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- [00:00]
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- [01:00]
Host/Interviewer
And my friend Peter Hamby had tweeted the other day. He said, I'd like to see a focus group of real, actual cops giving honest analysis of ICE officers in the field. And I was like, that's a good idea. We should find cops and find out what they think. Now I also knew that was not going to be easy. It's like not easy to just go screen for cops because a, you've got to find police officers who are in the systems of people that they can find that that's their occupation. And then you've got to get them at a time when they know there's a lot of attention around cops to come participate in a focus group. But we did find 14 law enforcement officers. We talked to a group of Trump voting cops and a group of Kamala Harris voting cops. And I'm going to use cops broadly. I'm going to use law enforcement officers because they were a mix of federal law enforcement, retired police officers, beat cops, some correctional facility officers. But they all have training and they all had strong opinions on the way that professionals comport themselves in this line of business.
- [02:11]
Tim Miller
I love this. I didn't know what I was signing up for. Actually, when I said, you just come react to my focus group, I didn't even know it was going to be what Peter requested. And it's important, especially because when I was on peers that the asshole, the officer Brandon Tatum, kept yelling at me like, are you a Cop. Are you a cop? And I was like, no, but I'm pretty sure cops think this is bad. So let's, we can, we can vet my priors there, here.
- [02:32]
Host/Interviewer
Well, that's interesting. Do you, do you want to guess at all at the difference between the Trump voting cops and the Kamala Harris voting cops?
- [02:42]
Tim Miller
My guess is that the Harris voting cops are across the board say that like they acted inappropriately. I mean, you know, maybe there's some caveats about, you know, whatever. You always want to defend somebody in your business at some level and at least give somebody a little bit of the benefit of the doubt. But like they're mostly negative. And my guess is that the Trump cops are kind of inverse where they want to give them the benefit of the doubt first but then also caveat like, but I don't know about that. That would be my guess.
- [03:10]
Host/Interviewer
Tim Miller, that is just incredibly good guesswork and human understanding on your part.
- [03:16]
Tim Miller
Hey, I can put people on the couch with the best of them long while you can. I understand how this little brainy brain works up here.
- [03:25]
Host/Interviewer
This, that was pretty spot on. So let's start with this and then I'm going to offer we have to do a short version of this. I mean, part of it is obviously the pod is coming out Saturday that is actually with voters around the Minneapolis shooting and that's with Adrian Carrasquillo who does our immigration reporting. But I just, I wanted to get this out as quickly as possible because I thought that this was really interesting and I thought it would be valuable to just from, for the public to kind of have this, that this is how these, these cops are thinking about it. So let's start with how these cops talked about ICE generally, especially in the Harris group. And so let's just start with that. Let's listen.
- [04:04]
Law Enforcement Officer 1
ICE has single handedly set police back easily 100 to 50 to 100 years. Easily because the amount of community involvement that I know we did with Baltimore county, like we had people in that community that were absolutely terrified when ICE moved in. I'm glad that I medicald out because I would kind of hate to be a cop right now because you're dealing with. Because what one badge does, everybody gets blamed for it.
- [04:31]
Law Enforcement Officer 2
I think ICE is really being used.
- [04:33]
Law Enforcement Officer 3
As an enforcement arm of the current administration against political enemies or people that.
- [04:39]
Tim Miller
They view as enemies. And like others have said here, it ends up reflecting badly on law enforcement. General. I think it's just going to accelerate hostilities. I'm like full of feelings right now.
- [04:53]
Host/Interviewer
It's like surreal.
- [04:54]
Law Enforcement Officer 1
It's like the Wild west and they.
- [04:56]
Host/Interviewer
Are covering their face like cowboys and with like bandanas.
- [05:00]
Law Enforcement Officer 4
I trained with border patrol for a while, so I know what their mission is. I know what it was supposed to be. I don't think they're following that today. I think they have this, to me, cowboy ass mentality where there is a covering for no matter what they do, they'll always be covered. And with that being said, one incident over here, one incident over here, and now we're seeing more incidents just happening because they are not afraid of repercussions because there are not really a lot of repercussions for their actions. Do I think that they should be dismantled? Yes. Dismantle them, come back with a new mission statement, with new training.
