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“The power of grassroots pushback”
00:41:34
Nicolle Wallace covers the power of the people in Minneapolis who are hitting the streets every day in frigid weather to fight for the rights of their neighbors who are being targeted by ICE.
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Nicole Wallace
Download today. Hi there, everyone. It's four o'clock in New York. The single biggest roadblock to the authoritarian ambitions of Donald Trump and his aides and allies is right now as we come on the air. Without a doubt, the people of Minneapolis and the choices they make every hour of every day, every step Donald Trump takes is being met with their grassroots pushback. And that is all happening as Trump is finding new ways to push the autocratic envelope. An internal memo obtained by our colleague, White House correspondent Laura Baron Lopez, said significantly expands the power that federal agents have to make an arrest without a warrant. Two former ICE officials telling us that the memo means agents need to determine the status of everyone they encounter and then make arrests if they are undocumented. It was signed on January 28. It happens to be one day after Donald Trump said his administration would, quote, de escalate the crisis in Minneapolis. But as we have reported here, there's very little evidence that those words were backed by any action. Very little evidence that that is happening. Harrowing video obtained by Minnesota Public Radio, npr shows federal agents drawing their guns on an observer in the town of St. Peter. Watch call 91 1. I'm right at the corner of Jefferson. Get out of the car. Get out of the car.
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Tim Miller
Get out of the corner. Get out of the car right now.
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Nicole Wallace
No, no, I will not. I will not get out of the car. No, no, I will not get out of the car. You guys. I need CEOs here tonight.
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Podcast Announcer
Get out of the car.
- [02:36]
Nicole Wallace
No, I will not get out of the car.
- [02:38]
Isaac Stanley Becker
You guys.
- [02:39]
Tim Miller
Get out of the corner.
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Nicole Wallace
Get your hands off of me. Get your hands off me. So Minnesota Public Radio reports that after that point in the video, what happened was that she was dragged out. She was forced to the ground, even as you can hear her telling them, quote, this is my constitutional right. As for her repeatedly Talking about calling 911, the local police chief did arrive. He did have to intervene to stop agents from taking her into custody, into detention. What Minnesota Public Radio says is the first time a local Minnesota Police Department has intervened against federal agents since Operation Metro Surge began. The observer is a US Citizen. She's a local resident. In a statement posted on X in response to the video, the Department of Homeland Security claimed she was an agitator who was stalking and obstructing law enforcement. She's part of what has become a small army of observers determined to watch and shed light on the abuses of the Trump administration. Washington Post reports this, quote, we more than 34,000 Minnesotans have signed up to be trained as US Immigration and Customs Enforcement observers with various activist groups in recent weeks, many of them since January 7, when a federal agent shot and killed Renee Goode. That is 34,000 people signing up for work that obviously appears dangerous and we now know is deadly potentially. In the wake of two killings in three weeks, the example of courage, of extraordinary commitment to one another in the face of brutal, brutal federal overreach that the people of Minneapolis are setting for us and for the world is not going unnoticed. Their work is starting a national movement. New York Times reports that activists are applying pressure on big business, particularly Minnesota's homegrown retailer Target. From that report, quote, protesters opposed to the federal immigration crackdown in Minneapolis have turned their attention to Target stores across the country, putting pressure on that Minnesota based retail giant to stop cooperating with federal agents. Demonstrations have recently taken place at about two dozen Target stores in Minnesota, with additional protests in other cities including Chicago, Seattle, Philadelphia and New York. Over the weekend, there were more protests across our country. This is one of them. In Los Angeles, where thousands of people gathered in front of City Hall. There, officials say that some arrests were made after protesters failed to disperse. In Portland, Oregon, the mayor asked ICE to leave the city after federal agents launched tear gas at a crowd of demonstrators that he says were peaceful demonstrators. The Trump administration meeting its match in the grassroots resistance. The people of Minneapolis and across our country is where we start today. Professor of history at New York University, Ruth Ben Guillotis back She's the author of Strongmen Mussolini to the present. Also joining us, political analyst, host of the Bulwark Podcast. Tim Miller is back and staff writer for the Atlantic, Isaac Stanley Becker. He's been reporting from Minneapolis. He joins us. Isaac, you were last year on the streets of Minneapolis. You are now back, but you have left us with this dispatch. Let me read about your, I don't want to call it a ride along, but your, your reporting from the police chief squad car. You write this. Federal agents have mobilized so aggressively that their impact is fathomable only to those on the receiving end of it and to the local police officers overwhelmed by it. In Minneapolis, federal agents outnumber the police at least five to one. ICE's dragnet is so broad that some of O' Hara's officers have been caught up in it, stopped while off duty. One officer in neighboring St. Paul has been stopped twice. That's according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian o'. Hara. Tell us what you saw.
