“ICE occupation in Minnesota”

Summary

Podcast Summary: Deadline: White House

Episode: “ICE occupation in Minnesota”
Host: Nicolle Wallace
Date: January 23, 2026

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode centers on the escalating ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) occupation and enforcement activity in Minnesota, specifically Minneapolis, during Donald Trump's second term. Host Nicolle Wallace and her panel discuss recent alleged abuses by ICE—particularly the use of children in enforcement, the unprecedented policy shift toward warrantless home entries, and the climate of fear permeating immigrant communities. The episode weaves these events into broader analyses of public opinion, the state of American politics, and concerns regarding the erosion of civil liberties.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Escalation of ICE Enforcement in Minnesota

• On-the-Ground Reporting:
  • Jacob Soboroff reports “indiscriminate stops of people on the streets of Minneapolis,” including ICE targeting bystanders, flashbangs, and use of pepper spray on protestors and ICE observers.
    • [04:00] “We’re just driving down the street and literally stumbled upon this. This is what it looks like in real time… They’re just grabbing people up there.”—Jacob Soboroff
  • ICE operations are so frequent and wide-ranging that journalists encounter raids simply by driving around.
• Legal Safeguards Eroding:
  • DHS, per the AP, is now asserting authority to enter homes without judicial warrants, reversing longstanding protections.
  • [07:47] “It seems…these appear as indiscriminate as the raids that are happening on the street every day. And…only time will tell if we can get inside these agencies, get the documents, the reporting, but it’s all happening so fast by design.”—Jacob Soboroff

2. Children as Enforcement Tools

• Wallace highlights a Washington Post report:
  • 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was allegedly used as “bait” by ICE officers to lure others for detention. Neither his whereabouts nor fate are certain.
    • [06:22] “Even [advocacy groups] will tell you that some of the guardrails…to be able to find these children in custody have been ripped away under this administration.”—Jacob Soboroff
  • The trauma extends: children are left with relatives or vanish into ICE custody, with agencies unable or unwilling to share information.

3. Conditions in Detention Centers

• Soboroff references prior coverage of dire conditions—solitary confinement, suicide attempts, lack of oversight—and underscores that these private prisons’ populations are growing.
  • [09:16] “All I can tell you is what I have seen inside, that these private prisons are only growing, that the number of people who are being detained is only increasing. Which makes you have to wonder how bad it is in there, knowing how bad it has been.”—Jacob Soboroff

4. Comparisons to Authoritarian History

• Wallace and analyst Claire McCaskill draw parallels to historical periods of government overreach and fascism.
  • [11:05] “It is increasingly difficult not to turn to other heinous periods in history where people were asked to walk around with their passports… and seizing people from their homes was permissible.”—Nicolle Wallace
  • McCaskill reflects on traditional conservative fears of government overreach, connecting them to the present.
    • [11:33] “They wanted their gun, they wanted their property. They didn’t want the government telling them what to do…Entering a house without a warrant, is that not far enough for you?”—Claire McCaskill

5. Political Calculus and Public Opinion

• John Heilemann recalls George W. Bush’s inclusive immigrant outreach for electoral gain, contrasting it with current Republican strategy.
  • [14:22] “You could get elected governor of Texas by doing those kinds of things…And the world now, the political calculus is so dramatically different.”
• Despite repeated polling showing mass deportation is deeply unpopular (only ~40% approval of Trump’s immigration handling), the administration doubles down.
  • [18:46] “Securing the border is a lot more popular than what Donald Trump’s immigration agenda [is].”—Nicolle Wallace

6. Poll Data & Political Implications

• Cornell Belcher, pollster:
  • Trump’s numbers are “catastrophic”: 58% disapprove on economy, 64% on cost of living, 60%+ on immigration. Only 32% of Americans believe he’s made America better in his second term.
    • [22:13] “It looks like a failed presidency, and I don’t say that lightly.”—Cornell Belcher
  • Voters sense the administration’s priorities are self-serving, not addressing everyday issues.
    • [27:09] “Every day there’s something new, but it’s never about you.”—Claire McCaskill
  • There's a “spiritual” malaise: “71% of Americans think the country’s out of control.” [26:07-27:14]

7. Wider Impact: Trauma and Generational Costs

• Personal testimony: A Minnesota doctor describes a mother forced to choose which of her sick children to take to the hospital due to ICE presence.
  • [34:14] “She had to triage, self-triage and think which is the sickest kid…She said they wouldn’t know what to do if ICE were around…So I think we are endangering these children not only for their illness from today, but they are…traumatized an entire generation.”—Minnesota doctor, via Cornell Belcher

8. Democracy, Decency, and the Path Forward

• Consensus among panelists that the prevailing sense of lawlessness demands a reevaluation of American values and politics.
  • [38:16] “What do we want the soul of America to be? And it’s not this.”—Cornell Belcher

9. Jack Smith, January 6th, and Additional Political Context

• Brief discussion of the day’s Congressional hearing with Special Counsel Jack Smith and Republican efforts to “rewrite history” of January 6th, with a focus on political theater and lack of substantive oversight.
  • [41:45] “I don’t think they accomplished a lot. I think everybody remembers what happened on January 6th, and I think…a huge majority…do not agree with Trump pardoning people who viciously assaulted police officers.”—Claire McCaskill