- [05:42]
Law Enforcement Officer 3
Talking about the masking. It's absurd to me. Law enforcement is supposed to be part of the community and it's absurd to cover your face. I understand doxing is an issue. There are certain risks you accept in law enforcement and that feels like it falls in that category. And if you don't want to get doxxed and you don't want negative attention or threats, don't do things that are going to bring negative attention and threats to you. And like, with the tactics, if that's what you'll call it, it's very poor. Best case scenario, those tactics are kind of unprofessional. Worst case, they're criminal. When I see the cell phone video coming out of Minnesota recently, I don't recognize what that law enforcement is like. I don't understand what they're doing. I don't understand why they're doing it.
- [06:28]
Law Enforcement Officer 1
When I jump out of my truck, I got people running back into their apartments or staring at me and making phone calls, whistling to other people because they think ICE is here and I'm not ice, but they see a uniform and now I'm, I'm ice, you know, so that's, that's been a issue I've been dealing with the last month or so. You know, it's making my job a little bit harder.
- [06:51]
Host/Interviewer
So I want to sit with this Harris group. They were like torn up like. And I gotta say to me, one of the biggest differences between the two groups, having not played the Trump voting group sound yet, but the ones in this group very much could put themselves in the position of the people who were shot. Like, there was a. There were a few different through lines like. And one was sort of how they all talked about their profession and what it means to be professional. In their line of work. But like, there was an empathy in this group for the people who were shot that I will say in the other group, there was much more. And you kind of caught this right from the beginning, right? They were in the shoes of the other law enforcement officers, whereas these were law enforcement officers, but also could empathize with the victim. But what did you make out of that sound?
- [07:37]
Tim Miller
First thing is, I just feel so bad for that last person who seems like they're still in active duty law enforcement. And I. I get this. I felt that way talking to Mayor Fry about like, the. The Minneapolis cops. Imagine being a Minneapolis cop, right? Like, you went through the whole George Floyd thing. People were pissed at you. You know, you do this work for five years to, like, re. Engender trust with the community, you know, and to build trust back. And assuming, you know, you. You stayed on the force, I wanted to keep doing that. Like, a lot of those folks are I better. Super proud. And you can kind of hear that in the Chief o' Hara when he's talking about the police work that they did last year, you know, and then now to hear from that guy and just kind of representative of. I'm sure there are other law enforcement that are going through this right now where they're like, I'm being dragged through the mud because of what these other people are doing, you know, like, we're trying our best in a tough job, you know. So anyway, I felt bad for him, and I feel bad for law enforcement right now that are doing it the right way. The two things that just struck me are kind of related from two different people there. One was the guy who said he trained with border patrol, and he's like, this is not their mission. And the other was from the guy that said it's absurd to cover your face. Like, say you get doxed or whatever. Like, that's part of the job. Like, it's absurd. You cover your face and you sign up for this. And I think, to me, that's the biggest takeaway from. From that little set of sound, right? Like these. This law enforcement is like, this is not the mission. Like, what they are doing is not what we're trained to do. It is not the mission of law enforcement. It's not the mission of border patrol. They're doing it in a way that is opposite from, you know, how we're supposed to do it. It's absurd how they're doing it. Was the one, to use one guy's word, you know, I mean, that you'd Love to hear you like to hear that. Right? Makes you feel better. You know that there are other people in law enforcement that are looking at this and say, this is directly contrary to how we're supposed to do this job. And if you believe that, then that I think also ties to the fact that you don't feel like you have to be defensive of it. It's like, this doesn't reflect badly on me because they're doing something that's totally contrary to the mission and to what I've been trained to do.