- [06:47]
Isaac Stanley Becker
Yeah, I wanted to spend some time with Chief o' Hara and ride around the city with him because I wanted to get a better picture of what this actually looked like from law enforcement trying to keep the peace in Minneapolis. Law enforcement not trying to do violence to citizens and residents there, but to maintain order and maintain public safety. And they're just under an extraordinary amount of pressure. The, the burden is, is immense. Calls for service have surged because there is just so much chaos and disturbance on the streets created by these federal agents. I, I share your interest in this extraordinary episode in St Peter where it seems there was intervention from local law enforcement. And I think that speaks to this, this dynamic and potential standoff between federal forces and local law enforcement who are trying citizens safe. And that was something that was really on the police chief's mind in Minneapolis as well, saying, what is our obligation to the citizens here? How do we act within the law, but how do we keep our own people safe?
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Nicole Wallace
What is their understanding of the law in which the federal government is acting in? I mean, it seems that there is no law that allows what was on that videotape.
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Isaac Stanley Becker
Well, I think the really complicated thing here is the way the police chief explained it to me. He's caught between two demands. He's saying the federal government wants his local cops to be acting as bodyguards for ICE agents, and clearly they're not going to be doing that. But he's also saying some of the activists and people on the streets want his officers to go and arrest ICE agents, federal agents, who they believe are contravening the law. And he says we also can't do that. You know, there's a aspect of this where they're enforcing federal immigration law, and that's not something that we're going to do, but we also can't necessarily interrupt it. Now, in this case in St. Peter, this small, small town in, In Minnesota, the chief appears to have made a different decision about his obligations, clearly not arresting the ICE agents, but intervening and ensuring the release of one of the. Of one of the residents of that city. Now, I think it's interesting here that I think, according to the latest information, city officials have actually denied that the chief intervened in this way. So I think that there's a feeling that local jurisdictions that. That are seen to step out of line in this way could come under federal pressure. And we'll have to see how that develops.
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Nicole Wallace
Ruth, how do you see this moment, which I think we are not able to, from our perch here, really appreciate how fraught this is, right? The terror and the courage in the face of that terror, of citizens armed with their telephones and their whistles and the agitation that we see again with our own eyes and the aggressive nature of ICE agents. And every day it feels to be increasing and increasing and increasing. How do you see this moment?
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Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Yeah, that footage you showed, it's straight out of an authoritarian regime, a junta or any kind of repressive regime. And, you know, such states depend on people deciding they're not going to see and they're not going to hear anything. They're going to look the other way when their neighbors get dragged out and they're going to be silent and they use repression and they buy off people so that that will happen. And people are saying, we're not going to do that, because in that way they are modeling solidarity, unity, empathy, and they're doing it in very harrowing conditions. But, you know, this is operating like an authoritarian state, where there actually is no concept of a legal observer in an authoritarian state or a legal protest in many states, or the right to assembly. And the ICE agent, there was an ICE agent recently said to one legal observer, if you raise your voice, I will erase your voice. And that's what we're dealing with. And so the extraordinary courage being shown on, on the streets is really inspiring. And it's what you need under an authoritarian state to construct a pro democracy movement. The modeling of courage, Ruth, the piece.
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Nicole Wallace
Of it that I think is not getting as much attention as it deserves is the boycott movement, which feels very grassroots in nature. But just talk about the power of the purse and people exercising their rights to protest outside Minnesota BAS companies. Scott Galloway is somebody I follow. He's canceling big tech apps every day. I think he canceled Uber today. And just talk to me about the power of people changing their purchasing and their spending habits and these brands now forever being associated with ice.
