← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
"A very different story"
00:42:10
Nicolle Wallace on the growing chasm between the truth, in Minnesota -- and what the Trump administration desperately want you to believe.
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- [00:00]
Nicole
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- [00:54]
Nicole
Hi there everybody. It's four o'clock in New York. We start today with the growing chasm between the truth and the facts on the ground in Minnesota and what the Trump administration desperately wants you to believe instead of the truth. Consider for starters what Ms. Now currently has in its possession. The first official internal timeline of the fatal shooting of an American citizen, 37 year old ICU nurse Alex Preddy, at the hands of immigration officers. It tells a very different story than what we've heard from high ranking members of the Trump administration. That Preliminary review from U.S. customs and Border Protection and almost minute by minute account makes no mention 0 of Alex Preddy ever, quote, brandishing a weapon as DHS Secretary Kristi Noem asserted in the earliest moments and hours after the killing. Nor does it back up her assertion that Preddy wanted to do, quote, maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement, end quote. What we do know though, today the Border Patrol agents involved in the shooting and killing of Alex Preddy were placed on paid administrative leave. That yawning gap between what the Trump administration is saying and what it is doing goes even further. Despite what Donald Trump told a journalist from ABC News that the American people could see a more relaxed approach to immigration in Minnesota now that Tom Homan is in charge. There is no evidence available to us that operations there have scaled back at all. There is another part of that conversation Donald Trump conducted with ABC News that we want to tell you about. First, a bit of a backstory. Here's what happened to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a frequent target of Donald Trump's attacks at her town hall last night, and.
- [02:38]
Miles Taylor
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem must resign or face impeachment.
- [02:53]
Michelle Norris
I don't know.
- [02:56]
Miles Taylor
Oh My God, he sprayed something on her.
- [03:02]
Nicole
Fortunately, she was safe. But it was a terrifying occurrence. And a terrifying occurrence for everyone in attendance would be for any public official, anyone in the public arena. Just so you know, the man who you saw on your screen stormed the Minnesota congresswoman there with what appeared to be a syringe is in custody this afternoon. And Congresswoman Omar says she is okay, that she won't, quote, let bullies win. Which brings us back to Donald Trump's interview with ABC News. When he was asked if he'd seen that video that we just played for you, Donald Trump responded like this, quote, no, I don't think about her. I think she's a fraud. I really don't think about that. She probably had herself sprayed knowing her end quote. To be clear, he is for better and for worse the President of the United States. And there's zero evidence that we're aware of that. Anything that he said about her and that attack is true. That's where we start today. Joining us political analysts, former Senator Claire McCaskill is here. Also joining us, former DHS chief of staff during Donald Trump's first term as president. Miles Taylor is here. Our reporter Alex Tabitt is back with us on the ground still for us in Minneapolis as and we start today with our friend and colleague, senior national and political reporter Jacob Sobroff, who is also on the ground in Minneapolis. Jacob, first explain where you are and what you're doing there.
- [04:27]
Jacob Sobroff
Nicole. This is the governor's reception room actually in the state Capitol in St. Paul. And within the next couple of minutes, I am expecting Governor Tim Walz to walk through those doors and sit in these chairs for his first sit down interview on national television since the killings of Renee Nicole Goode and Alex Preddy. We are going to talk at length tonight and it'll air during the 8pm hour during all in with Chris Hayes. And there is so much to talk about, as you have said. I ran into the governor in the vestibule on my way up the stairs here into the reception room. And the first thing that came out of his mouth was his reaction, didn't even ask him about it. To the attack on Ilhan Omar yesterday. So many questions about the phone call that he had with President Trump about the meeting he had with border czar Tom Homan with what he thinks could happen on the ground here, whether or not there will be a significant posture change in operations or whether one of the fathers of family separation, Tom Homan, being here on the ground won't make a difference at all. We don't know the latest on the subpoenas that have been issued, including to him by the federal government. We don't know any more about that letter from Pam Bondi that demanded certain conditions in order for ICE to leave Minneapolis. All that and a whole lot more I'm going to be asking him about when we sit down here at the state Capitol, Nicole, in just a couple of minutes. And all of that is going to air, As I said, 8:00pm Eastern Time here on Ms. Now on all in with Chris Hayes.
