← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“What Orwell wrote”
00:43:09
Nicolle Wallace breaks down Trump’s reaction to the video of the shooting of Renee Nicole Good, and how the Trump narrative of what happened in Minneapolis emulates George Orwell’s novel, 1984.
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- [00:00]
Nicole Wallace
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- [00:27]
Ian Bassin
In the pursuit of flavor the Colonel.
- [00:29]
J.D. Vance
Despised the word empty.
- [00:31]
Ian Bassin
Empty plates, empty tables, empty stomachs.
- [00:34]
J.D. Vance
That's why he made the KFC $5 bowls like the famous bowl, Creamy mashed.
- [00:39]
Ian Bassin
Potatoes, crispy chicken, corn gravy and cheese. Because the only empty the Colonel liked was when you reached the bottom of that bowl. The Colonel lived so we could chicken.
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J.D. Vance
Five KFC bowls for just $5 each.
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Aisha Gomez
Prices and participation may vary. Taxes, tips and fees extra.
- [00:59]
Ian Bassin
But it's all working out. And just remember what you're seeing and.
- [01:03]
Michael Feinberg
What you're reading is not what's happening.
- [01:07]
Ian Bassin
And I'll tell you, I have so many people that are so in favor because we have to make our country truly great again.
- [01:17]
Nicole Wallace
Hi again everyone. It's five o' clock now in New York, ripped from the pages of George Orwell's 1984, that now infamous declaration to America quote, don't believe what you see with your own eyes. It dates back nearly eight years now, but it may very well be the single best advice for living in a country run by him or covering one. It's the most concise and descriptive reveal of exactly what's playing out in full view, on camera, on the record, in front of us today. Because Donald Trump and his administration has now effectively operationalized that message, instructing the American people and the family members of a woman who lost her life and other agents at ice, every single person to jump to a very specific conclusion, a very narrow one related to the tragic shooting death of an unarmed mom in Minneapolis yesterday in an SUV stuffed with stuffed animals. To ignore what we can see with our own eyes and freely observe and accept the judgment they made before any of them were on the ground, before any investigation had taken place, before eyewitnesses were interviewed, before the sun set yesterday on what was a deadly crime scene. They were able to declare to the world that this was an open and shut case of domestic terrorism. Nothing to see here, American people. Today we have learned that the FBI was seizing control of the investigation, grabbing the wheel despite initially agreeing or indicating that it would defer to a state agency that reviews use of force cases. In other words, state investigators According to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, are now essentially locked out of the fact finding process without access to evidence and case materials or any investigative interviews. What that means is that the investigation is now under the complete purview of the federal government, whose leaders have already broadcast their conclusion of that investigation, which hasn't happened yet. A short time ago, we learned that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is deploying National Guard troops at Minneapolis and St. Paul to support public safety efforts in those places. It's here, though, that we'll note two things. First, Donald Trump's initial reflexive reaction to yesterday's Dudley shooting. Journalists from the New York Times were in the Oval Office as the story spread and in an effort to try to prove to them that Renee Nicole Goode did what he says she did, that she, quote, ran over an ICE agent, he instructed a West Wing aide to bring a laptop to him at the Resolute desk so they could all watch it together. From the New York Times reporting on what that was like, quote, as a slow motion surveillance video of the shooting played on the laptop. We told him that this angle did not appear to show an ICE officer being run over. Quote. Well, Trump said, quote, I, the way I look at it, it's a terrible scene. Trump said at the end of the video, I think it's horrible to watch. No, I hate to see it, end quote. Aside from making no sense, they asked the question, did this fatal shooting mean his ICE operation had gone too far? Trump didn't answer that question. He sidestepped it and instead blamed his predecessor's immigration policies. The second thing we'll note is what happened the day before the deadly shooting. On Tuesday, the fifth anniversary of the January 6th attack on the Capitol, the Trump White House launched a marketing effort, a rebranding campaign with an explicit goal of rewriting the history of the attack on our nation's seat of government on January 6. That audacious undertaking, combined with what's happening in Minneapolis brings us back to where we started with that Trump quote. A much younger Donald Trump, I should note. But Orwell wrote, quote, the party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command, end quote. That is where we start today with some of our favorite experts and friends. Protect Democracy Executive director Ian Bassin, former assistant special agent in charge at the FBI, national security and intelligence analyst Michael Feinberg is still with us and Minneapolis native, senior contributor contributing editor my colleague Michelle Norris is still with us. She's about a half a block away from yesterday's Deadly shooting. Ian Bassin, I start with you on this attempt to unpack not necessarily why they're doing what they're doing, but exactly what it is that they're doing.