10. Media Response & National Mood

• Media figures (including Oliver Darcy, quoted at [45:24]) and even Joe Rogan are likening ICE’s actions to that of the Gestapo—signal of how mainstream outrage has grown.
  • Despite visibility, “sunlight” is not leading to accountability.
    • [45:24] “It used to be that if someone were to record an ICE officer behaving like that and upload it…there would be outrage…Instead, you see DHS tweeting publicly that ICE officers…you have impunity.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the dehumanization of ICE raids:

  • [29:14] “How are we at war against ourselves in America where a five year old is one of the weapons of Donald Trump’s choosing?”—Nicolle Wallace

• On American identity and shame:

  • [28:28] “So I wish people would start polling—Are you embarrassed by Donald Trump? I’d love to know that number.”—Claire McCaskill
  • [28:37] “Yes, I’m embarrassed.”—Nicolle Wallace

• On the turning tide of political strategy:

  • [14:22] “The basic calculus of politicians doing things that people like and not doing things that people hate…does not obtain when it comes to this policy.”—John Heilemann

• On the urgency of change:

  • [38:12] “There is an opportunity for a different kind of politics to break through, one that says it’s time to turn the page on [this]…”—Cornell Belcher

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Key Timestamps

• [01:15] – Episode begins; setup of ICE raids and context.
• [04:00–06:00] – Jacob Soboroff’s on-the-ground reporting.
• [06:12–07:47] – Children as ICE enforcement tools; eroding legal protections.
• [09:16–10:16] – Discussion of ICE detention center conditions.
• [11:33–14:05] – Claire McCaskill compares present to history; reflects on Republican principles.
• [14:22–19:00] – John Heilemann: political strategy, polling, and (lack of) accountability.
• [21:06–27:14] – Poll analysis, “failed presidency,” discussion of malaise; “It’s never about you.”
• [34:14–35:06] – Doctor’s testimony on patient trauma due to ICE.
• [38:12–38:20] – The soul of America and the path forward.
• [41:45–43:00] – Jack Smith hearing wrap-up.
• [45:24–46:24] – Media parallels to Gestapo, lack of accountability, and final thoughts.

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Tone and Flow

The conversation is urgent, emotional, and candid, with Wallace and panelists using vivid language to convey the gravity of events. The tone is often direct, sometimes anguished, and always engaged with the human stakes—especially regarding the treatment of children and the broader implications for democracy and American values.

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Conclusion

This episode of Deadline: White House brings sharp focus to the human and civic costs of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdowns, specifically ICE’s occupation in Minnesota. With first-hand reporting, historical parallels, damning poll data, and personal testimonies, the panel makes a forceful case that the policies are not only legally and morally questionable but also politically self-destructive and deeply out of step with national values. The conversation ultimately challenges listeners to consider what kind of nation America wants to be in the face of such abuses.

Transcript

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[Nicole Wallace]

Hi again Everybody. It's now 5 o' clock in New York. It's 4pm in Minneapolis where last night that was footage from last night where some university at Minnesota college students seem to be doing their best to ensure that ICE agents in their state were not able to get a good night's sleep, that they remain as sleepless as the people of Minnesota have been. They were banging pots and pans outside of the hotel where the ICE agents are reportedly staying as the ICE occupation of the state of Minnesota enters its third week. There is evidence today that for ICE there are no lines of decency they won't cross. There are reports of traumatized young children, terrorized students of all ages, targeted immigrants and and bystanders who have all been subject to ice's increasingly violent and indiscriminate tactics. The Washington Post today reports that ICE has been ramping up its targeting of children, including the sickening practice of using children to arrest the adults in their lives. This is what the Washington Post reports about what ICE agents did to five year old Liam Conejo Ramos, quote, after detaining his father, ICE officers then asked Liam to knock on the door to see if any other people were inside the home, quote, using a five year old as bait. According to Liam school district another adult living in the home who was outside at the time, quote, begged the Asians to leave the child with them. The school district said ICE agents refused to do that. 5 year old Liam's middle school age brother returned home 20 minutes later to find that his younger brother and father had been taken. And although it is difficult to believe that and to believe that given the lawlessness we've already seen with our own eyes from Donald Trump's ice, the legal safeguards, restraining ICE agents are actually becoming even more frayed. The AP is reporting today that in a reversal of a long standing policy intended to protect constitutional rights, DHS officers are now asserting the power to forcibly enter people's homes without a judicial warrant. And that's where we start the hour with some of our favorite reporters in France. Senior national political reporter Jacob Soboroff is on the ground for us still in Minneapolis. With us here at the table, Puck New senior political columnist and national affairs analyst John Heilman's here and the former senator, political analyst Claire McCaskill joins us. Jacob Souborough, off TV as soon as I see these stories, I send them to you, asking if you've got reporting on the ground or from your sources, if they're true. And increasingly, every single one of them comes back with the same response from you. Yes. Take me through some of this reporting that we shared in our setup.