- [05:47]
Nicole
You know, Jacob, something I keep thinking about over the summer, the brutal assassination of Melissa Hortman and her husband and their dog, the attempt on another state lawmaker's life, the physical assault on so many of his constituents, the killing of two US Citizens and as you said, the arrival of Tom Homan, who is someone I said this to Michelle Norris, only Greg Bovino makes Holman's arrival a good news story. Just tell me from covering Tom Holman what you think they should be prepared for on the ground in Minnesota.
- [06:28]
Jacob Sobroff
Tom Homan told me, as you and I have discussed many times on the second day of this operation that someone was going to die in, in these ongoing wide scale immigration enforcement efforts. And not only has someone died, two American citizens and multiple migrants at the hands of this largest mass deportation effort in American history. Tom Homan was one of the intellectual fathers, as Caitlin Dickerson put it in her Pulitzer Prize winning article about the family separation policy, of that policy that was called torture by Physicians for Human Rights, government sanctioned child abuse by the American Academy of Pediatrics and and he is now here in Minneapolis St. Paul area ostensibly running this operation. Tom Homan is as extreme as Stephen Miller or Greg Bevino. He may wear a suit. He may talk in a different tone or tenor. He may not be out there running around with the BORTAC elite special operations forces from the Border Patrol. But Tom Homan has been at the center of some of the most controversial immigration policies over the last decade in the United States of America. Tom Homan was present at the inception of the family separation policy. It was something that he had wanted to do during the Obama administration. When the first Trump administration came into being, they pushed it through. And 5,500 people, maybe as many as 25,000, were it not for the opposition of people who stood up all around the world, could have been separated and permanently damaged, suffered lifelong consequences for that policy. And that's a policy that Tom Holman was at the center of the and now he again is elevated to this role where, you know, I think that there has been some talk about hope or optimism on the ground. And that's something I want to talk very specifically to the governor about. That this operator that was sent here is no moderate, is no immigration moderate. He is. He is as extreme as they come when it comes to immigration enforcement.
- [08:14]
Nicole
Jacob, we are so lucky that you and Chris Hayes and Alex and some of our colleagues are on the ground. They're doing this vital reporting. We look forward to seeing your interview tonight. Thank you for starting us off today.
- [08:27]
Jacob Sobroff
Thanks, Nicole.
- [08:29]
Nicole
I want to bring in, as we have so many days when we've come on the air, our colleague Alex Tabitt. Alex, tell us what you're reporting on the ground there in Minneapolis.
- [08:39]
Alex Tabitt
Well, Nicole, we're outside of the Whipple Building. This is the headquarters for ICE and DHS here. And we've been hearing angry protesters all day as federal agents continue to stream in and out of the building as this immigration crackdown continues. And there is yet another heartbreaking story here on the ground in Minnesota. Yesterday, in Bloomington, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, a 58 year old man, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, was detained by ICE at his job at a McDonald's. He was taken into custody and he was brought here in the building behind me. In the wake of that detainment, his son, a young man, a security officer named Anthony, bravely marched into this building to give his father medication. His father suffers from heart failure and the consequences of his father not getting those medications could be fatal. I talked to this young man, Anthony. We agreed not to show his face to protect his family. I want you to hear what he had to say when he marched into this building behind me to give his father his medications.
- [09:58]
Anthony (Interviewee)
I gave an ICE agent my dad's medicine, but I'm not sure if he got it because the ICE agent just smirked at me, like trying to laugh at my face or bringing in the medicine. So I'm not sure if he got it yesterday.
- [10:14]
Alex Tabitt
And when you tried to give that ICE agent your father's medicine and he smirked and laughed in your face, how.
- [10:22]
Jacob Sobroff
Did that make you feel?
- [10:24]
Anthony (Interviewee)
Like he wasn't gonna receive that medicine. And like I'm less.
- [10:31]
Alex Tabitt
What do you mean by like you're less?