- [09:44]
Host/Interviewer
I was very struck by at a moment where I think tensions get high and you feel in maybe like some hostility toward law enforcement. Like listening to these guys talk would make a lot of people feel a lot better about how law enforcement is viewing this because they are sitting there and they're like, that is not how you get trained. They're like, this is not our job. This isn't what we're supposed to do. And I gotta say, as we went through the groups, I would say in the Harris group, for the most part there was unanimity that both shootings were wrong. In the Trump group, nobody was willing to say that the pretty shooting was justified. They weren't willing to say it was unjustified, but they weren't willing to say it was justified. And so I think that there was like, there's clearly a difference. And so in the Harris group, you do get some people saying, you know, you're not supposed to put your body in front of a car. Like you are trained specifically not to do that. On the other hand, like maybe the first shot if you got scared about it, but like not the other two, you know, like there was. I don't want to leave because I can't play all the sound from the. They were both two hour groups. I don't want to leave the impression that the Harris voting group was without nuance in their, like looking at the situation. But it was interesting how much they were like, this isn't how the jobs are supposed to be done, like. And so like, yeah, they did it and they were sad that it, it might reflect on them, but also they were really viewing it as observers of people saying like, no, that's the wrong way to do it. So I can't, I won't defend that.
- [11:20]
Tim Miller
I'm just curious, just for the group psychology, did you tell them they were all Harris voters?
- [11:24]
Host/Interviewer
Yes, we always tell people right up front actually that they're with people because they relax.
- [11:29]
Tim Miller
Yeah, right.
- [11:30]
Host/Interviewer
If we had put the groups together, it Wouldn't have gone well. Everybody gets.
- [11:35]
Tim Miller
They get their back up a little bit. They get sense, and they're not. They're not giving their full point of view because they don't want to get.
- [11:40]
Host/Interviewer
That's right.
- [11:41]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [11:42]
Host/Interviewer
The most important thing in any focus group is to get people to be honest. And I would say there was in the, in the Trump group, and we'll get, we'll get to that in just a second. There were three no shows, which, you know, you could just tell. And in the Trump group, the Harris group had a lot of feelings. They wanted to talk about them. The Trump group had a lot of, we need to wait and see. I want to be very careful. And, and like, three people didn't show up. You could just see that it does not. Like, they're not. They're not in the mood to.
- [12:17]
Tim Miller
I talked to my mother last night, who has a mixed group of friends. She was talking about how at the, at, you know, the Ladies Ladies dinner this week was the. The Harris group voting moms were a lot more interested in talking about politics and Trump voting.
- [12:33]
Host/Interviewer
Everybody has their own version of strategic silence when they're quote, unquote, side does something bad. All right, let's. Let's keep going through the sound. I want to talk about how the Harris cops talked specifically about the killing of Alex Preddy in Minneapolis this weekend. Let's listen.
- [12:48]
Law Enforcement Officer 3
Whenever there's a highly publicized police shooting, it's getting publicized because there's questions over whether it was a good shoot. I think in law enforcement, there's usually a. Well, you have to put yourself in that moment. You have to understand they're making a quick decision. You have to understand law enforcement is usually quick to, I don't want to say defend, but kind of explain or justify why it was a good shooter or a bad shoot. And over the last few weeks, months, year, it's getting harder and harder for people around me to have, like, a good faith conversation about why something was a good shoot.
- [13:22]
Law Enforcement Officer 5
The thing that has been really horrifying to see is the lack of respect for rights, whether that's, you know, going after somebody for taking video. And I know cops have a long, bad history of not understanding that one. I get it. Nobody likes getting videoed, but, you know, just spraying people who pose no threat. I remember use of force training from day one, and I'm not sure where on the continuum standing 30ft away was, but I don't think it was at the, the pepper spray level. You know, taking people, arresting people who were Just witnesses to an event. The shooting of Renee.
- [14:05]
Tim Miller
Good.
- [14:05]
Law Enforcement Officer 5
That first shot, maybe, maybe I could understand. Guy put himself in the position. That was some officer created jeopardy right there. Which is a problem in and of itself. But you know what? I could kind of understand that one. But the next two shots through the open window into her head. Can't see how that's justified. Some of the stuff that my, my very liberal friends especially talk about. I'm like, eh, whatever. You know, the, the ICE officer calling her name.
- [14:31]
Law Enforcement Officer 6
Good.
- [14:32]
Law Enforcement Officer 5
A fucking bitch after he shot her. I mean, doesn't sound good. But if you genuinely think somebody just tried to kill you, I get it. I probably. Most officer involved shootings involve a little.