- [05:55]
Ian Bassin
Well, look, let's look back to last September when the President and Secretary Hegseth called back to Washington the leading military generals and admirals from around the world in order to lecture them about what the Trump administration wanted to do. And one of the things that the president said then was, you know, I've talked to Pete, Secretary Hegseth about how maybe we should turn these dangerous cities in America into training grounds for our military. That's what they told our leading military leaders. That says something about the ethos of how they plan to govern and deploy force in this country. And I think we can believe our ears in terms of what they said there because we're seeing the consequences of that now, them wreaking militarized violence on our streets. I think it's been reported, I think that there had not been a homicide in Minneapolis in 2026 until the one on that video committed by a federal agent. From what it appears, that is not the federal government coming in to protect our streets and clean up dangerous cities. That is the federal government coming in to create danger where there hadn't been previously.
- [07:04]
Nicole Wallace
Ian, what does it mean to you in your analysis that they felt the need to lie about this in the moment?
- [07:14]
Ian Bassin
I mean, look, we've talked about this endlessly. This is an administration that just cannot, does not believe that truth is an obligation of the government. You know, I worked in the White House. I was in the White House counsel's office. And you know, it seems quaint these days to talk about how much effort we put in, not just in the Obama administration, but in all prior administrations, Republican or Democrat, not just to follow the rules, but to make sure that we were on honest with the American people. The level of fact checking, the level of vetting, the level of research that went on before anyone in the White House or the federal government uttered a statement to the American people to try to verify that it was accurate was extensive on everything. And here we basically have a government that has abandoned that and the consequence is a just collapsing amount of trust and in the federal government to be very hard to recover from. And you mentioned in your opening, Nicole, that the federal government has basically now blocked local officials from cooperating with and participating in the investigation here, which has all of the smell of a cover up because not only do you have now the foxes guarding the head house where it's the jurisdiction that's being accused of potentially committing a crime, that's charged with investigating it. But it's also an administration that has a tenuous, at best, relationship to the truth.
- [08:36]
Nicole Wallace
Ian, I want to ask you to explain why that matters, because one of the things that changed in our politics is, yes, every White House endeavors to do exactly what you describe. And one of the reasons is because it's a norm. It's the obligation. It's the pact between a public servant at any level and their constituents who vote for them. But it was also the most sort of brutal political hit to get a Pinocchio or two or three or four from a fact checker. Politic fact was a big one. The Washington Post and the New York Times used to have fact checking. That doesn't even. I'm sure it exists somewhere. But the Washington Post, after counting every single one of Donald Trump's lies in his first term, it got up to, I think, 35,000. There's no one even tracking Trump's lies because he seems to lie as often as he breathes without a consequence for the lie. How do you get the government to stop lying to its people?
- [09:36]
Ian Bassin
Yeah, I mean, you're right. We underappreciate how much shame and sort of care for one's reputation was an important check in our system of checks and balances. Sure, you have law and you have accountability through checks and balances, separation of powers, all that stuff is incredibly important. But as you probably remember from your time in the White House, the White House counsel, lawyers, myself, and the ones that you served with would go around and tell people you had to follow these rules. You had to do these things first and foremost because of your oath and because of the sense of obligation and weight that we all carried as public officials and the, the duty and the honor that we felt about holding that temporary power on behalf of the American people. But we also pointed out that you didn't want to end up on the COVID of the newspaper in the midst of a scandal for having lied or broken or anything like that. And that mattered because that sense of shame was both, you know, actually materially harmful to people's careers, but also harm people's sense of their reputation that people cared about. And I, I think one of the evil geniuses of Donald Trump is he has learned that if you just flood the zone with so much shameful behavior, with so many lives, with so many violations, eventually the system loses the ability to hold anyone accountable for it, and he has kind of blown up that he's blown up many elements of the system of checks and balances that we had, but he's blown up that element of it where now even shame and scandal is no longer a sufficient check because it is so rampant in his administration. Administration.