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Ruth Ben-Ghiat
It's really important. And these are things that people who maybe cannot be on the streets or don't want to be on the streets can do. And they've had a resonance and an effect all over the world. In Myanmar after the coup in 2021, young people constructed apps so that their fellow citizens could see in real time which businesses were collaborating with the junta. And that was very effective. And business has historically been slow to do the right thing. And so these kind of pressure campaigns are very important, peaceful pressure campaigns. And the power of the purse has been demonstrated to be part of effective pushback against autocracy.
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Nicole Wallace
Tim, I wonder if you can help sort of frame this political moment. Here's what John Kennedy from your state describes it as. Quote, I've never seen a political party take its best issue and turn it into its worst issue in the period of time that it has happened in the last few weeks. And, Kenny, some things have to change. But you and I have been having these conversations since the morning after the election. And to see both the race to capitulate from big law firms, from prestigious universities, the silence of Hollywood up to three weeks ago at the Golden Globes, to see it turned around, I mean, 180 doesn't capture the turnaround. And it's not apples to apples. Right. The Golden Globes are not the. The Grammys. That's a group of creatives that are much more forceful and using their voices. But to see the approval rating of Donald Trump at a whole down in the low 30s, which is where it was during the worst of COVID to see his approval on immigration deep Underwater, I think 14 to 15 points. To see Republicans running so far away from him that there was a meeting where they decided to release the Epstein files to distract from Minneapolis. That's where we are politically.
- [14:04]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And obviously it's tragic that there to be two deaths to start to spur some of this. So that that's, you know, the dark side of this. But, like, just looking at it just from a political analysis perspective, the change is remarkable. Nicole, when you talk about how we started talking about this the day after the election, 2024, I mean, for almost all of last year, 2025, you know, one of the things that we were talking about was that, like, A lot of Democrats, Democratic politicians were scared to engage in the issue of immigration. They thought it was a losing issue. Trump had beat them on it twice at that point. You know, unlike, you know, that they're maybe learning some of the wrong lessons from, from 20, you know, from the first Trump time around and thought that, you know, maybe they should just focus on other things, kitchen table issues. And, you know, the Democratic politicians, you know, it was like the voters really were the tail wagging the dog, the politicians were late to the party a little bit. And to now see this totally flipped where Democratic politicians, for the most part, you know, we can, you know, nitpick some of the messaging, but for the most part, Democratic politicians are leaning in on this and recognizing that a, it's on. It's just totally uncalled for and wrong and heinous on the merits what, what ICE and CDP are doing, but also recognizing that, that voters agree with them and they can, there, there can be some political opportunity here. You see that. And then on the flip side, it's now you see Republicans like, like John Kennedy who are now starting to say that their party should be scared of this issue and the third party should back off a little bit, right? So we've had a total flip where like, Republicans were crowing and, you know, basically, you know, saying I want to drink liberal tears and let's do anything. And, you know, whatever the craziest thing Stephen Miller can come up with, we're on board for it. You know, that has changed. And I think that is the, you know, starkest sign that, you know, the, the political reality for the Trump presidency overall, but in particular the immigration issue is changing.
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Nicole Wallace
What to me, I can't get my brain around him, is the promise was to deport the worst of the worst. And the politically salient issue for Donald Trump, and I would admit some of us missed it, was that at his rallies, they would provide news clips of violent crimes committed by people who are in this country illegally. Those people are in jail, right? They knew those stories because they were then caught by local law enforcement, prosecuted and jailed. And so the worst of the worst, who he campaigned on deporting and showed videos at his rallies of the horrible, heinous crimes those people committed. They're in jails. They are not five year olds at preschool, they are not landscapers at work with four Marine sons. They are not restaurant workers, they are not teachers, they are not mothers, they are not observers. I mean, we. Why are they doing the thing that nobody wanted to do, the thing that Cost them all of their political capital.