- [14:43]
Law Enforcement Officer 1
Profanity afterwards and that's never what you want to do in your life is take another human life unless you absolutely have to.
- [14:51]
Tim Miller
Sorry.
- [14:52]
Law Enforcement Officer 1
I'm just. Sorry. Just triggered flashback at bad moment.
- [14:57]
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- [15:57]
Host/Interviewer
Conversation with the police officers, especially in the Harris Group, but kind of in both of them, they were like very heavy conversations. Like these are people feeling the emotional weight of the moment in ways that clearly they've experienced in their jobs over time. But you heard that guy. That was actually the piece of sound that had stuck in my head where he was like maybe the first shot and you know, like, there's not no defense in these people of, of the other officers. But how did that strike you?
- [16:26]
Tim Miller
I hear that. I understand that guy, right? For the example of, you know, some of my liberal friends, like are upset that he called her a bitch afterwards. But, like, you know, you're in a tense situation, you're going to cuss afterwards. I'm defensive of that. And that, to me, that lends more credibility to the critique, right? It's like, I've been in this situation, I'm not unsympathetic. I'm not just railing against these people. And I get that you sometimes say stuff you don't want to hear, again, on video, intense situations. And yet still, the two shots to the side of the head to the side window were wrong. To me, that gives that testimony a lot of credibility because a lot of the inverse people of us, like the pundit types who are defensive of Trump, will they say, well, in those situations, you don't know, you know what I mean? You keep firing until the threat is neutralized, or all this. And it's like, this is somebody speaking from expertise. It's like, no, actually, that's not right. What seems logical to those of us who have been critical of this is what you're trained to do, which is not unload your clip to be judicious. The other part of that I do think is important because it gets lost for good reason, obviously, because of the two murders. Just the treatment of protesters in general. Right. It's just wrong. And again, the person in the focus group there is speaking with empathy, right? Saying, basically, I get it, I don't want to be videotaped. It's annoying to be shouted at. Right. And yet we're trained on how to deal with perceived threats. And if someone's standing 30ft away blowing a whistle and videotaping you, the response to that isn't pepper spray and smoke bombs. Right. And I do think that is another thing that has escalated the tensions in Minneapolis, which is time and again these guys have come in and, and use these non lethal methods to go after peaceful protesters because, you know, either they're not trained well or they want to escalate, or they're sensitive and, like, aren't used to this environment and aren't reacting well. And I thought that was, that's an important, like, point that that guy makes. That's, that's kind of like the first step that has led to the worst parts of all this. The way they've handled, you know, the protesters, just more generally.
- [18:41]
Host/Interviewer
Yeah, there was a big through line in this group, actually in both groups about the training of these officers. Like, these guys were all able to talk about their training. It's a very long segment, so I can't include it all here. But it was them saying that one of the first things you're done is like, you are, you are trained in how to deal with stress, like to keep your stress down and be like very. Even in like heightened and stressful situations. But they were very critical of the idea that the ICE agents might be being put out on the streets in these very stressful situations with not a lot of time on the job. It wasn't just the training. It was like, hey, you know, a lot of times you go through your training and then you go into this particular job where it kind of like eases you in and you get to see some things that then if you're. When you're in like the really heightened situations, you're much better trained for. And they ever. And this was across both groups the point about training and what it takes to be well trained, which, like, was a deep frustration in this group. Not just like they're not trained, but also they, they think they don't look like real law enforcement officers. Like, there was a lot of anger, not just about the masks, but they're like, why are they wearing their sweatshirts over things? Like, why are they just like pepper spraying indiscriminately? Why do they look like they just rolled out of bed? Like, one of guys does this whole speech about how he wakes up every morning and he puts on his uniform and he feels pride in putting on his uniform and what he does and like in looking like a person in uniform. And he was like very upset with the lack of professionalism around like bandanas and sweatshirts and stuff, which I was like an interesting point.
- [20:24]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it does make, it makes sense, right? I like that there's a reason why they're in uniform. You know, it's not just like for, for kicks or for like, you know, it's not a play acting. It's not wwe, right? Like, they're in uniform because they want people to know that they're law enforcement. They want to be transparent. Like, it all works together. Like, you know, we've developed these norms over hundreds of years with, for policing for a reason, right? There continue to be mistakes, but like at the beginning of policing it was super corrupt, right? And so like over time you develop these norms. And so it would make sense that they would feel like put off by the fact that these guys are just disregarding all of them.