- [11:09]
Nicole Wallace
Michael Feinberg, I want to pull you in on that. I mean, that has been the case while the waterline sort of held his base at a certain approval rating on the economy. We've never actually seen a test of that behavior with his approval rating on the economy and right track, wrong track, as low as it is. So I would say it's an open question whether that is an effective political tactic moving forward in the next 10 months, in the next three years. But it is something to do because so far it has worked. I want to ask you to come at this in terms of the agencies in charge of the most essential things, things people don't want to think about, protecting us from terrorist attacks, protecting us from cyber attacks, protecting us from child sex trafficking, protecting us from illegal cartels. I mean, if the agencies are having their credibility really plundered by Donald Trump coming out and Kristi Noem coming out and saying something that demonstrably false, in the moment of national tragedy and fear, people feel afraid right now, and we should give voice to that. People are scared in their own communities, in their own towns, some of them in their own cars and on their own streets. What does it do to the people working inside those agencies if that's how their leaders act?
- [12:25]
Michael Feinberg
It's incredibly demoralizing. You've quoted Orwell a few times in this context this evening, and you know, his real fundamental insight that comes across more in his essays than his more famous novels is that you have to describe and reckon with reality as it is at the moment, for real. You have to, as he put it, face unpleasant facts or see what is right in front of your nose. And we have the leadership of the executive branch at all levels and telling us not to do this. We see what is essentially the execution of a civilian on a Minnesota street and are told that we are witnessing a heroic agent stopping domestic terrorism. That is not what happened. And the reason Orwell's insight was so strong is because he recognized from his own experiences fighting the fascists and battling with the Stalinists during the Spanish Civil War, that the way authoritarians maintain power is that they try and shape reality to their own ends. This is why we have to, night after night, every time we can, every time something like this happens, be honest and forthright about what we're Seeing we can't look away. We have to absorb it, describe it, and explain why it's wrong. And enough people need to find the courage to do that. Until we get to the point where the voices uttering the truth can drown out those spinning falsehoods.
- [14:07]
Nicole Wallace
I want to bring you in, Michelle, because this. This effort that Michael Feinberg describes is running against more headwinds than just the most powerful politician in our country being the one participating in the disinformation with the biggest platform, really, in the world. It is the impact of despair. Despair is the autocrat's cheapest, most effective sort of lowest risk tool that they have. And I wonder if you can sort of describe the. What I've seen on the ground there through your reporting and that of Alex's is the despair at this loss of life. But a lot of coming together and a lot of support for each other and a lot of resilience. But. But I'd like to know what your assessment is of the mood on the ground and what you're seeing in hearing.
- [15:00]
Michelle Norris
Well, you know, when you talk about Orwell, one of the other tools that authoritarians use is exhaustion and confusion to try to confuse people, to make them think that they didn't see what they really see, and then to just wear them down until they move on or they're just too exhausted. That's not what's happening here. People are in no ways tired in Minneapolis. They are showing up in larger numbers. They are showing up now. It's, you know, at the end of the work day, a lot of people are coming here. They're walking past us. They have bouquets of flowers. They're bringing water, they're bringing snacks and things for people who are gathering. They're not tired. But one of the things that is so important in this is credibility and trust. And there's a big worry about what will happen in the response to this, whether it will remain peaceful. If people don't feel like they can trust the information that they're getting. And the fact that they've locked out Minnesota officials is really worrisome. I mean, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension was created after George Floyd was murdered, in part to adjudicate and to examine and investigate situations just like this, and they're being left out. So what they're worried about, you know, you remember after George Floyd was killed, during the protests, the chant you heard was, no justice, no peace. No justice, no peace. And part of the process of justice is transparency. And part of the process of justice is also trust. Being able to trust the process that this well be examined and that people can trust the outcome. And if people in Minnesota, the investigators are not allowed to be part of that, people may not trust the outcome. One of the big questions right now is whether there will be a concomitant investigation run by the police department, run by local departments here that will run parallel to whatever the FBI is doing. And that may help build some sort of trust here among the people who live in the city of Minneapolis or in the Twin Cities.
- [16:52]
Nicole Wallace
I want to play for you, Ian and Michelle, something that J.D. vance said this morning. Very high bar for playing anything he says, because, I don't know, Trump got over it, but I think it's remarkable that he once described Donald Trump as, quote, America's Hitler and, quote, cultural heroine. But he's whatever, he's there anyway. And this is what he said about this deadly shooting.