- [10:33]
Anthony (Interviewee)
Like I'm not. Not welcomed in this community. Like I'm not supposed to be here. That's how it felt. Like I feel heartbroken. I feel alone. I just wish my dad comes home so he could be with my mom and my mom can stop crying at night. I don't know, we just miss our dad, my dad. Like it's just like something's missing, like our hearts, some part of our heart's missing when he's not here. So it feels lonely in the house.
- [11:00]
Alex Tabitt
Now today, Anthony came back to the building behind me, came back to the Whelpel building, walking arm in arm with lawyers, with medical professionals, and he refused to leave until he was 100% assured that his father got his crucial medication. Now, the Trump administration is saying that they're detaining the worst of the worst. But Nicole Anthony says his father has no criminal record. He's just a hard working man who is going to his job at McDonald's. Now we've reached out to DHS about this incident. They tell us that the people that they detain do get access to their medicines. But when we asked where this man is going next, we have yet to hear back.
- [11:46]
Nicole
Nicole Alex, another heartbreaking example of how this is ripping apart not just a family but an entire community. And clearly this is someone with a job employed at McDonald's. Just another really tough thing to watch. Thank you so much for your reporting. Claire McCaskill. Miles, I interviewed former Attorney General Eric Holder today and sort of asked him to both zoom in and zoom out on what's happening in Minneapolis. Let me show you a little bit of what he said to me. You think it's important that people see what's happening with their own eyes?
- [12:31]
Eric Holder
Yeah, I do think it's important for people to understand the totality of what happened to an American citizen who was only there demonstrating, consistent with his First Amendment rights and to see how he was treated. It is a difficult thing to watch, but it is something that I think we need to see in order to really get a sense of what happened there. And I think back to the, to the 50s and what Mamie Tillis did with regard to her son, Emmett Till, when she made the determination to display to the world his disfigured face after he had been beaten, thrown in a river. And that had a profound impact on the civil rights movement. And I think if America could handle that in the 50s, America can certainly handle it in the 21st century. Now it's an easy thing for me to say that's not my boy who was lying there on the street of Minneapolis. And yet I think the issues are larger, the questions are more profound. And I think a demonstration of what actually happened to that good man, that nurse, that good man needs to be seen in its totality by the American people.
- [13:44]
Nicole
Claire it was an Answer to a question I asked him about how I'm struggling as a cable host with how often to play. What is the moment when that good man loses his life? And that was his answer. That it is so important and that there are echoes in history as to how literally the course of events are changed by people seeing with their own eyes. Your thoughts?
- [14:14]
Claire McCaskill
I think that's right, Nicole. I think it's very important for everyone to see the video. I think I certainly recommend the time integration video that the New York Times did where they took all the different angles and they slowed it down so you can see exactly what happened moment by moment by moment. Because remember this was a very short period of time when this incredible tragedy occurred. I gotta also say though, it's gonna take more than just looking at the visuals because as you and I are painfully aware of, the visuals of J6 were very powerful. The police officer being crushed in the doorway, the flagpoles being thrust in police officers eyes. The failure of anyone in that crowd to respect any semblance of law enforcement on that day. And I naively believed at that moment that this was gonna make the difference. And he's president now, so I think it's gonna take more than just everyone seeing it. That will be a big step. But people cannot rely on these very unbelievably difficult video to do what must be done to get us back to a sense of normalcy and respect for constitution and most of all, respect, respect for average citizens who are just exercising their constitutional rights.
- [15:42]
Nicole
Myles, just to sort of hang on for a second of the importance of what people are doing on the streets by taking these videos, by giving us these images to, as Claire said, either act on or not. There were certainly plenty of images of January 6th as well. Let me show you an interview that happened over on CNN with a woman who recorded that fateful moment where Alex Preddy loses his life.
- [16:08]
Unnamed Witness
But what I did know is this person was calm and was handling it with grace and consistency and definitely without threat. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Like what?
- [16:21]
Michelle Norris
What?