- [21:03]
Host/Interviewer
I want to switch gears to the Trump 24 cops. There weren't really people like, willing to defend. Like I said, they weren't defending it, but there was a Lot of don't rush to judgment. Don't Monday morning quarterback. They didn't want to be in a position of Monday morning quarterbacking because they don't like it when people do that to them. So let's listen to how these cops talk about both the Preddy and the good shootings and how they view them as different.
- [21:23]
Law Enforcement Officer 2
I've been in very similar situations as a highway patrolman, fortunately, didn't have to discharge my weapon at a moving car like that. But the vehicle becomes a deadly weapon. She is using deadly force at the time that she accelerates forward with him.
- [21:41]
Law Enforcement Officer 3
In front of the car.
- [21:42]
Tim Miller
My thought is, I hope they've done the right thing.
- [21:48]
Law Enforcement Officer 5
I hope that they acted properly.
- [21:51]
Tim Miller
And I don't know the whole story yet, but I also hope that if they didn't act properly, that there's transparency and that there are consequences to the right people.
- [22:06]
Law Enforcement Officer 2
Eleven days prior, he was in an incident with customs and order agents. So whether they knew it at that time or not, don't know if they did. It could have heighten their spidey sentence senses. But he chose to show up. He. He chose to leave the sidewalk. He chose to interject himself into a customs and Border patrol ICE operation, and he clearly impeded their duties when he put himself between them and the woman that they were going after. Now and then, I'm trying to be very careful because I've been there, done that. When they went hands on, not the shove, but when they went hands on, on with him, he actively resisted. And during this whole time, they may not have known he had a weapon on him. I don't know. I don't know what they knew. But if they knew that he was the same person from 11 days ago where he was armed then as well, then that's intelligence that's being used to take him down again. But he actively resisted up until the point he was shot. Was the shooting justified? I can't answer that because I don't know what was going on in that scrum.
- [23:33]
Law Enforcement Officer 6
I had heard somebody say, well, once he was disarmed, the threat was over. And I kind of confused me because, you know what, who's to say he didn't have another gun? We can't always have the assumption that, oh, he only had one gun. I mean, I always felt like you had to be sure. And I'm not saying they were right or whatever, but to me, how do they know the threat's over? And I don't like anyone commenting, you know, like, oh, well, they took the gun Away from him, everything was fine. And that somebody made a statement. I'm not sure, I don't remember their name, but they were some kind of official. And I thought, well, that's very premature to say that. And here we go with the Monday morning quarterback again.
- [24:19]
Law Enforcement Officer 7
And one of the most important legal precepts for use of force is totality of the circumstances and what a reasonable person in that situation would reasonably conclude. You know, The. The threat of not just harm, but. But deadly force, serious bodily harm, things like that. So in the good case, that officer had already been seriously struck and hospitalized for someone trying to run him over in a separate vehicle in a separate incident. And as this woman acting in similar manner, using a vehicle to run somebody over is not something that the general public necessarily always thinks is deadly force, but from a legal perspective, it absolutely is.
- [25:09]
Host/Interviewer
All right, so I wanted to give you a flavor of sort of the Trump voting police officers or law enforcement officers, because I just want to throw this one thing out there and have you wrestle with it with me. There's a reason that getting that video of Alex Preddy out from, you know, the week prior or 11 days prior, or getting the information out about the cop who maybe had PTSD from being dragged by a they. Part of that is to inject this information to cloud what looks like something very clear, right? So now they want to say, well, who knows what could have what, you know, he was clearly agitated in 11 days before, and who knows what the cops knew. And I've been thinking about this a lot. I wonder what your reaction is to that, about the way that they sort of use this information to say, you don't know. You weren't in that situation.