[Jacob Soboroff]

I thought today, Nicole, temperature right now negative 3, feels like negative 22 in Minneapolis. I thought today might be a relatively quiet day with Greg Bevino speaking inside to start the day, chief patrol agent of the Border Patrol leading these operations across the country. J.D. vance being here in Minneapolis speaking. But it did not stop the wide scale indiscriminate stops of people on the streets of Minneapolis, including six blocks away from the killing of Renee Nicole Goode, where we just as we were driving around south Minneapolis rolled up on a massive operation taking place. I want to show you what we saw in real time and as it unfolded today. Nicole, watch this. This is East 36 and Columbus Ave. And there's an ongoing operation right here. You can see that these are Federal Bureau of Prisons officers. And down the alley there are multiple vehicles engaged in operation. Right now, all of these ICE observers are out here. And this is what happens. We just we're driving down the street and literally stumbled upon this. This is what it looks like in real time. Look, they got someone in the back of that vehicle right there. They're just grabbing people up there. So behind us, they hit somebody with what looks like pepper spray or some kind of other irritant. That's what happens here. Now they're tending to that person. It's no wonder people are scared. People are terrorizing communities like this. Nicole so the deployment of flashbangs. We saw pepper spray deployed on a protester or an ICE watcher who was in the neighborhood. We asked DHS who that person was they were targeting, what they were accused of, if anything at all. And we have not yet heard back what happens in these operations as well. Whether it's the five year old Liam or whoever was abducted today off of the streets apprehended, they just get back in their cars and they drive away. They leave the scenes just as quickly as they found them and they leave the people behind in their wake. This continues to play out and it is exactly what we've seen time and time and time again. Look at these are the guys running away just as we saw them earlier today.

[Nicole Wallace]

Nicole, who is protecting the rights of, for example, a five year old?

[Jacob Soboroff]

Yeah, it's a wonderful question. There are organizations across the country, namely kids in need of defense, who have made it their mission for decades to make sure every children, every child in immigration custody has the right to counsel. But even they will tell you that some of the guardrails that have been put into place under previous administrations to be able to be well funded, to be able to find these children in custody have been ripped away under this administration. I wish I had a better answer than whoever is able to get to them, to have the resources to track them down in custody and figure out where they are. Alex Tavett, our producer and reporter who is with me here, asked JD Vance today about Liam and when the ICE officials, the border patrol officials stepped to the podium, they could not say with certainty what his fate would be, where he is, what ultimately is going to happen. Nicole, that's the reality of this labyrinth of a system funded tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars, more people in immigration custody than ever before and children are caught in the middle of this. We've talked about how this is mass deportation as family separation. You are witnessing it play out in real time on the streets of Minneapolis.

[Nicole Wallace]

I want to ask you about two other headlines, both of them national, that the Associated Press is reporting that there is a memo now ushering in a policy where no warrant is needed to enter people's homes. Is that playing out in Minneapolis?

[Jacob Soboroff]

It's certainly what it appears. We saw the situation with the US Citizen who was detained days ago. And it seems as we, as we drive around the city and we hear reports from ICE observers and obviously these are individual situations, I haven't confirmed all of them, that these appear as indiscriminate as the raids that are happening. On the street every day. And Nicole, as often happens here, only time will tell if we can get inside these agencies, if we can get the documents, the reporting, but it's all happening so fast by design that we're not able to keep up with it in real time. That's why it's so important to be on the street like this.

[Nicole Wallace]

Jacob, you were here the day that Renee Nicole Goode was shot and killed in her car. You were here the next day. Some of those days blurred together, but I believe that happened on a Wednesday. You were here Wednesday, Thursday and Friday with us. It feels like for the people of Minneapolis, time may have stopped, but I remember one of the questions I asked you that day is if a mom on her way after dropping her kid off from school doing a three point turn in the ICE gets shot in the face. How are they treating the detainees? Washington Post reported last night of a possible homicide in a detention center. What do we know? What is the quality of our information about the conditions inside detention centers?

[Jacob Soboroff]

I have to tell you, Nicole, having been inside some of these detention centers myself, most notably the Adelanto ICE detention center in the high desert outside of Los Angeles, where inspectors general reports have talked about people attempting to hang themselves with nooses. I saw a man in the fetal position in solitary confinement curled up on the floor. That was in the last Trump administration. And they let me into that facility deliberately to allow me to see it myself, just like they did under family step operation. We don't have the access inside those facilities now, and the best we can do is get reports from attorneys who are able to get information from clients inside. But even those are hard to come by as the system expands, as people are snatched indiscriminately off the streets. All I can tell you is what I have seen inside, that these private prisons are only growing, that the number of people who are being detained is only increasing. Which makes you have to wonder how bad it is in there, knowing how bad it has been.

[Nicole Wallace]

Jacob Sovereign, please go get warmer than you are right now. Thank you so much for being there for us, my friend.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Thank you, my friend.

[Nicole Wallace]

Claire A harrowing moment, not just for the people in Minneapolis and across Minnesota. I think it is the kind of story, and I felt this way when I covered Yeoman Wilder, a baseball coach who put himself between his baseball players and ICE agents on the Upper west side of New York in the early months of the second Trump term. But a moment for everyone to ask, what would they do? They were driving down the street and they Saw ice knowing that you could pay with your life, knowing that having a dog or a partner there might not spare you. But they clearly intend to. Again, we'll go with what they're saying out loud. Kristi Noem said that it is the policy now to ask for people's papers. Associated Press has reported an account that hasn't been corrected or taken back that they will enter people's homes without warrants. It is increasingly difficult not to turn to other heinous periods in history where people were asked to walk around with their passports, their IDs and their papers and were walking in. And seizing people from inside their homes was permissible.