- [16:21]
Unnamed Witness
And I knew he was gone because I watched it. And then they come over to try to perform some type of medical aid by ripping his clothes open with scissors and then maneuvering his body around like a rag doll, only to discover that it could be because they wanted to count the bullet wounds to see how many they got. Like, he's a deer. I watched that and that is what it felt like they were doing. And that is part of why I was like, what are you guys doing. Why would you jostle his body around like that? You're not even doing anything to help him. But I knew he was gone.
- [16:59]
Nicole
Again, in a normal time, I would be very reluctant to share something that graphic. Alex Preddy's parents have issued a statement urging all of us though, to get out the truth about their son and how he died and to let the facts and things we can see with our own eyes do the work of disproving the lies being told by Donald Trump and his administration and their allies in the media. Your thoughts.
- [17:28]
Miles Taylor
Nicole? We have, I think, a truly extraordinary side by side here over the course of the past year. There's this cowardice and courage side by side. And the folks in the cowardice category tend to be elites, they tend to be higher ups, they tend to be institutions. Donald Trump has gone after law firms and members of Congress and tried to hijack certain news organizations and he's gone after businesses and buying and large. Those elites, they've capitulated this time. They have not stood up to Donald Trump. But on the other side of the ledger, we are seeing the courage come from the grassroots. And that's the silver lining here. That's what's extraordinary. When the people that people looked up to wouldn't stand up, everyday Americans did it. Instead, they've been going out there, as you said, Nicole, and literally blowing the whistle on ice. They've been going out there and literally picking up one of these and documenting abuses of power. That's how we know about this. That to me is what's been extraordinary, the courage of everyday people. Just today we saw federal prosecutors or sorry, not federal prosecutors. We saw city prosecutors, DAs around the country launch something called federaloverreach.org because some state attorney generals in some states haven't done anything. Congress isn't doing anything. DOJ is not doing anything. Certainly FBI is not doing anything. And so, so you've got these local district attorneys stepping up and saying, you know what, if we see federal agents breaking the law, then we're going to prosecute them at the local level. We've had enough. And I think that's what you are seeing break through this week after Alex Preddy's death. The courage of the grassroots, staying with one voice. We have had enough.
- [19:15]
Nicole
Yeah, it's extraordinary. And you're right, it is the extraordinary act of people with jobs, right, who are going out into the streets in sub zero temperatures after work or before work or dropping things off for their neighbors in the middle of shuttling their kids around, who are the example and precious few of the most privileged people in society, people that run the biggest corporations, people that have the biggest platforms, seem to be doing the least, or I guess in the context of what's happened in the last 72 hours, they are following the ordinary people on the streets. I'm going to ask both of you to stick around. We have much more still ahead, including a shocking series of incidents not just in Minneapolis, but across the country, leading to these questions about what has become of the Department of Homeland Security, which was created in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attack to protect Americans from foreign threats. Plus how Minneapolis has taught America and is teaching America to resist Donald Trump and his administration. Inspired by the pushback of the residents of Minneapolis, calls are going for a nationwide economic strike to protest Donald Trump. And later in the program, the FBI searches the election center in Fulton County, Georgia, a target of Donald Trump's baseless election conspiracies. All those stories and much more when Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
- [20:53]
Jacob Sobroff
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- [22:10]
Nicole
In Minneapolis on Saturday, just hours after Alex Preddy was shot and killed by federal agents, ICE agents and police were seen deploying tear gas near a preschool during enforcement operations. Thousands of miles away, dozens of immigrant families are seen protesting. Behind the fences of a Texas detention facility is where a Five year old Ecuadorian boy and his father were sent this week after being detained in Minnesota. Some of them holding signs that translated read liberty for the kids. At this point, it is difficult to see any of these incidents in isolation as we witness these threats and the deadly violent tactics being deployed by federal agents on the streets of American cities. Our next guest, Miles Taylor, reminds us of this, quote, far from the situation that spiraled out of control, what has happened in Minnesota is by design. It is the deliberate implementation of top down presidential guidance. And it's working. Officials are turning DHS into a juggernaut for ridding America of so called, quote, domestic terrorists whose crimes appear to be that they hold viewpoints contrary to the President. Miles Taylor also warns, quote, I must concede that its critics were right. The young department was susceptible to abuse. It's now rife with corruption and when Donald Trump is gone, it must be remade entirely. That is, unless we want a police state. We're back with Miles Sinclair. Miles, this is an incredibly stark piece that you've written. Say more.