- [17:02]
Tim Miller
Yeah, well, so I have two thoughts on this. One is that, you know, this is a common political mistake where politicians start to buy their own BS a little bit. You know, you got in a campaign, you take a real issue, maybe you exaggerated a little bit, and then you get into office and you feel like you need to follow up. Your office is right. This is the kind of thing that has beef on lots of politicians. Usually not in as dark of ways as it has fallen this administration, but I think they really believed that there were a lot of, a lot more worst of the worst out there than there were. And I do think that is, that's part of this. At least Trump did. Maybe not, you know, some of the smarter, you know, kind of immigration restrictionists around him like Stephen Miller, but I think Trump at least believed that, that it was going to be easier to get this low hanging fruit and that he'd have a lot of, you know, press conferences where he talked about all these bad guys, bad hombres that he got, you know, So I think that's part of it. The other part of it is again, this momentum, when it came in, they thought they were elected based on this. They put Stephen Miller and said, here you have the keys. You, Kristi Noem, you can, whatever you can come up with, you know, immigration, this is your issue. And so they funded it. In 2025, they gave them just unimaginable amounts of money. DHS now has more money than the Marine Corps, more money than the Israeli military. And so once you do that now, like this is a little bit out of, out of their own control. Like even if they wanted to dial it back, unless they start clawing some of that money back, you know, you, you can't control all these new people that you've hired, you know, and, and all of the initiatives that get started forward, normal bureaucratic creep issues, like they have an insane amount of money, a lot of people who don't know what they're doing, who are not meant to be doing enforcement on the interior either because they're new recruits or because they're border folks, like the two that allegedly killed Pretty who were moved from the border up into the interior of the country. They have all this money for all these people and they don't know, you know, what else are they going to do. And you're going to, and, and I think this, this creep is going to continue even if they try to dial it back.
- [18:59]
Nicole Wallace
It is, it's like this political ball and chain. This thing that they built that is now this thing dragging them down politically. When we come back, five year old Liam Ramos has been freed from an ICE detention center. It's a story we've covered here every single day since it broke. We'll bring you the latest. It happens as calls grow for the other innocent children in his school. There were other kids taken as well and their families to be released as well. We'll bring you all the latest reporting on that. Also ahead, victims and survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell are calling the Justice Department's final release of files, quote, a slap in the face. We'll talk about that with Danielle Bensky, an Epstein survivor. She'll join me here live at the table. And later in the hour, incredible new reporting on what went on behind closed doors when Tulsi Gabbard picked up the phone to call Donald J. Trump from the scene of a Georgia election office search related to his 2020 defeat in that state, a sham investigation effectively directed by Trump himself. We're bringing all that reporting and much more when Deadline White HOUSE continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
- [20:11]
Podcast Announcer
Ms. Now presents the chart topping original podcast, the Best People with Nicole Wallace. This week, she sits down with former Attorney General Eric Holden.
- [20:22]
Eric Holder
The only thing that is going to save this nation, that's going to save this democracy, is the American people, an engaged, focused, committed American people.
- [20:29]
Podcast Announcer
The best people with Nicole Wallace. Listen now for early access ad free listening and bonus content, subscribe to Ms. Now premium on Apple Podcasts.
- [20:43]
Nicole Wallace
It was a rare ray of pure light when news broke over the weekend that Liam Conejo Ramos, that five year old boy in the blue bunny hat and a little backpack, he was arrested by ICE agents in Minneapolis, had been released from a Texas detention center alongside his dad, Adrian. They were detained after ICE agents had attempted to use that five year old Liam as bait to arrest other people living in his home, including his pregnant mom. A judge ordered their release with a scathing rebuke to Donald Trump, writing this quote, the case has its genesis in the ill conceived and incompetently implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently, even if that requires traumatizing children. Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest knows no bounds and a bereft of human decency and the rule of law be damned. The judge, including that indelible image of Liam in his blue bunny hat next to his signature on that order, Liam is Right now, home safe in Minnesota. But his story, tragically for our country and the people who write its history, is a drop in the bucket. According to the Marshall Project, quote, at least 3,800 children under the age of 18, including 20 infants, have been booked since Donald Trump took office, with more than one third of those children being held for longer than 20 days legally permitted. In Liam School District alone, four other students are currently being held in the very same Texas facility where Liam was detained. With Minnesota Public Radio reporting that ICE is illegally detaining and removing Minnesota children to Texas faster than the courts can respond. We're back with Ruth, Tim and Isaac. There are no words, but the judge found the words that do exist for this behavior. Isaac, again, this was the policy in Trump 1.0 that was so effing odious, Donald Trump reversed it. How are we in overdrive on this front?