[Claire McCaskill]

Yeah. It's interesting to think back to the Republican Party that I grew up around when I traveled rural Missouri. What a lot of those folks that are Trump supporters were worried about was government overreach. They wanted their gun, they wanted their property. They didn't want the government telling them what to do. In fact, a lot of the arguments about guns in this country have been about, well, we need to be prepared if the government goes too far. Well, entering a house without a warrant, is that not far enough for you? Having masked thugs on the street that are representing the government, that's not enough for you? The idea that it's okay because it's them and not us doesn't work in the United States. If the rule of law doesn't work now, it won't work for them. If the shoe, if, God forbid, if somebody took office that wanted to emulate what Trump is doing, control the Justice Department, send out Homeland Security as a quasi police force, untrained, ill equipped, and I would just ask everyone who has a grandchild or a child that's five years old just to think for a minute that five year old taken by people in scary outfits with masks over their faces telling him to go knock on the door, trying to bring people out of that house that they could whisk off and who knows where for what knows what reason. A five year old, that's what we've come to. It is, I think about my grandsons, I think about what I would do if somebody tried to use them to bait people to come out of a house. It is unbelievable to me that we are allowing this to go on. Now. Will the court step in? Probably down the line there'll be rulings that will rein in this stuff. They'll say you must have a warrant, but for right now. And what about the coast playing going on with his look alike Nazi trench coat? You know that guy Don Bongo, Bongo, whatever his name is, it's throwing tear gas. Greg Bovino, whatever his name is a clown. He's a clown. And he's out there leading these guys on this. Righteous to go after protesters with gas. I mean, that's him throwing the gas. Look, look at this joke.

[Nicole Wallace]

And I believe a judge has told him not to throw chemical irritants already. And there he is.

[Claire McCaskill]

Yeah, hard, hard to watch.

[Nicole Wallace]

Heilman.

[John Heilemann]

Claire took me into the. Down the path of, of memory, you know, and I'll say this not as a way of giving particular praise to the individual in question because, you know, mixed record as, you know, George W. Bush. First time I met George W. Bush was 1994, when he was running for governor of Texas. And it was about a week before election Day. And he was in Brownsville, Texas, right down the border, southern border, on a Saturday afternoon. There was a public park in which the park was filled with Hispanic kids playing soccer. The entire park swarming easily. If you had to do a guess, there's at least a third probably didn't have. Were undocumented, you know, maybe more, who knows? And then candidate Bush wandered around all day on that Saturday afternoon speaking Spanish to these kids and kicking soccer balls around. Okay, so I'm not saying this. Oh, God, George W. Bush is great. People have different views about George W. Bush. He got elected governor of Texas by speaking Spanish and hanging around soccer fields in the closing days of the campaign in one of the most Democratic districts in the entire state. The state of Texas elected him over Ann Richards to become governor of Texas. Some people say 30 years ago is a long time ago. It doesn't seem that long ago to me. I mean, that guy became the Republican nominee and then became president of the United States for two terms in this century, in this millennium, right? The world of our political. Just as a political calculus that a world where you could get elected governor of Texas by doing those kinds of things. And the world now where despite having shot Renee Goode in the face or in the chest three times at point blank range, the political calculus is so dramatically different. And I think it is the case. These are really unpopular things they're doing. They are unpopular. It is the case that Donald Trump's numbers across the board, but on immigration in particular, has been going down steadily. I've been saying this for a while. Since the moment they went into LA with ice, it's been going down further and further underwater on immigration. And yet there's no political accountability that we can see so far Maybe eventually there will be, but. And this is just gonna close by saying this. Claire and I were just talking outside before we came on about the fact that it's not that Trump is totally immune to external impulses. We saw what happened when the stock market dropped this week. He immediately did an about face on Greenland. You know, not gonna use force. You know, the stock market went back.

[Nicole Wallace]

Up and the tariffs are up.

[John Heilemann]

The tariffs, same thing when the stock market tumbles. So it's not like he's in some delusional fantasy land where he doesn't know. Where he doesn't care about what anybody thinks. He cares about what the stock market thinks.

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, this shooting of Renee Nicole Good is a video he played before four New York Times journalists to try to convince him to see it his way.

[John Heilemann]

Right. But it's the fact that they are. That what they are immune to is any kind of public. The stock market of public opinion on this.

[Cornell Belcher]

Right.

[John Heilemann]

J.D. vance is there. Now, like in any normal universe, even if you are pursuing this policy, if you saw how unpopular it was, forget about your humanity. Just you looked and said, man, this is really killing our numbers politically. We got to get out of Minneapolis, we got to pull back. Instead, they're not just not getting out of Minneapolis and pulling back. It's getting worse in some ways in terms of what we can see on the streets there. And J.D. vance is there, you know, Bovino is there. They're basically going, we don't care on this. Some things we care what a public thinks, meaning rich people, the stock market, with that, we are still responsive to on this, all the political inputs, the exogenous variables that come across the transom are having no effect whatsoever, which raises the larger question, which is like, what is this really about? And because it's not about immigration enforcement, we know that. And we also know it's not about political popularity. So we can all offer theories about this and we'll turn the baton back. Maybe we want to talk about that. But what is this about? Because this behavior is. Even though the world has changed a lot in 30 years, the basic calculus of politicians doing things that people like and not doing things that people hate, that does not obtain when it comes to this policy. And so it raises a really profound question, which is like, what are they driving towards? What is this about when all the normal laws of political physics are not applying to their behavior.