- [26:04]
Tim Miller
Well, no, I mean, that's a classic, you know, propaganda tool, right? I mean, they are. The administration is intentionally, you know, trying to provide for its own supporters or for just people in the country, like an alternative narrative that they can grab onto. This is why people hire researchers on campaigns, right? Like, you go and look through people's backgrounds and you try to use a legal term like impeach them. Right. It's the same thing as what lawyers do, impeach the witness, Right? Like a witness comes on and says, oh, your client did it, you know, but the defense team finds that the witness that says your client did it once lied about something else in the past. Right? They were kicked out of college for doing, you know, like, this is a classic maneuver to try to go at people's credibility. These guys, the MAGA guys, are really good at it and very intentional about it, because they're kind of shameless about it. You know, like a lot of times back when I was doing campaigns, you know, if we would do something, I was ever defending murders. But, you know, if there was an equivalent situation where someone was criticizing my candidate, I might give a piece of information to a reporter and have them write a story. So then it's out there for people to find these guys, give a piece of information to a reporter for a story, and then have every single person in the administration go out there and echo it and put it on social media and go on Fox. And they're just shameless about doing this. And so obviously that's working to some effect. It's not completely working, though. The other thing that struck me in that group is just the caveating. You know, I was in a situation like that, but I didn't have to discharge my weapon. One guy said, the one guy kept using the word hope. I hope that it was justified. I hope it was. But then he said, if it wasn't, I hope that there's consequences for the right person. I thought that was interesting. The other guy seems like he's defending the, the officers throughout the whole, throughout his whole kind of monologue. But then at the end of it, he says, but is it justified? I can't answer that. Right. And then there's another person that started caveating, saying, I'm not saying they were right. So, you know, they wanted to be defensive of it, but none. There was nobody there that was definitively saying that what they saw was, was appropriate.
- [28:19]
Host/Interviewer
Yes. I also want to just note, there's a woman, she kind of tosses it in there, and it's, it's unclear because she's, you know, casting about a little bit. But as you know, an official came out with a, with a thing right away that wasn't true. That was more Monday morning quarterbacking. And we asked all of the police officers what they made of Kristi Noem and some of the members of the administration coming out right away and saying that he was a domestic terrorist and that he was there to do mass casualty harm. Because we were asking the Trump cops about him carrying a gun. Like, what did they think about the fact that, you know, he was exercising the Second Amendment rights? It's so funny how I never know, does the administration focus grouping these people? Or, like, is this like a common thing? People say, because they were all pretty much on the same page in the Trump group, that, of course you have a Second Amendment right. Of course you know, you're allowed to. But like, it is unwise. They're like, it is unwise to walk into one of these situations with a gun. And so, you know, you could, you could see the administration trying to find that level in there sort of, and Megan Kelly and others. I, I want to offer a couple things though, about that new video. So we have seen, you know, Guy Benson, there was like a bunch of people who were release, putting that video out being like this, this is new context that's very, very interesting or very useful in, in evaluating this. And I, I was immediately like, no, it's not. What is the, what is the value? I was like, okay, if there's value to it, if there's context to it that you think is, is so relevant, what they mean is, look how hostile this guy is. Look at him spitting and kicking at the car. And I was like, well, the additional context on top of that is a week earlier you shot one of his neighbors in the face and you're all over the streets of his community, like pepper spraying people indiscriminately covering your faces, like, yeah, he's mad, but also, even though they're very rough with him, they throw him to the ground, they don't shoot him after he. And so like, what it shows you is that actually you can have this interaction without putting 10 bullets in the guy's back. To me, that's the additional context.
- [30:24]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I think, Well, I think there was another element of additional context that kind of came out in that group, in the Trump cop group that cuts a little bit both ways, right? Because the one guy said, you know, that brings up the video 11 days ago and he says, I wonder if the officers that are there were part of that other altercation and maybe that had them. I don't remember his exact quote, but something to effective. Maybe they had their backup or they're a little more on guard because they recognized him from the other altercation. I've seen some social media reporting that maybe it seems like one of the guys was. It's not been verified. I just want to be clear. But you can even hear in that guy's voice, he's kind of doing that. That context cuts both ways because it's like, on the one hand, you know, it means maybe they had reason to be worried this person was violent. On the other hand, maybe it means they acted rashly because they had this image of him in their head and they misjudged the situation because they had already encountered him. And to me, when you Listen to the actual law enforcement professionals. That's interesting. Right. And that's the only element of this context I think is relevant at all. And it would be. We would be able to know more about whether that impacted their thinking if we knew who the people were. But the government's currently covering that up. I don't know. Did that come up in any of the focus groups that they're protecting?