- [22:58]
Isaac Stanley Becker
Yeah, I guess I want to say two things about this. One is that this may be a drop in the bucket, but I think these images matter greatly. We know that we live in a moment where images like this matter a huge amount to our politics. We all remember the image of Donald Trump raising his fist last summer or the summer before in, in Butler, Pennsylvania, after his ear was grazed. And I think some of these images from Minneapolis may be just as indelible. This image of 5 year old Liam in his Spider man backpack, the image of federal agents shooting a nurse in the back. And the second point I would make is, you know, tying this to the, to the political question is, is what is the response to this? And, and I, you know, when I, when I spoke with Governor Tim Walls last week, he acknowledged that the Democrats have been put in a difficult position politically by, by Donald Trump's advantage on the immigration issue. And so what is the Democratic policy and position on immigration and speaking about this case, this five year old saying, you know, the governor saying we have to be serious about certain enforcement questions, but our policy also has to be, no, we're not going to arrest a five year old in a Spider man backpack and, you know, a furry blue hat after being picked up from preschool. So I think it's pointing, it's pointing Democrats toward a stance on this very vexed issue.
- [24:21]
Nicole Wallace
Ruth, your thoughts on the fact that there's still a struggle as Isaac's talking about Governor Walz detailing in their conversations.
- [24:38]
Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Unfortunately, children become pawns and targets in many authoritarian regimes. A few days after Leon was seized, a 2 year old was taken into custody when agents smashed the car window. And this, you know, Many of these people who are being targeted come from places where people were like juntas, military places where they are routinely kidnapped. And there's a whole history of children being, you know, sold or trafficked or just given to families in regimes. We have this with the high number of children kidnapped by the Russians in Ukraine, Ukrainian children kidnapped. And so this is something that's very traumatizing, and it's meant to be traumatizing to the families.
- [25:34]
Nicole Wallace
Tim, this just feels like another WTF moment. Like, this is not. I mean, I've watched a lot of your segments, Piers Morgan. Like, this is insane. Nobody wants this.
- [25:49]
Tim Miller
No, not pretty much. Nobody wants us. And I do think, I agree with Isaac, that that is why this image will stick with people and will have an impact for a while to come. The thing is, though, there are people within the administration that actively want it. Maybe not the president, but one person that comes to mind is the vice President who's doing his job as the commander in chief of the Twitter battles in the administration this morning. And he's talking about this very issue. And what they're trying to argue is that that boy who was brought here seeking asylum from his home country, his father brought him here and they filed a legal asylum claim. It's not like they swam across the Rio Grande or snuck into the country. Not that'd be much better, but it is for just being honest about what happened. It is different. They came with what they thought was a legal route during the Biden administration. They applied for asylum, they thought they did the right thing. And then Donald Trump's goons arrested him and sent him to Texas. And J.D. vance was on Twitter this morning saying that was the right thing to do. Because those people that came and asked for asylum during the Biden administration, that was illegitimate. So they're not trying to change the laws to make that clear. So people coming know what the rules are. They just have decided that a huge group of people that came through what they thought was a legal process are now illegal. And by fiat, the vice President has just decided that they are illegal and that we should grab them, even if they're five year old kids and we should send them to detention centers across the country against wishes, their family. I don't think that's going to be very popular. But that is their stated position as of this morning, that that is what they intend to do. Even to people that came here through a process that they thought was a legal one.
- [27:35]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah, I mean, this question about the laws catching up with what they're doing people who have legal pending asylum cases, people who are here, I mean, some of their future targets that have been reported. Tim Snyder has been warning about an upcoming or imminent operation in Ohio. It's a community with legal status. I want to show you what former U.S. attorney General Eric Holder told me about all of this specifically in Minneapolis, but it'll probably play out in other places. I'll show you that after the break. No one goes anywhere.