- [23:42]
Miles Taylor
Look, I resisted saying this. Nicole, I'll be honest with you. My wife and I have actually been fighting about this for a few years. We met at DHS and I like to say we found love in a hopeless place. But she has argued that DHS needs to be totally reconstructed. She's argued that it was ripe for abuse, all of those things that it needs to go. And I resisted that because in the Bush administration, I went into government to help build dhs. I believed that DHS was one of the solutions to preventing another 9 11. But you know what? This year, Nicole, I have fully come around to her viewpoint. It's been liable for abuse. And now that's what's happening. Donald Trump has fully hijacked the department to act as his pocket police. And those critics for years have been right. And I think a lot of us never imagined the greatest threat to our democracy would come from the inside until Donald Trump arrived on the scene. And I'll just say, Nicole, it's not just about ICE and cbp. We can talk a lot about ICE and cbp, but as Claire knows from her time overseeing DHS from Capitol Hill, Donald Trump has co opted all of the agencies of the department. He's sending the Secret Service to investigate his political opponents like James Comey. They're sending uscis to take away visas from students who write op EDS they don't like. They're using FEMA money as a cudgel to punish blue states and to reward red states. You can go through the entire department and see how Donald Trump has remade it into a political machine and a revenge machine. And we gotta make sure no president is ever able to do that again. And that starts with deconstructing the department.
- [25:19]
Nicole
Claire, do you agree?
- [25:22]
Claire McCaskill
Yeah. Listen, Homeland Security, the department was really an experiment in many ways. It was an outgrowth of 9, 11, and it was an attempt to try to bring together disparate parts of government that all would operate under the umbrella of keeping America safe and secure domestically. And it has always been a problem. I mean, when I was doing oversight, as Miles probably remembers, I used to go crazy when I would ask a question like, how many contractors are there working at dhs? And nobody knew, nobody knew how many employees there were, how many contractors there were. It was really never a tightly run ship. And what it has, and Miles pointed this out in his article, it has a lot of guns and badges. And that's what Donald Trump loves more than anything. It has a lot of guns and badges. And now it has so many guns and badges, it dwarfs any other law enforcement agency in the country, including the FBI. So it does need to be reconstructed. It does need. It doesn't make any sense for FEMA be in the same place as the Secret Service. That doesn't make any sense. And there's a lot of other parts of DHS that Americans don't even realize are all cobbled together within this one agency. So I would look to some of the people who have done a lot of oversight of Homeland Security, like Susan Collins, for example. I'd love to see her speak up about how we redo Homeland Security. So there isn't this much power that can be abused in one place.
- [26:56]
Nicole
I mean, let me just play the devil's advocate with both of you. I mean, Donald Trump has abused the Department of Justice as well by forcing out MAGA friendly career prosecutors who refuse to go to a grand jury absent facts to indict. Jim Comey replaced that U.S. attorney with Lindsey Halligan, who a judge described as, quote, masquerading as a U.S. attorney. He's turned the Pentagon into a department that Democrats and Republicans have accused of carrying out war crimes in the Caribbean. He's turned the State Department into an agency that was involved in some way with producing a speech in Davos that angered and alienated the loss of life from our closest allies, Canada and the U.K. i mean, you could argue that Donald Trump has destroyed every pocket of the federal government. What is so uniquely corruptible about dhs, Miles?