- [17:19]
J.D. Vance
First of all, the Department of Justice is going to investigate this. The Department of Homeland Security is already investigating this. But the simple fact is what you see is what you get in this case. You have a woman who is trying to obstruct a legitimate law enforcement operation. Nobody debates that. You have a woman who aimed her car at a law enforcement officer and pressed on the accelerator. Nobody debates that. I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it's a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe, against our law enforcement officers.
- [17:55]
Nicole Wallace
Ian? It has echoes of Donald Trump's own comments at the memorial service for Charlie Kirk after his brutal assassination where he said, I, quote, hate all my opponents. J.D. vance is blaming this tragedy on the victim of the shooting and the, quote, far left who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe, against our law enforcement officers. I wonder if J.D. vance has any. You talked about shame. I wonder if he's met Michael Fanon or Harry Dunn or Officer Hodges or any of the hundreds of officers who put their lives on the line to protect everyone in the Capitol on the day that Donald Trump sent his supporters to, quote, hang Mike Pence. The only way, the only reason J.D. vance has that job is because Mike Pence refused to carry out an insurrection and instead risked his own life at the United States Capitol while law. I mean, the threat to law enforcement is from Donald Trump. Not the again, I just want to quote them carefully. The, quote, far left, he's marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe against law enforcement.
- [19:01]
Ian Bassin
Look, I don't want to get into how embarrassing, you know, J.D. vance is and how much he has just sort of demeaned himself. But I will point this out. He needs to read his own government's regulations. So the Department of Justice in 2020 issued a set of rules for the use of force in situations like this, specifically about situations where someone is driving a car and the car either could be driven in a direction of an officer, near an officer fleeing an officer. And it's very clear that those rules say that federal officials, and this applies to Department of Homeland Security as well, are not allowed to discharge those weapons at the person driving the car. They it's written in the rules of the federal government. So I don't know what J.D. vance is talking about. He needs to read up on the rules of the government. He is supposed to be a senior level official. And.
- [19:56]
Nicole Wallace
There'S so much to say about J.D. vance. But I do appreciate that point. Michelle, we want to thank you and Michael Feinberg for being with us across two hours. Please come back if you learn anything new there on the ground. Ian sticks around with us a little bit longer. When we come back, Donald Trump has revealed more of his plans for, in his telling, quote, running Venezuela. He's now telling journalists that the US Mission he envisions won't take six months or even a year, but in his telling quote, much longer. And again in his telling, it may not stop with Venezuela. Donald Trump has made no secret that he wants control over Greenland even as some Republicans begin to push back. Trump's new age of American imperialism is our next conversation. Also ahead, much more on how the Minneapolis community is grieving today after the deadly shooting of 37 year old Renee. Nicole Goode by an ICE agent will be joined by a local state elected official on what her city is enduring right now as the buildup of ICE officers there continues. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
- [21:01]
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- [22:18]
Nicole Wallace
From the man who rode back into the presidency on a promise of an America first agenda is the declaration now that the United States of America will be running Venezuela and extracting its oil and its reserves for years. Years. In a lengthy interview with the New York Times, Donald Trump was asked how long his administration and therefore the country, will demand direct oversight of that country. He told them this, quote, only time will tell. Given the opportunity to give more details on whether it could be three months, six months, a year or longer, Donald Trump told the New York Times this, quote, I would say much longer, much longer than a year. But a sign today that the Republican led Congress is not so into that. Not interested in Donald Trump's open ended military commitment to Venezuela for its oil, the Senate on a bipartisan basis advanced a war powers resolution to rein in Donald Trump's military action in Venezuela. While the vote is merely a procedural step, as the Washington Post reports, quote, the measure marked the first time during the second Trump administration that Congress has voted to constrain the President's expansive use of the military to conduct foreign policy. Republican Senator Todd Young, who supported the measure, says this, quote, a drawn out campaign in Venezuela involving the American military, even if unintended, would be the opposite of President Trump's goal of ending foreign entanglements. Some Republicans are also making clear that they fiercely oppose the Trump administration's stated desire to take over Greenland. Here's Republican Senator Thom Tillis yesterday reacting to White House adviser Stephen Miller's comments that the US could be taking over the territory by military force.
- [24:11]
Ian Bassin
You know what makes me cranky?
- [24:13]
Nicole Wallace
Stupid? What makes me cranky is when people.