- [28:11]
Eric Holder
I think we've all been appalled by what it is that we have seen, not only in Minneapolis, but to see. You know, the breaking of car windows, the shoving of people down on the street. That little five year old with the, with a little blue hat with the little white things hanging, that breaks your heart. And those are the kinds of images that I think will stick with people and I think will have a political resonance for people on the Republican side of the aisle. Doesn't mean that you get the majority of those folks on the Republican side, although maybe you do, but you get a sufficient number of them such that you can come up with a way in which we finally come to grips with our so called immigration problem.
- [28:53]
Nicole Wallace
I mean, Isaac, it's almost exactly the point you were making that these images matter. And the image of Liam was seen around the world. But I wonder how far we are from that moment he describes where Republicans have to take a step back because their political, the political price they pay in a free and fair election, if that's what we have next November, is so seismic that they have to wake up. Or do you think they, I mean, what do you make of this moment for the Republicans?
- [29:23]
Isaac Stanley Becker
Well, I think you and Tim are both right to point to J.D. vance and his role in this and also to the potential looming action in Springfield, Ohio against a group of Haitians there who, who have temporary protected status. And we all know the backstory here about this just absurd notion that members of this community were eating cats and dogs. So we're seeing the way that misinformation and just outright slander is underpinning some of the harshest tactics. But we also know that there is a massive court fight unfolding over all of this and that immigration attorneys have been quite successful in filing these habeas corpus petitions, which are really important safeguard against arbitrary detection, detention, and that judges have been, you know, overwhelmingly favorable to these sort of petitions and have released the people who've been detained, you know, on a bond in many of these cases. So lawyers are fighting back in the courts and actually finding a lot of success doing so Yeah, I mean, Ruth.
- [30:25]
Nicole Wallace
To that point, legally, the Trump side has won very little. And let me play one more piece of reporting. This is from the New York Times on the students and the kids affected.
- [30:42]
Valley View Student
I think as a community, we should respect people's homes and the people themselves. These people are important to us and others. We should treat everyone the same, even if we don't know them. I think after losing someone I love, this kind of makes me sad. But I hope everyone can still have their loved ones next to them. You are scaring schools, people, and the world. You should be kind, helpful, and caring like normal police. Not dangerous, scary and stealing people. I think you should make friends with the world. Love a Valley View student. You're making people get really sad because you're just taking them away without them doing anything. I chose to draw this because it helped you realize that if you were getting taken by ice, you would feel miserable. I would say to Liam that I hope he is safe.
- [31:58]
Nicole Wallace
How would you feel if he came.
- [31:59]
Valley View Student
Back to class happy because he was taken?
- [32:07]
Nicole Wallace
Ruth, it's an extraordinary moment when the country you cover is learning its lessons on humanity and empathy from children. But that's. That's exactly where we are.
- [32:21]
Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Yeah, the basic decency, empathy. And unfortunately, we're 10 years into President Trump's attempts to change the moral and emotional fabric and feeling of the nation. In his 2016 rallies, he used to say stuff like, routinely, the problem is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore. And he's tried to inculcate suspicion, hostility, and label empathy as weakness. And it's children who have that basic decency. But, you know, what they're trying to do here is by proclaiming everything that was legal under Biden now illegal, or just discarding it, they're really trying to discard the entire framework of human rights and law and structures of democracy. And the end game is, of course, population re engineering. That's Miller's advance, too, to get rid of brown people. But white South Africans can come in. And when you're into this fanaticism, you want children to be gone. You want young people to be gone. You don't want the wrong kind of families having babies in your country. That's. That's what we're up against.
- [33:42]
Nicole Wallace
Thank you for saying all the difficult and hideous things out loud, all of you. Ruth, Ben Ghiat, Isaac, Stanley Becker, thank you so much for starting us off today. Tim sticks around a little bit longer. You can catch more of that interview. My interview with former U.S. attorney General Eric Holder on this Week's episode of the Best People. He's completely brilliant and prescient on everything he speaks about. We talk more about Minneapolis and the ordinary people engaging in extraordinary acts of courage and protest there. Scan the QR code on your screen to listen to it right now after the break. For us, the people of a long, long, long time super conservative district in Texas have weighed in on the moment. They've spoken out about how they think the last year of Trump 2.0 has gone. It is shocking. We'll bring it to you next.