[Nicole Wallace]

I mean, and to your point, I'm going to pull out the poll numbers. They now separate border from what they're seeing. And this is the voters understand this isn't about the border. Yeah. Securing the border is a lot more popular than what Donald Trump's immigration agenda.

[John Heilemann]

Sure.

[Nicole Wallace]

So we'll talk about that. John and Claire, stay with us. When we come back. After a year back in office. It's only been a year, folks. The verdict is in. The American people don't like the job that Donald Trump is doing as president. They don't think the country is better off because he's president of it. We'll get to Donald Trump's devastating, catastrophic, really, politically speaking. New poll numbers on immigration, on the economy, on just about everything. Also ahead, the politics of today's hearing on Capitol Hill with Jack Smith as Republicans once again work overtime to rewrite history. The history of January six, a day in which they often ran as fast as they could, which was different speeds for all of them to please Donald Trump. And then White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

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[Nicole Wallace]

It took a year, but here we are one year into Donald Trump's second term as president of the United States. And the people of the United States of America do not like what they see. They have issued a stinging rebuke of his presidency. Brand new polling in the New York Times highlights how Donald Trump is so deeply unpopular that he is underwater on nearly every major issue. He campaigned on the things he used to be strong on 58% of Americans disapprove of Donald Trump's handling of the economy. 64% of all Americans disapprove of Donald Trump's handling of the issue of the cost of living. On the issue of immigration that we have been talking about, it is just as ugly for him. We are 40% of Americans approve of his handling of the issue with close to 60% disapproving. And all that leads to this. Just 32% of Americans believe that Donald Trump has made America better since he returned to the presidency. I want to bring into our conversation political analyst and pollster Cornell Belcher. John and Claire are still here. Cornell, what do you see in these numbers?

[Cornell Belcher]

You know, Nicole, I've been looking at numbers for a long time and. And quite frankly, I've never seen anything like it. If you look at how he has completely collapsed among independent voters and even some of his support, Republicans are getting softer. It looks like a failed presidency, and I don't say that lightly. When you look at where independent voters are, and quite frankly, the majority of voters are on every major measurement of a presidency, from handling immigration to cost of living, which he's underwater by more than 20 points to the economy, he's underwater by large amounts in ways that I've not seen of any presidency in the last two decades or more. Right. I mean, I don't go back very much. Despite the gray hair, I'm actually not that old. But whether it be Bush, Clinton, Obama, Danny Bush, I've never seen numbers like this before.

[John Heilemann]

Right.

[Cornell Belcher]

I don't say it lightly, but this looks like what a failed presidency looks like in the data.

[Nicole Wallace]

I mean, Cornell, I think what's tricky about it is the bubble that's been erected around him has him coming out and calling affordability a hoax, as John Heilm is saying, doubling and tripling down on the immigration policies which are wildly unpopular. In the first term, he used to go down to the border and there is bipartisan support for having a secure border. There is no support for enforcement. That looks like militarized streets in American cities. It doesn't exist. It never has. The idea that he's doubling and tripling down on the things that are wildly unpopular, making him more politically impotent. Why do you surmise that's happening?

[Cornell Belcher]

I have no idea. It's Politics 101. At some point, you should probably do things that the majority of Americans want you to do as opposed to keeping.

[Nicole Wallace]

Like invade Greenland.

[Cornell Belcher]

Yeah, I mean, there's, you know, I didn't have. No. We didn't have Invade Greenland on our bingo card. Right. We didn't have Invade Venezuela on our bingo cards. We didn't have Americans being shot in the streets by, you know, federal, mass. Federal agents either. Right. None of these things are what Americans want and it's what they're aspire for. And his calling affordability a hoax. Right. So he's not, he's. What has he done to tackle the cost of living?

[Jacob Soboroff]

Right.

[Cornell Belcher]

Which was. Has been economies has been and continues to be the number one issue. What has he done to tackle that very conventional issue of cost of living health care? Now, all our data, we're saying the issue of health care costs as people's premiums go up is rising as a, as an issue concern. We're probably going to have another election where health care is front and center. What has he done to tackle that, that, that issue? What does he tackle. Do to tackle. What has he done to tackle any of the conventional issues? But then it gets deeper than that, Nicole, because when you look at what Americans are saying about when you ask them, you know, how do you feel? Like they're concerned and they're worried and they're disappointed. Right. So there's a spiritual piece to this that is just as important as the conventional piece to it, that Americans feel that the country's heading the wrong direction. And we see more Americans than ever think that the country's more divided than ever and more Americans than ever thinking that the American dream is evaporating. So there's a conventional piece of this where he's not tackling the issues that most Americans put at the top of the priority. But there's a deeper spiritual values issue that Americans look at this presidency and what they're doing and say, this is not America. This does not represent us, which I also think is critically important.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah, that last piece is really hard to get at, both in a poll and in and in coverage. But if you go out and talk to people, it's all over the place. And the closest I've seen a poll get at it is the number of 71% of Americans who think the country's out of control. That includes, you know, numerically speaking, some people who voted for Donald Trump. Things are getting more and more expensive. He's snatching jets from Middle Eastern countries. He's got three wars, is very much an option. He said maybe Mexico. He's talking about taking Canada, which invited a rare and historic rebuke from, from Canada this week. He's backed down in taco fashion. But he hasn't taken his desire for what he said four days ago was a, quote, psychological need for ownership of Greenland off the table. I mean, it is a caricature if you look at all of it all the time, but it is, to get to Cornell's point, a feeling that none of it is about the people he represents.