- [24:16]
Ian Bassin
Don'T do their homework.
- [24:17]
Michael Feinberg
Folks, amateur hour is over.
- [24:21]
Ian Bassin
You don't speak on behalf of this US Senator or the Congress.
- [24:26]
Nicole Wallace
You can say it may be the.
- [24:27]
Michael Feinberg
Position of the President of the United.
- [24:29]
J.D. Vance
States that Greenland should be a part of the United States, but It's not.
- [24:32]
Nicole Wallace
The position of this government, I guess, that counts as news. Ian, when a Republican calls Stephen Miller, I want to quote everybody today. Quote, stupid and running, Quote, amateur hour, Brave New world. No, just a cranky senator. I don't know. What was that?
- [24:50]
Ian Bassin
I mean, we've been Charlie Brown trying to kick Lucy's football now for too long to put too much faith in the fact that the Republicans in Congress are going to grow the spine. That's necessary, but we can hope. And what I mean by that is, you know, the best case scenario for the moment that we're in is that the checks and balances that the founders had established that have been really eroding for some time, particularly on war powers, where the Congress have really abdicated for decades to the executive and allowed executives of both parties to claim broader and broader unilateral powers to initiate conflicts that perhaps some of the really egregious things that Donald Trump is doing and talking about doing perhaps could shake some of our checks and balances out of their slumber and create an opportunity for us to reassert some of those. And so the procedural vote that the Senate took today, 5,247, with five Republicans breaking ranks to at least advance to the next stage, the possibility of putting a check on some of this military adventurism is at least an early positive sign. And I think, you know, it's important that we look at these positive signs about the checks sort of reviving themselves across the board. And one thing, Nicole, I meant to mention in our last segment is we're seeing some of those checks start to revive in other ways as well. We were talking in the last segment about the horrific shooting in Minneapolis by ice. And one thing we're seeing in response to that is states take the initiative to start passing legislation that could create greater constitutional accountability mechanisms against federal officials who violate the Constitution. And so I want to shout out Governor Hochul in New York, who announced today that she is going to be pushing in her State of the State address for New York state legislation that we've been working on with a bunch of partners and Senator Del Nor Myhrey and Assemblymember Romero in New York that would hold federal officials accountable for violating Americans constitutional rights under state law in New York and working with Senator Weiner and partners in California to do that in California and every state around the country could adopt these universal 1983 statutes that would provide accountability. And so I think with the Republican vote on war powers in the Senate, with what Governor Hochul is saying she's going to do in New York. My hope is that we might see a revival of a aggressive attempt to create the separation of powers, the federalist checks and balances that the founders established, that we as a country have grown slack on building, enforcing and minding in recent years.
- [27:18]
Nicole Wallace
I'm so glad you brought that up. I mean, I think so much of what I hear when I'm not, you know, in the chair covering breaking news is what can people do? And I think this, the conversation of the first Trump term was about all the norms he ran over. I mean, we're what, year 11 of the Trump story. It is about new norms. It is about new structures. It is about new guardrails. There's not a normie that's going to keep him from seizing Greenland. I mean, as again, to quote Thom Tillis, stupid, an amateur hour. That's who he has working for him. But there are other antibodies that can be put in the system. And I wonder if you can say a little bit more about other things happening right now to protect the country and protect democracy.
- [28:02]
Ian Bassin
Yeah, I mean, look, there's fundamentally, there's the separation of powers at the federal level. Right. Where we need to see a more vigorous judiciary, which we just saw with the Supreme Court refusing to allow Trump to deploy the National Guard to Chicago Court. Portland, Los Angeles again, we've been Charlie Brown with this football before, but a positive sign, maybe something out of the Congress. Now here again on the ICE deployments. You know, one of the problems with what happened in Minneapolis is that ICE is rapidly hiring up a massive new labor force without sufficient time to do training and vetting. We see that they're advertising at gun shows for people they think are going to be prone towards aggressive behavior. Well, you know what, most law enforcement offices around the country, New York Police Department, Los Angeles Police Department, Department of Justice, have really extensive processes for making sure that people who are going to wield that awesome power are trained and held accountable, imperfect though they are. I'm not saying those departments get it right all the time, but there are processes in place. DHS and ICE don't have those. The Congress could impose those. We also have the federalist check where the states are supposed to provide a check on federal behavior. And so again, here in Minnesota, we could very likely see state either the Hennepin county district attorney or the state attorney general either impanel a grand jury or seek to indict the officer engaged in that shooting or states like, pass some of the legislation that I just referenced. So that states can provide a check on federal behavior. That's another way we can reinvigorate checks. And then finally, of course, the last check, the ultimate check, the first three words of the Constitution, if all else fails, the place that we've seen the most vibrancy and the most resilience, the most courage and the most strength is the American people. And Michelle talked about this in the last segment. The American people out there in Minneapolis. And I wrote a piece just before the holidays with Reverend Paul Rauschenbusch at the Interfaith alliance about how one thing we're gonna need in this moment is a new moral awakening in this country where the people retake the moral high ground on what it means to be a free and democratic and decent society. That's the ultimate check. And we all have the power in our daily lives and our behavior and interaction with our neighbors and the government to be the leaders on that front. And Nicole, you've been doing it in your seat for years, and I'm grateful for it.