- [34:31]
Podcast Announcer
It's tax season and at LifeLock, we know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one you need to billions. That's the amount of money and refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it. Guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com specialoffer for the threats you can't control. Terms apply. Ms. Now presents the chart topping original podcast the Best People with Nicole Wallace. This week she sits down with former Attorney General Eric Holder.
- [35:11]
Eric Holder
The only thing that is going to save this nation, that's going to save this democracy is the American people. An engaged, focused, committed American people.
- [35:19]
Podcast Announcer
The best people with Nicole Wallace. Listen now. For early access and free listening and bonus content, subscribe to msnow Premium on Apple Podcasts.
- [35:34]
Nicole Wallace
The seismic political backlash to Donald Trump and his cruel and inhumane and frankly incompetent immigration policies appears to have reached deep into Trump friendly Texas. Republicans nationwide are reeling from a stunning upset in a runoff election for a second state Senate district that encompasses much of Fort Worth, Texas. Democrat Taylor Remt upset Republican Lee Wamgons by 14 points. It's a district that elected Donald Trump in 2024 by 17 points. That's a 31 point swing. The Wall Street Journal editorial board issuing a warning about as hot as the Wall Street Journal editorial board can be. They warn that the brand of the Republican Party is nine months, nine months ahead of the midterms. They write this state politics is often national these days and the 31 point vote swing in a little more than 14 months can only be explained as part of a rising tide of opposition to Trump's first year in a sour public mood. We're back with Tim Miller. Tim that's like Wall Street Journal for bleep bleep, bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep.
- [36:46]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [36:47]
Nicole Wallace
What do you make sirens of all the signs everywhere. I mean, look, I'm of two minds. Like, part of me hopes they'll just stop hurting people. Right. Even if they have a political benefit by saying, oh, we were wrong, we're going to go back to the border and do what everybody wants. People want a secure border and people want adjudicated violent criminals deported. That would be the better thing for humanity. That would be the better thing for the country. And it would also be much more politically popular for Donald Trump.
- [37:17]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I'm with you. That'd be nice. Kind of doesn't matter what we want, though, Nicole. You know, voters we warned against.
- [37:24]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah.
- [37:25]
Tim Miller
And so, and, and I think like we discussed in the immigration segment, you know, both on issues, immigration and tariffs and inflation, some of this, you know, the toothpaste is out of the tube. Like, it's kind of hard to put it back in because you put in these harmful policies in place, it's going to take a while to claw them back. So, you know, we will see how it all shakes out. I mean, I think just to put a finer point on what happened in Texas, and that's in Tarrant County. I don't know if you're any of your viewers watching Landman, but like, that's the, that's the state Senate district. We're in one, one of the two places where that show is taped. And it's, it's conservative country. I mean, it is, it is culturally conservative and, you know, there's a lot of money there and folks are just not happy with the Donald Trump's policies across the board. Economic, foreign policy, immigration, and, and obviously Democrats are more enthused and Republicans are less enthused. But it's very meaningful, I think, what happens in this district, and it's not a total comparison to the midterms. It is a special election on Saturday and the turnout was a little down, but it was about 100,000 people that voted there. So it's not like, yeah, it's Texas. The state Senate districts are big. So it's meaningful to me. I don't know if the Republicans can do much to fix their political situation this year. You know, I think that they can try to cheat. So that's one thing that we, we should be looking out for. And then I think that the Democrats need to do everything they can to maximize their potential gains. And I think if you're a Democrat, you should look at this and say, look, we can win a state Senate seat in Fort Worth, why couldn't we win a Senate ways in Iowa or Senate race in Kansas or Ohio? Like, those are similar, you know, states as far as how Republican they are. And I look then at the Senate race in Texas and like right now you have this like very strange kind of infighting happening in the Democratic Texas Senate primary. Very personal, inviting. And I just, I would implore the Democrats looking at Senate races in these red states, let's do everything possible that you can to maximize your chance of victory this year. Because that state Senate race and in Fort Worth is a sign that you could win in some unexpected places if, you know, you focus on the issues that voters care about. And I'm hopeful that they will do that because it's important to have a check on Donald Trump in Washington.