[Claire McCaskill]

Every day there's something new, but it's never about you.

[Nicole Wallace]

Right.

[Claire McCaskill]

It's never about what's going on in your life. It's not about the fact that your car insurance tripled. It's not about the fact that, that you can't afford the rent anymore. It's not about the fact you have to sell your condo because you can't afford the property insurance. It's not about that you can't get your drugs because everything's not coming out. 40% of America is living paycheck to paycheck. 40%, that's a big number, Nicole. And it's never about that. It's never about you. It's about him. It's about him needing his name on things. It's about him, you know, wanting to build a fancy ballroom regardless of whether or not he's tearing part of the historic White House. It's about him wanting to own Greenland. It's about him getting some kind of weird pleasure out of snatching Maduro out of Venezuela and how that showed. Somehow he thinks that makes him look powerful.

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, forget about the operation, but saying that quote on Venezuela, you know, we run it, the oil is mine.

[Claire McCaskill]

Yeah. And putting the money in an offshore account, like, how so? And nobody in America thinks any of that money is coming to them. Nobody. It's not. It's not.

[John Heilemann]

No.

[Claire McCaskill]

So I wish people would start polling. Are you embarrassed by Donald Trump?

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah.

[Claire McCaskill]

I'd love to know that number because I can.

[Nicole Wallace]

Call me. I'll answer.

[Claire McCaskill]

I'm embarrassed.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yes, I'm embarrassed. Look, I think people are embarrassed. I think the question that people have, and I think this has always been tricky to, again, to cover and to get it in polls, is how do you bring the most people along to the most sensible thing? Taking 5 year old Liam Conejo Ramos and then not just taking him, separating him from his father and detaining him in a location that no one in the government is either sharing or certain of. But how does he become collateral damage? How are we at a war against ourselves in America where a five year old is one of the weapons of Donald Trump's choosing?

[John Heilemann]

How do I get these questions from You.

[Nicole Wallace]

Because I like, it's such a, like.

[John Heilemann]

A, you know, if I would ask.

[Nicole Wallace]

You, if we weren't on tv, how.

[John Heilemann]

Did we end up in that? How did it come to this?

[Nicole Wallace]

But look, it's this point about dehumanization. And I feel like we've been talking about that for 10 years.

[John Heilemann]

Yes, we have. And look, I just am gonna be a little bit more. Because I was thinking about what Cornell was talking about. He kept talking about, what has he done? What has he done? What has he done? Those are all really good questions. He hasn't done anything on many of these key issues that voters in general care about, independent voters in particular, a lot of his base. Here's the other thing that we rarely do is we say forget about what he's done. What's he gonna do? What's gonna happen next? Right. And I give you a good example. When he went to the Detroit Economic Club last week, he said he was gonna talk about housing when he got to Davos, right? And he has some housing proposals, some of which are things that are. They're not really proposals, but he's like, you know, Elizabeth Warren. And he had a conversation recently where he grabbed onto a few of these kind of populist sounding proposals on the economy. And he's kind of. He says them, and he says, I'm gonna come back to them later. So the housing proposals, whatever you think about them, pumping some trivial amount of money into the mortgage market, putting a cap on how many homes large investment firms can get. He's got a bunch of these things that are. There's at least.

[Nicole Wallace]

Which you've now talked about more than he has, right?

[John Heilemann]

They're a nod towards. I understand that the economy is a political problem for me and my party, but instead he's been to Davos. How much discussion was. Did he ever lay out any of these policies? No. Did he end up talking about Greenland? Yes. Did he end up trying to blow up the NATO alliance? Yes. But the things that he might do to start to improve his and the Republican Party's political standing all get overshadowed by all the rest of this garbage we're talking about here. And I will just point out, not to be too much of a scientific genius here, but we're in an even numbered year. Even numbered years are not like odd numbered years in politics. He doesn't have 12 months to fix this. He doesn't have 10 months between now and November. He's got till like June, because once you get to the summer, Claire will remember what this is. Like to be on Capitol Hill in the summer of an election year, everybody goes home and starts campaigning. And if you don't have the stuff to run on by the time you get to Memorial day, maybe say, July 4th, you're cooked. You're not gonna. You're not gonna change. You're not gonna do things that Congress can run on. The Republicans in Congress could run on in October. In October, you're in full on. He's got a few very short Runway to do. Anything to change their trajectory of these numbers. And as of today, there is nothing that looks like they have a plan for. Forget just the most cynical thing. How do I get my numbers up? There's nothing that they have said or done that suggests that they have a five month plan to fix the problem. Which means that with every day that goes by, the likelihood of Republicans getting decimated in these midterms goes up every single day.

[Nicole Wallace]

Which makes it even weirder that J.D. vance was in Minneapolis 100%.