- [30:16]
Nicole Wallace
No, no, no. I actually think, though, that this is an undercovered part of this. I asked Reverend Worthington from Chicago, who was standing with the ICE protesters there during their big surge, about how we got here. I mean, what happened yesterday is downstream from a 10 year project of dehumanizing people who come to this country as asylum seekers or come for work or come here illegally and have committed the civil violation of being here illegally. And Trump criminalizes it and there's barely a blip in our politics. And now you have an ICE agent shooting a woman who was making what looked like a three point turn on a street where they were doing whatever it is they're doing. I mean, how we got here has so much to do with your last point about our bonds to one another, what we think it means in terms of our bond to our country, what kind of country we want to live in. But I wonder what you think is the most effective way to have those conversations and to do that, this sort of rehumanizing, the people in our communities, the people we cover, the things we talk about.
- [31:22]
Ian Bassin
You know, I think in many ways we've been victims of our own success. To be alive in the latter part of the 20th century in the United States of America. You were probably among the most fortunate people to be alive in human history. We lived through an era of unprecedented security and prosperity. It wasn't equally distributed. If you look different than me, you may not have had the same advantages and privileges, but even the least privileged in American society had an experience the latter half of the 20th century unprecedented in human civilization. And I think in some ways as a result of that success, we started to take for granted the effort and work that it takes to maintain a free and democratic society. You know, democratic societies and free societies are rare in the course of global history. Most of human history is a story of violence. It is a story of oppression. It is a story of authoritarianism. It takes work to navigate differences with one's neighbors. It takes work to self govern as we do in this country. And I think in this moment, we forget that that work is done at the local level and how neighbors relate to neighbors and work together to solve local problems and are willing to tolerate differences and seek to meet people different from us with curiosity and not fear. And I think in this moment, my hope is that we can be reminded that it takes that work and we can lean into the work that's required and it works hand in glove. We were very proud to represent Reverend David Black in Chicago as one of the people who was attacked. And when the leaders like that lead the way, the lawsuit can follow. We can join together and we can build that civic awakening and the legal awakening that we need to retake our freedom and retake our democracy.
- [33:01]
Nicole Wallace
All right, well, let's resolve to continue to have these conversations. I'm so grateful to you for being here today. Thank you.
- [33:09]
Ian Bassin
Takes the call.
- [33:11]
Nicole Wallace
When we come back, we'll head back to Minneapolis where local officials say they're under increasing siege by ICE agents today. They're now frozen out from investigating what happened during yesterday's deadly shooting. A Minnesota state lawmaker will be our guest. Don't go anywhere.
- [33:29]
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Go see for yourself. In the TextNow app. Wireless plans require the purchase of a sim card. Visit textnow.com for terms and conditions.
- [34:28]
Angie Hicks
Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of Angie. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Roof repair, done well. Kitchen sink install, done well. Deck upgrades, done well. Electrical upgrade, done well. Angie's been connecting homeowners with skilled pros for nearly 30 years. So we know the difference between done and done well. Hire high quality pros@angie.com.
- [35:02]
Ian Bassin
And I will just say there were two incidents yesterday. I saw after this that just tore at my soul. I saw an individual at the scene identify themselves as medical personnel, a physician and asked to provide aid and an ICE agent said I do not care. That lack of humanity was chilling to me. And after this incident happened and after the tensions rose, ICE agents entered a Minnesota school causing disruptions at that school. I can't say this strongly enough as governor, as a parent, as a teacher, to our elected representatives, Democrats and Republicans, I beg you, I implore you to tell them to stay out of our schools.
