew he was going to do. Is so to your point, it was so performative, so predictable.

[Charlie Sykes]

The worst one for me, worse than Zalinsky, I think for me, the worst.

[Tim Miller]

One, I, I Linsky was like an odd, odd one because I, I thought there might be confrontation, but it was like peaceful for a little while and then it got confrontational, this one. It was just like everyone knew JD Vance was going to be called there. He was going to scream at the press, he's going to take the guy's side. He's going to call us, you know, traitors and insufferable lunatics for thinking that this was anything other than self defense. And it's just like you could have just emailed it in, just emailed the press release. All right. I don't have anything more to say except for this. I appreciate you guys walking through the stuff. I appreciate the people who tuned in to hear us talk about this stuff. It's pretty raw. I mean, we didn't take much time to sort of gather our thoughts and think about it. We just jumped on because we wanted to talk to you about it, have a community discussion about it. And if you like what you heard, if you enjoy these types of discussions in the moment, raw. I just encourage you to subscribe to the Bulwark. We do this stuff fairly regularly. We're going to be doing it more, but we need the support of our community members. So subscribe to the Bulwark, hit like button, share the content and we will be in touch soon. Thanks, guys.