[John Heilemann]

That's that other conundrum. Yeah, but it really is like just. It's not. It's a really short Runway now to try to fix this problem. He's in.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah. All right. No one's going anywhere to sneak in a quick break. Well, I'll be right back.

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[Nicole Wallace]

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[Cornell Belcher]

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[John Heilemann]

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[Nicole Wallace]

We're back with Cornell, John and Claire. Cornell, you opened the door to a conversation about the spiritual feeling that things are off and people's humanity. I want to see if we can pull down some sound from earlier in this hour of a Minnesota doctor talking about the impact of Donald Trump's mass deportations, mass roundups, the terrorizing of the people on the streets in Minneapolis and showing the impact on patients, including very small children. Watch.

[Cornell Belcher]

I work overnight, said children's and I had a patient show up at 4:30 in the morning. I might start crying. She had four children with influenza, vomiting, diarrhea at home. She had to triage, self triage and think which is the sickest kid. So all night this lady was watching out of her window. She said, when I felt that the road was clear, she brought her 13 year old in and she had a 6 year old, 8 year old and a 3 year old at home with worse symptoms than him. But she said they wouldn't know what to do if ICE vehicle was around. And there is this 13 year old who has not known anything else except the United States of America sitting there traumatized, lethargic, dehydrated to no limits. So I think we are endangering these children not only for their illness from today, but they are being traumatized for they're going to be traumatized an entire generation.

[Nicole Wallace]

Cornell Rachel Maddow does a great new podcast series on the Japanese internment. And what's so riveting to me is that every single person that was taken lived with the fear that they were going to be shot. Not just that they would die, but that they would be killed, that they would be shot in the internment camps. Every single person being terrorized right now, today, Thursday in America, 5:39 in the east is living in such abject terror, not just that they as adults will be shot, but that their children will not be spared. Because yesterday in Minneapolis, Liam Conejo Ramos was used as bait by ICE officers to draw out and deport other people living in America. What is sort of the lasting damage that all this is being done in the name of politics of Donald Trump who had mass deportation signs waved at his convention?

[Cornell Belcher]

Yeah, I don't know if we can, if we have a clear measure of that now, but clearly it's doing lasting damage. And Americans are looking around and going, this is not right and this is not who we're supposed to be, Americans. And look, you know, whether you're independent or Republican or Democrat, I mean there's A value thread that runs through all through all of us Americans that make us more alike and closer than not. And there's a decency about the majority of Americans and we understand right and wrong when we see it. And what we're seeing right now is disturbing and jarring to so many Americans. I can't speak to what the long term effect of this is, but what I can speak to is what I think the future looks like for any smart candidate out there. Right. The future is we got to turn the page on this. And if I were a candidate thinking about running in the future, I would absolutely be using this as a wedge and as something to springboard off. Right. This is all this is. This is wrong. And using the federal government this way and having Americans terrorized and immigrants terrorized and children terrorizing our streets. And to be, quite frankly, Nicole, I'm an American citizen. My peoples go back in this country as far as for a very long time in the soil and blood in the south of this country. I can't tell you that I don't know or I'm not afraid that a federal agent won't roll up on me and detain me. What's stopping them?

[Jacob Soboroff]

Right.

[Cornell Belcher]

It's the chaos and the lawlessness of it all. And I think there is an opportunity for a different kind of politics to break through, one that says it's time to turn the page on us and rooted in sort of the fundamental values and bringing Americans, both Democrats and some of those Republicans and independents, along with us for a different kind of America and a different kind of picture of America.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Right.

[Cornell Belcher]

And it's not simply my eight point economic plan.

[Nicole Wallace]

Right.

[Cornell Belcher]

What do we want the soul of America to be? And it's not this.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for introducing that into our conversation. Cornell Belcher, thank you for being part of this today. When we come back, how time time again. The MAGA Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee seemed really intent on trying to rewrite the history of Donald Trump's assault on the capitol in the 2020 election. Are they working overtime to do that? We'll get to that with John and Claire next. Today's hearing featuring special counsel Jack Smith was a lot like watching defense attorneys for an arsonist question the detective who investigated the found the arsonist. Republicans, who could not be less interested in what was a crime, a violent coup, spent their day slandering law enforcement, screaming conspiracy theories, interrupting Jack Smith and without a hint of irony, whining about, wait for it, the weaponization of the Justice Department. Now it is possible that there could be a sequel to what happened today related to something Jack Smith isn't currently allowed to discuss. Here's what happened at the end of today's testimony.

[Cornell Belcher]

Jack Smith has not been able to answer the vast majority of questions about.

[John Heilemann]

What'S in volume two of his special counsel report relating to the stolen documents. Now it's been said that the, the judicial order that Eileen Cannon imposed will be lifted in February.

[Cornell Belcher]

And so I would, I guess my point of order is do we intend to bring him back so he can answer questions about volume two and about.

[John Heilemann]

The, the stolen documents case? We'll take it undervisor. Okay, well then we'll see what the.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Court decides to do.

[John Heilemann]

Frankly, I, I got you. Well then in that event, I've got.

[Cornell Belcher]

The signatures of every member on our side who are writing to notify you of our intent to call him to.

[John Heilemann]

Testify in continuation of this hearing to.

[Cornell Belcher]

Answer all of the unanswered questions about the second half of his work.