- [31:48]
Host/Interviewer
You know, the investigation part didn't come up, but I do want to just throw a couple of other things in that did. Kristi Noem is not well liked by these police officers, these law enforcement officers. And there is just a general, like, they, the, the Trump voting cops were upset that people were not waiting for the facts. They did not like the rush to judgment from the administration officials. They thought that was not the right way to behave the Harris voting cops and to protect their identities. I did not want to play this part, but they called her a clown, unprofessional, either stupid or a liar. And she killed a dog. Fuck her. And so the. There was a real emphasis across the group. I'm just talking about what they had in common, a real emphasis on better training. While I will say the Trump voting group, though, defended the masks and there was a lot of talk of doxing and I, I think that this is something we are going to have to reckon with as a country because this is kind of a new phenomenon, right, where everyone's got a camera and everyone. There's a lot of. In the groups of, of the. Or a lot in the group of the Trump voting where they were like, we've got kids, you know, and this has happened to us before and people come find us. And that is scary. We know what that's like. It is. We worry about it all the time. Everybody does who is in public life now. And that being said, like, we pay your salaries like you're a public servant. You are there to make us safe. And they had a very strong, like, my priority every night is to go home to my wife and kids and I'll do whatever it takes to make that happen.
- [33:28]
Tim Miller
Look, I'm sympathetic to that, but also, you weren't drafted into this job. This isn't compulsory service. And so not to be flip about it and say, learn to code. But every job has its pluses and minuses. No doubt the minuses or the risks are way higher in law enforcement than in some other job. But you decided to go into this job and other people put themselves at risk. I brought this up with Tim Walls on Tuesday. And it was maybe the part where he got the most heated because he said, you know, who else got doxxed and killed? My friend, Senator Melissa Horstman Hortman, the state senator. And, you know, state senators don't get to be anonymous when they go vote on legislation. That's unfortunate. Part of the deal. And so if the argument is, hey, we got to tamp down, we got to go after doctors harder, you know, we've got to work with social media, you know, companies to protect people. Like, there are other things to do, but you don't get to be anonymous and rough people up.
- [34:23]
Host/Interviewer
Final thought as we end this. I was struck so much in both these groups by how much leadership matters, because in the beginning, part of the Trump voting group, they were. They actually said lots of good things about how, like, there's too many people with a Napoleon complex in this job. Like, one of my proudest moments was putting a law, you know, another law enforcement officer in handcuffs who was corrupt. Like, the other thing that Trump folks did was, like, they focused a lot, too, on, like, the bad guys. They wanted to get out of here. Like, they were like, I've seen these guys. Like, they are. They've raped children. Like, they're. And so, like, we don't want them here. We want to get them out. They're bad, bad people. And I was like, okay, sure. Whether it's Hegseth or Miller or Gnome cosplaying with her guns or Trump, you take a bunch of people who live by a code and a sense of professionalism and put on a uniform. It matters a lot what the people who are kind of in charge tell them it's okay to do. And if they say, yeah, these are all domestic terrorists, like, treat them as roughly as possible, like, some people are going to go for that, especially these untrained new people on the job. But I was struck by how much still, like, professionalism there was across the board in these groups.
- [35:36]
Tim Miller
Yeah, super interesting. I'm glad you did.
- [35:39]
Host/Interviewer
It was super interesting. Thank you for coming on, Tim, and letting me get this out of my system, because I didn't want to sit on this. I wanted to get this out.
- [35:45]
Tim Miller
What's the actual focus group this week?
- [35:47]
Host/Interviewer
It's with Adrian and it's with voters, a bunch of swing voters. It's actually a couple different kinds, but we've been. We've been talking to people both in the wake of the good killing and the Preddy killing, and talking to voters across the board about how they think about it. So it's a really good episode this week, but I also wanted to have the cop one. Just get out. Thanks, man. Thanks to all of you. Go subscribe. Bye. Bye.