- [27:51]
Miles Taylor
Well, it's just that it's so young, Nicole. It hasn't developed these mechanisms to resist. And you're completely right. There is nothing that can fully insulate the US Government against a wannabe dictator. And our founders spent literally years and years, decades of their lives thinking through all of history, back to antiquity, about how you could construct a government that would guard against a wannabe dictator. And they even conceded their best advice was please don't elect one. So we can't make it perfect. But what you have seen at all the agencies you just referenced at State Department, at doj, at these other places, you've seen more pushback than you've seen at dhs. It's been harder for them. It's been a slog. You've seen people resigning, becoming whistleblowers, going out there publicly. It's been a huge pain in the butt for them to try to take over these other departments. Dhs, I don't know. There's been a handful of people who come forward, but they're scared. They're scared because it's been so easy for the White House to so quickly co opt it. And that's in part, in very large part because Stephen Miller knows that agency inside and out. He knows it lacks oversight. He knows it lacks the ability to resist. And he's personally micromanaging these offices and according to reports, down to micromanaging individual operations. And that's something DHS was never, ever prepared to resist.
- [29:12]
Nicole
I mean, Claire, I admire your optimism that Susan Collins might be part of the answer. I do not share it. And let me just ask you this. Seven Democrats voted to confirm Kristi Noem, who wrote in her own book about shooting her dog in the face. Do you think Democrats have come to the realization that none of the Trump officials in this area are good faith actors?
- [29:35]
Claire McCaskill
I think they have. And I think those people, in fact, one of the people who voted to confirm her has already said she should resign and that it was a mistake. So. And listen, I'm not saying Susan Collins will. I'm saying she's in a position she could. She worked on that committee. She and Joe Lieberman were good bipartisan partners trying to do the right thing at Homeland Security at one point in time. But, and I think building on Miles point about dhs, it's not as transparent as the other agencies. There's so many different functions within the agency. It is a little, it's a little laboratory for somebody like Stephen Miller. Let's see how many levers of power I can control without anybody seeing what I'm doing. He can hide more. He can really hide more within DHS than you could at justice or State. And also there's not the longevity of middle management at DHS like you have at State and doj. I'm not saying that Trump hasn't really destroyed or tried to destroy a lot of important institutions, but I think DHS has really been the devil's playground for him.
- [30:48]
Nicole
All right, no one's going anywhere. When we come back, there's New York Times reporting that is as shocking and disturbing as it is logical for the Trump administration. It's about the deeply alarming frequency social media posts coming out of DHS with echoes of some of the darkest elements on the Internet. We'll talk about it. We'll show it to you next.
- [31:14]
Claire McCaskill
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- [32:31]
Nicole
Rebecca Miles and Claire Let me just share this reporting in the New York Times this week. ICE recruitment ad posted to pages for White House and DHS on Instagram, Facebook and X reads quote we'll have our home again. Join ICE.govtimes reports this administration's social media posts echo white supremacist messaging quote we'll have our home again is also the name of a Song written by members of a self described pro white fraternal order that has been embraced by the Proud Boys and other white nationalist groups. Hundreds of explicitly neo Nazi and white supremacist accounts have shared the song on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app, since 2020. The white supremacist who killed three Black people at a Jacksonville, Florida dollar store in 2023 included lyrics from the song in his writing. So many echoes to good people on both sides, so many examples, miles of signs that your old boss John Kelly with his head in his hand at that public event where Donald Trump talked about good people on both sides in Charlottesville. And here we are, here we are covering something happening today, Right now in 2026, the integration of white supremacist messaging in the official taxpayer funded government accounts for the White House and dhs.
- [33:54]
Miles Taylor
Yeah, I've got to say, Nicole, I mean, I'm sitting here kind of on the edge of my seat because just hearing you go through that really pisses me off because there's a lot of good people that work in that department and want to do the right thing and they have been hijacked by these people who sound a lot more like wannabe school shooters than they do public servants. And I don't say that lightly. But you look at the rhetoric out of people who Donald Trump has appointed in his second term, you see folks who've offered praise for Adolf Hitler. You've seen folks who've said they're a little bit of a Nazi and who've been kept inside this administration, who've been kept in jobs carrying out the work of the American people. I don't think as taxpayers we want to fund wannabe Nazis to run these agencies. And you are seeing that filter out. But you're right, Nicole, in saying that this comes from the top. This isn't some coincidence. You cannot possibly be a Republican and say this is just a couple of bad apples. This is a whole rotten tree. The whole tree is rotten from the core all the way out to every single one of those branches. And that tone has been set by the top. Started with Donald Trump saying Somalis were garbage in Dec and then sending 3,000 troops into that state.
