Rocket Money Advertiser (3:09)

That.

Mark Lamont Hill (3:09)

Can have an effect and it's worthwhile to keep pressing forward on that. So if that makes me an optimist, I don't think anybody watches this page, thinks I'm that much of an optimist. But if that makes me an optimist, I'll say guilty as charged. So stick around. Me, Nicole, Mark Elias and Ruth Bankout was on with us as well. I don't know if we'll be playing any of her bits, but she's always great and appreciate you all. Subscribe to the feed here and we'll be talking to you soon.

Tim Miller (3:33)

Tim Miller, you've been an unbelievable voice against the gaslighting, and I just want to hear where your thoughts are this morning. This afternoon.

Mark Lamont Hill (3:43)

Yeah, well, look, those are powerful images. And I do want to say I think it's good and important that there are folks out there protesting. There are a lot of folks who have been doing this for a while, whether they be through indivisible or activist groups or, you know, people who are kind of lifelong comfortable with protesters, comfortable protesters. And that's needed and appreciated. I think what's significant about this moment is that those images from what happened to Renee Goode resonate, I think, beyond that, with a lot of people who were activated by this and who wanted to come out and speak about it. I can just say anecdotally from, you know, I was at the basketball court for some tryouts yesterday for some kids. And, like, this is what the dads are on the court wanted to talk about. And this is not people that are the protesting type. And they're just saying to me, look, this is crazy. This is wrong. And I think that people in this country do not want to see masked Thugs in fatigues menacing 37 year old women in their car with, with, with stuffed animals in the, in the passenger seat with a dog in the back. They don't want to see people chasing down doordash drivers and pushing. I saw a video earlier today of a woman outside in a, in a gas station who got pushed down to the ground because they were chasing after some other person. Like this is not America. People do not want it. And the administration trying to justify and rationalize that it was necessary to shoot this woman three times in the head in broad daylight when we all have seen the video now we've all seen how pleasantly she greeted him 20 seconds before he executed her. Regular people are not for it and they're not buying it. And so I think folks that are brainwashed and folks that are fully in MAGA and folks that are partisans are gonna buy. It's not 100% of the country, but there's a big portion in the big middle of the country that this is not what they're for. And they might have been for a closed border, they might even have been for Trump, but they're not for masked thugs harassing women who are nonviolent and non threatening in the street. And certainly they're not for executing women who are nonviolent, non threatening in the street.

Tim Miller (5:55)

Tim, I don't think he'd mind that I said this, but Chris Hayes said to me on Friday it's sort of amazing and newsworthy in and of itself that they viewed it as exculpatory to release the video. When I think others have made the point that the agent is filming depending on whether he's right handed or left handed, he's filming with his right hand and shooting her with his left. I mean, what sort of window do you see into? Like to me it seems like ICE has transferred onto itself the Supreme Court's immunity ruling. I mean they're all functioning as though there will be no consequences.

Mark Lamont Hill (6:32)

Yeah, I thought it was extremely telling that they released it because it meant that at least someone within that world, they sent it to a center right outlet or right wing mag outlet, I don't know much about it, a local outlet in Minnesota. But so someone, it was on his phone and so either the shooter sent it to this reporter or someone else or he sent it to someone else with an ICE and CBB and they did. So it was the, either the shooter himself or the regime, the Trump regime sent this to the reporter thinking it would make them look good. And I totally agree with Chris on this. I think it shows, it creates an insight into their worldview that they thought that video would be. Maybe they didn't think it would be exculpatory. I guess maybe they thought that, you know, by putting this out, it would, it rationalizes their actions because they are in this bubble where they think, as Donald Trump said yesterday on the plane, that anybody who disturbs the police or anybody that objects to them or speaks out deserves what's coming to them. And if that is their worldview, that is extremely scary. On the one hand, right, that they could look at that video and think this woman deserved to be shot in the head three times. But I do think it also, the political, the positive political side is that it shows them deeply out of touch with where the country is. If they looked at that video and thought, yeah, we want to put this out, this video that shows him, her greeting him and then him shooting her three times and then either him or one of the other agents close to him cussing her out after they killed her.

Tim Miller (8:03)

Right. With the word. I promise my executive producer I won't say again, but the first one starts with F and the second one starts with B. The first one ends in ing. Tim, before anyone slanders you by calling you optimistic, I want to give you a chance to describe. I think you've been really clear eyed about the moment. And so I just want to give you a chance to contextualize what we're talking about.

Mark Lamont Hill (8:24)

I actually love it. I love being on with Mark. I love when someone says they're more pessimistic than me. It's like when your spouse gets really mad about something that's annoying you and then it calms you down. All of a sudden you get kind of calm, say, look, yeah, I don't want to be overly sanguine. This doesn't mean that we can't fight, that we shouldn't fight it, or that nothing is inevitable in this world. And look, Mark's out there doing the work on the election stuff. And I think that there's a lot to be concerned about and a lot that we need to be vigilant about with regarding the midterm election. The point is, I think the point I'm trying to make is that their policies related to immigration are extremely unpopular. And, you know, if they just focused on the border and shutting down the border, that would be a bad issue for Democrats. But right now, what they're doing, menacing people in the streets, menacing citizens, menacing women and children, throwing them to the ground, shooting them and killing them. Wearing masks, dressed like they're invading Fallujah. This is not popular broadly. And I think that it's a political opportunity for Democrats to. To go on offense on this, to make them own the most extreme parts of their, of their movement, of their ideology, and to use it to try to push back and win elections in November. And they're going to do their best to try to cheat. They tried to do that on redistricting. They failed. So we'll see how it goes over the next few months. But I think that's kind of the point that I'm trying to make, is I do think it presents a political opportunity. It's not a political victory by any means, and there's a lot of ugliness ahead of us between here and there.