- [35:55]
Nicole Wallace
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz calling out what he says is the inhumanity shown by ICE agents in the aftermath of the shooting death of Renee Nicole Goode, imploring everyone to stay out of the schools. Just in the last hour, the governor deployed the National Guard in Minneapolis and St. Paul to support public safety efforts there. Schools in Minneapolis are closed for the rest of this week after ICE agents showed up at Roosevelt High School during dismissal yesterday, firing what appears to be pepper spray into a crowd outside that school. They handcuff two staff members. I want to bring in Minnesota State Representative Aisha Gomez. She was on the scene last night after the shooting. Here with me at the table once again, senior political and national correspondent Jacob Soborough. Representative Gomez, can you tell us if you have any more information about what's happening in the schools?
- [36:50]
Aisha Gomez
Thank you for having me. So you know, directly after ICE agents murdered one of our residents on the street. Minneapolis seemingly unprovoked and unarmed woman trying to leave the scene. They shot her through her window. Greg Bovino was on scene and he then took his his chaos party to a local high school where he maced parents where as you said, he and his goons handcuffed and detained, at least temporarily, staff members. Our schools are closed today and tomorrow because of the Disorder that is being sown by federal agencies in our community, so literally preventing students from getting their education. And the idea that this is still in the service of public safety is just such a farce at this point. We know that this is in the service of, you know, an agenda of authoritarianism and scapegoating our Somali neighbors and terrorizing communities. This is nothing resembling public safety. These unidentified. They're basically secret police. They come into our communities, they hide their faces with masks. They have no accountability. They don't identify themselves. They've been terrorizing our community for five weeks. And we are. I'll just say I'm a Minnesota state lawmaker. My speaker was assassinated in her home six months ago by somebody wearing a mask and pretending to be a law enforcement officer. So this is, you know, Renee was murdered seven blocks from where George Floyd was murdered. This is in the same community as the Annunciation killings. You know, the idea that we have these. These agents of a federal administration that's completely unconcerned with the rule of law or constitutional rights terrorizing us in our traumatized state is just so offensive and so heartbreaking. And I'm just. I'm beside myself. I'm joining you with a heavy heart today.
- [39:24]
Nicole Wallace
I think people want to support folks who seem to be through no act of their own. You're a public servant in a place that the administration has targeted, trying to be there for your community. And I think people want to know what they can do. How would you answer that question? What can people do?
- [39:46]
Aisha Gomez
Well, I mean, you know, it's interesting. It's like amidst this horror that we're living through, these are also such beautiful times in this community. Neighbors across Minneapolis started organizing months ago to prepare for this moment because we saw what was happening in the streets of LA, of D.C. and later Chicago, our neighbors. So we people here, 10,000 people, are involved in community defense. And that looks like a lot of different things. It looks like what Renee was doing when she was murdered. It also looks like the hundred plus neighbors who lined up at school dismissal yesterday at the school that was two blocks from where she was murdered to ensure that kids were able to get on their buses. It also looks like delivering groceries to families who are too afraid to leave their homes. And so what I would say is the way that you can help is to organize your own community. The way that we can help, the way that we can respond to the authoritarian threat that is posed by this administration, the way that we respond to lawlessness is the same way that we have always responded as human beings in the face of oppression and injustice. We have come together and we have organized and we have taken care of each other. And so it's on a day like today where I'm feeling a little stunned by, you know, the. The. By what's happened here. I'm also, you know, with my neighbors, feeling determined and feeling inspired and feeling proud to be a part of a beautiful, resilient community that is not. That is not going to be intimidated. I want to. I have my constituents, many of them left the scene of this murder yesterday. Right. And they went and did what Renee was doing when she was killed. This is bravery in the face of state violence, and I'm so proud to be a small part of it and, you know, to be side by side with my constituents as they show up for one another in these dark times.
- [42:05]
Nicole Wallace
State Representative Aisha Gomez, thank you for showing up and talking to us and telling us a little bit about what the last 30 hours have been like for you and your constituents. Please come back.
- [42:16]
Aisha Gomez
Thank you so much.