- [35:12]
Nicole
Claire, I just want to inject a little bit of the public's reaction to all of this. In total, what the public has taken in has led to a 36% approval rating for ICE. 63% of Americans, based on the New York times Siena polling, disapprove. 70% of independent voters disapprove of ICE CBS News YouGov polling from January 14th to 16th, so before the killing of Alex Preddy has 61% of voters saying that ICE is too tough and has gone too far. We haven't seen polling since that killing. Your thoughts on this very brazen public. I mean, I feel like we use words like dog whistle. They're totally inappropriate. This is state sponsored messaging that aligns with, again, I'll quote the New York Times, quote, hundreds of explicitly neo Nazi and white supremacist accounts have shared the song on telegram. And it is the message being pushed out by the White House and DHS on Instagram.
- [36:20]
Claire McCaskill
And that article, it was a real eye opener for me because it doesn't just cite that one post. There is a number of things that the department has posted and has pushed out on social media that have echoes of a white nationalist point of view of this country. And by the way, we don't even have to look there. All we have to look and see is what they're doing. I think one of the most powerful images I've seen since this debacle began in Minneapolis was those policemen that stood up and called out them racially profiling members of their forces when they were off duty, that they were getting stopped and asked for identification because they didn't look white. These were police officers that were pointing this out. So if the message from the top is it's okay in America to stop anybody who's not white, anybody with an accent, anybody who's black or brown, and ask them for identification where they're from, that's what they're doing. And that is not America. That is not what we do in this country. And clearly they're doing this. They're doing it every day, many times a day. And clearly they're doing this because the White House thinks it's fine. Stephen Miller embraces it. Kristi Noem thinks it's as American as apple pie. So not only are they not showing, they don't support the amendments of the articles of the Constitution in detail, whether it's Article 1, Article 4, Article 2, Second Amendment, all of it, First Amendment, all of it. They are also profiling people because they're not white. And that is wrong and illegal and must stop.
- [38:08]
Nicole
Yeah, I mean, and it's the two sides of that coin, right, Miles? They are profiling people who are not white, including members of law enforcement. There's also a sadistic indifference to a physical assault, an act of potential, an act of political violence against Congresswoman Ilhan Omar last night, where Donald Trump essentially says, I didn't see that. I don't care about that.
- [38:33]
Michelle Norris
Yeah.
- [38:34]
Miles Taylor
And his rhetoric about her specifically is the type of thing you worry about, inspiring these people to come do things like this. I mean, that's another place that goes to the top is Donald Trump is setting that example from the top. You saw it in the text messages of young conservatives around this country. I mean, you remember Nicole in the first Bush administration, when we go to things like cpac, the Conservative Political Action Conference, people were not necessarily nearly as extreme as the folks you're seeing go to CPAC now. You see Nick Fuentes followers that spew the language of Nazism and white supremacy that are now taking over the young conservative movement. And that's because the folks at the top are giving them the permission to do it.
- [39:19]
Nicole
Myles Taylor, thank you for joining us today. Thank you for your piece today. I'm glad the debate was settled and that your wife seemed to prevail. Claire sticks around a little bit longer. Our friend Michelle Norris joins our conversation after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. I want to bring into our coverage senior contributing editor, Minneapolis native Michelle Norris. Claire is still with us. Michelle, we've turned to you day after day, and somehow you've managed to sort of synthesize some of what we're covering in real time with a beautiful new column publishing this afternoon. Let me read some of it. Sometimes protest screams, sometimes it carries signs or beats drums, but sometimes the most sweeping and effective form of resistance carries a camera or a bag of diapers or a pan of hot food to someone who's too afraid to go outside. When the history of this moment is examined years from now, the heated images of everyday people braving frigid temperatures to confront immigration agents dressed as if they're going to war in Fallujah will likely be the visual marker of Minnesota's opposition.