[Nicole Wallace]

We're back with John and Claire. Claire, your thoughts?

[Claire McCaskill]

Yeah, I mean I think it'll certainly happen in January of next year because I think the Democrats will take the House and I think they will want have an opportunity to let Jack Smith frankly do a more fulsome job of laying out all of the evidence, the overwhelming evidence that he saw. And as a straight middle down the road professional guy who was just looking at the facts, the evidence and the law and that's it. I don't think the Republicans did much today except compete with one another for a viral moment for fundraising. I don't think they accomplished a lot. I think everybody remembers what happened on January 6th and I think most of America, in fact a huge majority of America do not agree with, with Trump pardoning people who viciously assaulted police officers. And you know, could he have been, you know, a little bit more aggressive in trying to keep them from cutting him off and letting him answer questions? Yeah, he could have been. But you did get the impression that this was not an extremist. This was just a very understated. I'm not, you're not going to taunt me or trick me into saying silly stuff. You guys can go on and try to remake history, but when the one congressman said that, that some guy caused it to happen that day and one of the police officers coughed and said go F yourself, you know, during his cough, that was my favorite moment of.

[Nicole Wallace]

The year, mind you. I mean, look, I think you have dogs. Do you ever have like a non dog person over and Your dog jumps and, like, licks their face and then licks their body. And you feel like you have to explain, like, a dog house to a non dog person. Like, Jack Smith isn't of the circus.

[John Heilemann]

We've had all non dog people.

[Nicole Wallace]

I mean, we do, too, but sometimes. But, like, Jack Smith is, like, she's not of, like, the fun house mirror. Like, the idiocy of the House Republican Judiciary Committee. Like, I don't fault him for not rubbing any of their bellies. Like, he's like. He's like a prosecutor. I don't know. Not only is he not a political actor, the reason when he says, I would have been able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump was guilty of the crimes is because that's the standard to bring a case in criminal court for the federal government.

[John Heilemann]

Yeah, I think. Look, I mean, if I'm Jack Smith, and I'm certain that part of large part of his prep for this was avoiding a perjury trap. And I mean, I don't mean to say perjuring himself. I mean, a perjury trap, which is like, how they're doing a lot of these prosecutions is trying to make it up. Perjury traps are illegitimate. They're not people committing perjury because they're perjurers. It's because you've set various traps for them to try to get them to say the wrong thing, and then you go and try to prosecute them later. So if you're Jack Smith and you're thinking you've seen what's happened in some of these other cases where perjury traps have been set, one of your concerns is, am I gonna make sure that I say that I don't let myself make myself vulnerable to an illegitimate prosecution down the line? I also think that what you just said is that this is a person who's lived his life adhering to the laws of courtrooms where actual evidence and statements of actual fact and what can be and the rule. He kept saying people would ask him, why did you do this? Why didn't you?

[Cornell Belcher]

That?

[John Heilemann]

He's like, well, because I didn't need to do that to satisfy a court. That was his recourse in a lot of these cases. So the fact that he didn't. That he wasn't more of a. That he performed in such a way that some of the Democrats felt it necessary to basically say, please don't. We all know you did the right thing. None of it matter. I don't think it matters at all. And when I hear this thing at the end about bringing it back up. Is he going to come back and testify about the stolen documents case? I hate to say it. I don't care. I just, I don't. I mean, I cared that Donald Trump stole documents took Mar? A Lago. The moment for prosecuting Donald Trump on that is passed. The political salience of it going forward is zero. If for history. We want to have that appearing great, but it's not gonna matter in the end. Is he stealing classified documents? Now that matters, but that's over.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah. Hallman. Claire, thank you so much for being here today and spending the hour with me. We have special coverage tonight. It starts at 8 o'.

[John Heilemann]

Clock.

[Nicole Wallace]

Our fearless leader, Rachel Maddow, lead the primetime team as we cover and analyze everything that we heard from Jack Smith today. One more break. We'll be right back. My guest on this week's new episode of the Best People is longtime media reporter Oliver Darcy. He never pulls any punches. He covers all aspects of the media universe, from CBS to the manosphere to the crazy things coming out of the mouth of Kendace Owens. Take a listen to what he told me about the reaction to Trump's immigration crackdown.

[Cornell Belcher]

I mean, I think when, again, when Joe Rogan's equating your actions to the Gestapo, that should be something that sounds the alarm in the White House, but you don't see them responding. I mean, the thing is back to the sunlight thing. It used to be that if someone were to record an ICE officer behaving like that and upload it to the Internet, there would be outrage, which would lead to responsible federal officials saying, this is not acceptable. We're investigating this. These people have been suspended. They probably lose their jobs. Right. Like in a normal administration. Instead, you see DHS tweeting publicly that ICE officers, you should know you have impunity. If anyone impedes your efforts, it's a federal crime and we will prosecute them, basically telling them, like, do whatever you want. And so I think that's what's strange about this moment is again, like it might be damaging to Donald Trump and his administration in the elections, but, but in this moment, the sunlight's not really resulting in any change of behavior. It's actually causing them seemingly to take a more aggressive posture.

[Nicole Wallace]

You can watch the entire conversation. It's out now on YouTube. You can do that by scanning the QR code on your screen or you can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. One more break. We'll be right back, Homes. Today we are grateful.

[Cornell Belcher]

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