- [42:18]
Nicole Wallace
We'll bring Jacob in to this very conversation on the other side of a short break. Stay with us. We're back with my friend and colleague Jacob Soborough. You are the preeminent journalist on this beat. What happens next?
- [42:32]
Jacob Soborough
It was so interesting to listen to Representative Gomez talk about both sides of this one. Where does Greg Bevino go next? Actually, Greg Bevino is the commander at large of the Border Patrol. Everybody, I think, thinks he's the guy in charge of the Border Patrol, but really, he's just the face of this policy. And hearing from her and looking at Minnesota Public Radio's reporting that he was on the scene of this. Remember, we've seen him in videos that have come out in court cases and as part of discovery, where he'll say to his agents on the scene, whose city is this? This is our city. And what Representative Gomez made me think about is that this is nobody's city but the people of Minneapolis. And I think, you know, why is he like that?
- [43:09]
Nicole Wallace
Why does he really. Why does he say that?
- [43:10]
Jacob Soborough
This is a culture within the Border Patrol that I think has existed for a long time. I've said to you before, long before this, in Democratic and Republican administrations, there were names that Border Patrol agents would give to migrants they would hit over the head with a flashlight. I'm not going to say it, but it's the sound that the flashlight makes when it hits the migrants over the head. Lots of reporting. Go read Francisco Cantu's the Line Becomes A river, for a good description of it. It's part of the culture that's ingrained within the Border Patrol and immigration enforcement in the United States for a generation. So there's that. Where do they go next? But what happens on the streets of Minneapolis? What are the people going to do that were out there, like Renee, Nicole, good standing up and pushing back against this? And I think it continues to head in the direction it did during family separation. Hundreds of thousands of people in the streets in a universal condemnation of what everybody can see plainly in a video like that is beyond a tragedy. I really don't have the words for it. People are dying now. I was thinking Today, Dwight Eisenhower's 1954 program was the model, you know, a million deportations of Mexicans and some Americans. Well, that model that Trump has done has now not only deported people, but killed Americans as well. That's what's happening now. And people are starting to stand up and push back in a way that I think continues to evolve.
- [44:33]
Nicole Wallace
You covered child separation. That was DHS under Trump, but under people who were not. Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino didn't seem to have the. He wasn't fronting the operation. How is it noticeable to you how different it is under Noem?
- [44:49]
Jacob Soborough
Yeah, definitely. I mean, nobody's absolving Kirstjen Nielsen from signing option three to institute family separation. But the idea of her standing up there and without an investigation saying that this is a justifiable use of force. Even the president at the time, I'm not sure, you know, he waffled on this family separation policy at the very beginning of all of this. He went back and forth on whether or not there should be raids on farms or raids on places of business, hotels, places where he had friends that operated those kind of businesses. You haven't heard him waffle one bit. And I think that that's, you know, ingrained in the culture of the leadership of this administration now, and why. What's playing out is playing out.
- [45:26]
Nicole Wallace
And the difference, I mean, it's incredibly unpopular. Trump is as unpopular on immigration as he's ever been with these folks in charge of him.
- [45:33]
Jacob Soborough
That's why so many people are out there.
- [45:34]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah. Thank you so much for being here.
- [45:36]
Jacob Soborough
Thank you.
- [45:37]
Nicole Wallace
Thank you so much, my friend. Quick break for us. We'll be right back. Nearly three weeks since the Justice Department has blown through its legally required deadline for releasing the Epstein files. Congressman Thomas Massie, a Republican, and Ro Khanna, a Democrat, or asking a judge to step in and appoint a special master or an independent monitor to ensure that all of the materials are released in compliance with that law. That's according to a filing obtained by msnow. So far, the Justice Department has only released a Fraction Less than 1% of the files in its possession. And in their letter to the judge overseeing Ghislaine Maxwell's case in the Southern District of New York, Massey and Khanna write this quote, there is no authoritative accounting of what records exist, what has been withheld, or why, making effective oversight and judicial review far more difficult. Put simply, the DOJ cannot be trusted with making mandatory disclosures under the Act. We'll stay on top of that one more break. We'll be right back. Thank you for letting us into your homes on days like today. We know it's a lot and we are grateful.
- [46:48]
Angie Hicks
Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of angie. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well, from real roof repair to emergency plumbing and more done well. So the next time you have a home project, leave it to the pros. Get started at Angie Combination.