- [40:29]
Michelle Norris
SEYMOUR well, that'll be the visual marker, but I don't think that's why the resistance worked. I think that the resistance to the degree that it is working and Greg Bovino's departure is probably a sign of that, and the numbers of people who are still showing up is also a sign of that, is because of the kind of resistance that lives outside the margins of those pictures that you talked about. It's often work that's done quietly, close to the ground, small bore activists, activism from people who never consider themselves to be activists or even protesters. They more likely see themselves as protectors of a certain kind of way of life. And that's one of the things that's been extraordinary about what you see in Minnesota is just how many people have created a society of mutual aid to try to stand up against something that does not feel right to them. And this was happening before Renee Goode was killed and before Alex Preddy was killed. It had started even before then. And the resolve, if this was meant to drive people underground, it has not worked. Thousands of people are signing up by the day to continue doing this kind of quiet work.
- [41:39]
Nicole
Michelle, we also have this afternoon the first image of story that we've talked about since it happened. Five year old Liam Ramos and his father, they're at a detention center in Texas. And here is Joaquin Castro who published this, just visited with Liam and his father at Dilley Detention Center. I demanded his release. I told him how much his family, his school and our country loves him and is praying for him. And just, you know, a small defenseless child in the arms of his father, exhausted, clearly an ordeal. This has been done. Anyone who thinks this story isn't about them or doesn't affect them, this has been done to this family in our name as Americans. Your thoughts?
- [42:29]
Michelle Norris
Well, and by someone who said that he was going after the worst of the worst, I mean that was the pretext for all of this, that they're rooting out the criminals and the fraudsters and the schemers and the bad people from society. I don't know that that's what you think of when you see that father and son, several people have been taken, are being released and some of them released in Texas. I've spent the day talking to people who are trying to track down either employees or family members who are released in Texas and then they have to find their way back to Minnesota. There's a report of a family that drove 2,600 miles. Remember what the week, the weather was like this weekend in the snow from Minnesota to El Paso to grab a family member and bring them back home to rural Minnesota. So this story tugs at our hearts, but it should also tug at the notion of the justification for doing this. Can we believe. And we already know the. I don't know why we've been asking this question because we already know the answer, that this was really about rooting out the worst or the worst or making us safe or getting rid of fraud. This is about something that is much larger and much darker.
- [43:37]
Nicole
Michelle, you're going to stick around. Claire, thank you for spending the hour with us today. Up next for us, the outrage over all of this, over ISIS tactics has gone global. We'll bring you that reporting next. First, the brave people, followed now by some athletes and celebrities. And now ISIS facing international backlash and pushback for what is happening for the images that are coming out of Minneapolis. News of ICE agents assuming a security role during next month's Olympic Winter Games has caused an outcry from Italians who are hosting that event. Milan's mayor told the Washington Post this, quote, ice's image is terrible. I'm sure that the people of Milan are unhappy with having to sort this, having this sort of militia here which kills people in the US Entering houses without permission of the Italian government. He asked, quote, is it possible that you could say no once to Mr. Trump once, quite simply, end quote. Meanwhile, first, Italy's interior minister said he was unaware of any impending arrival of ICE agents and claimed that ice, quote, will never operate in Italy, end quote, but then had to clarify that if ICE agents were present, they would, quote, solely be responsible for risk assessment and information exchange with the Italian police. They won't be operational, end quote. Keep us posted on how that goes, Italy. We'll keep updated on that story coming up after the break, how Minneapolis may have provided the United States of America the blueprint for how to push back successfully against Donald Trump. We'll talk about that next. Don't go anywhere.
- [45:27]
Claire McCaskill
Why have I asked my H Vac guy I found on angie.com to change my grandpa's trachea tube? Because I was so amazed by how quickly he replaced our air ducts, I knew I could trust him to change Pop Pop's tube while I was on vacation.
- [45:39]
Nicole
Make it quick, young man.
- [45:42]
Eric Holder
Aw.
- [45:43]
Nicole
See, Pop Pop trusts you.
- [45:46]
Miles Taylor
I think we should call a doctor.
- [45:48]
Jacob Sobroff
Connecting homeowners with skilled Pros for over 30 years, Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find pros for all your home projects@angie.com.