- [39:35]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah. I just worry that the seismic signs that voters are screaming at the top of their lungs in all the ways they have. Right. Like I think what they're doing in Minneapolis is seismic. Two people have died doing the thing that 34,000 people have signed up to go do in a matter of 17 days apart. And as someone covering it from, you know, from afar, I'm in awe of that and that that activism has a political echo in these, in the things that voters are saying, not just in, I mean, and this is. Someone explain this to me. These are Abbott voters who voted for him after Uvalde, who weren't offended by the way he handled a horrific, heinous school tragedy, a school shooting. Like, these are Abbott voters. These are like regular hardcore time of Trump Abbott voters. And they swung for Trump +17. They swung 31 points in the other direction and voted for a Democrat. But that is just seismic and that all the indications from the people are loud and clear. The doors have been thrown open for Democrats. And there are also all these examples of masculinity that fly in the face of anything that Republicans are offering. Mayor Fry, Alex Preddy, Gavin Newsom, Mark Kelly, frankly, Spamberger, I mean, all of the signs of strength of the Democratic candidates. Mikey Sherrill, like, there's so much to go sort of charge through. I wonder if you're sort of seeing out there traction on those folks.
- [41:04]
Tim Miller
Yeah, well, just a couple of thoughts on that. Just one, the candidate, again, it's just a state senate race, but remit that they ran there. It was a veteran and a union guy and I grand on just a normal Democratic platform similar to the platform that Sheryl and San Berger ran on, maybe a little bit more economically populist. And that's what folks are looking for. I think it's good for the Democrats to recruit candidates like that and as you mentioned, have these other kind of images of like pushing back against this notion that MAGA has some monopoly on masculinity is obviously so absurd now. And we're seeing that in the streets. And I think that's just my other thing tying to your point there about how what is happening in the streets of Minneapolis matters. You know, the bravery of the people out there in the streets is an element of this. But there are real political, you know, reverberations. And the fact that they were there taking those videos, you know, you know, what, how much did that matter in Fort Worth? You know, we can't judge it. But the fact that there are people all across the country who are seeing the videos that are being taken by regular folks on the streets and they are turned off by it and they're saying that's not the country that they want, like it does matter and it does have an impact. And that's coming from like regular folks, not the political class. And so I don't know, hopefully the Democratic political class doesn't screw it up because that the regular folks are making some progress.
- [42:25]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah, they really, they're showing us the way. Tim Miller, thank you so much. We love when you're here for the whole hour. Thank you, my friend. After the break for us, it took just 45 days to rebrand it with the Trump name and it is already being shuttered for at least two years. We'll bring you that story next. Amid dwindling attendance and shrinking audiences, a flood of cancellations by artists seeking to distance themselves from Donald Trump and nearly every single head of programming resigning. Quitting. Donald Trump announced that the Kennedy center will be closing for two years starting in July for what he calls a quote, complete rebuilding. Kennedy Center President Rick Grinnell confirms the news on social media, saying that $257 million has been earmarked for the project. It is the latest in Donald Trump's effort to leave a mark on the nation's capital, for better and for worse. It comes on the heels of Trump's wildly over budget ballroom demolition. He destroyed the east wing of the White House and his plans for a 250 foot quote, biggest one of all arch to dwarf the Lincoln Memorial. We'll stay on top of those developments. Quick break for us. We'll be right back after the break. Epstein survivor Danny Bensky will join us at the table on the Department of Justice's latest and final release. Release of files. The next hour of Deadline White House starts. After a quick break.
- [43:56]
Podcast Announcer
Ms. Now presents the chart topping original podcast, the Best People with Nicole Wallace. This week, she sits down with former Attorney General Eric Holder.
- [44:06]
Eric Holder
The only thing that is going to save this nation, that's going to save this democracy, is the American people. An engaged, focused community.
- [44:13]
Podcast Announcer
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