‘The Kylee Cast’ feat. Breccan Thies, Ep. 28: Everything I Saw On My ICE Ride-Along In Minneapolis

Summary

---

Federalist Radio Hour: 'The Kylee Cast’ feat. Breccan Thies, Ep. 28

Episode Title: Everything I Saw On My ICE Ride-Along In Minneapolis
Host: Kylie Griswold
Guest: Breccan Thies (Federalist White House Correspondent)
Date: February 12, 2026

---

Episode Overview

In this compelling episode, Kylie Griswold interviews her Federalist colleague and White House correspondent, Breccan Thies, about his recent trip to Minneapolis for an immersive ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) ride-along. Their deep-dive conversation unpacks what Thies saw firsthand—unfiltered by corporate media spin—about ICE operations, street-level agitator activity, the state of law enforcement cooperation, the organized resistance to federal immigration enforcement, and what it all means for American sovereignty and public order. The episode also touches on the dangerous escalation of lawlessness and its political implications, all told in a candid, on-the-ground style.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Thies’ Arrival and Mindset

(03:36)

• Thies describes arriving in Minneapolis and spending the first days interacting with agitators before joining ICE officers.
• He admits a mix of nerves and curiosity, noting familial concerns:

  “My mom and my fiancée were like, please don’t actually go do that… But honestly, it’s actually like the most fun stuff you can do sometimes is just talking to people—even people who are, frankly, pretty violent and have pretty bad ideas.” (03:36, Breccan Thies)

• Awareness of risk was heightened, particularly the unpredictability and potential for violence during both agitator encounters and ICE operations.

2. Blending in Among Agitators

(06:15)

• Thies explains how he disguised himself to mix with left-wing activists, describing strategic clothing choices and acting skills.

  “I wore like a barista beanie with like hair sticking out… Just to cover my bases, you know.” (06:51, Breccan Thies)

• Emphasizes most agitators are not local but imported for protest; many appear to be paid, or at least are able to spend weeks away from home.
• Agitator circles require backstories and streetwise blending-in from new faces due to the transient, networked nature of the resistance.

3. Media vs. Reality on the Ground

(10:20 - 14:56)

• Thies observes that media narratives rarely mesh with lived events.

  “Most of the time, things you see blown up in the media are not actually happening in real time now… They kind of escalate and de-escalate quickly.” (10:20, Breccan Thies)

• He describes swift escalations at protests (e.g. blockades, violence), noting that ICE operations tend to be efficient unless swarmed by agitators.
• Blockades and events frequently arise and dissolve, driven not by ICE but by localized resistance efforts.

4. Agitators’ Misconceptions and Group Mentality

(16:55 - 20:52)

• Griswold and Thies discuss how agitators perpetuate media-driven paranoia, such as fables about ICE targeting schoolchildren.

  “Even the agitators themselves don’t have a clear view… They themselves are so skewed by the media.” (16:55, Kylie Griswold)

• Thies recounts conversations with activists convinced of ICE raids at schools, despite no factual basis.
• The “mind virus” is pervasive; the resistance relies on rumor and echo chamber reinforcement to sustain their worldview.

5. The ICE Watch Network and Crowd Dynamics

(21:31 - 26:12)

• Thies details the organization of anti-ICE groups:
  • Sentries stand watch with high-visibility vests, track vehicle license plates, and warn about ICE movement on encrypted chats.
  • Activists distribute pamphlets, scripts, and legal training to embolden non-compliance.
  • The coordinated “circle of agitators” can quickly escalate any arrest into a crowd-control event.
• Notably, this both emboldens illegal aliens and forces ICE to employ overwhelming show of force (several agents per arrest).

  “There were eight, ten ICE agents to arrest one person. And the reason there are so many people there is because they just know… people showed up. There were people everywhere... It just makes it a lot more testy.” (23:38, Breccan Thies)

6. The Blockade System & Sophistication of Resistance

(27:14 - 32:36)

• Blockades are commonly set up at roundabouts or intersections using makeshift barriers.

  “They’re set up at roundabouts often… and then they’re just able to sort of get pallets or couches and other things that can be put in the street.” (27:55, Breccan Thies)

• The system relies on a networked database, cross-referencing suspected ICE cars and even sharing instructions for setting up new blockades online.
• Griswold points out the high level of coordination, hinting at “Astroturf” rather than organic action.

  “This is not like a few radical people who have time on their hands. This is a well-orchestrated, well-oiled machine and operation here.” (32:10, Kylie Griswold)

• Thies speculates about indirect funding and the difficulty of meaningful law enforcement infiltration or prosecution.

7. Federal and Local Government Response

(39:17 - 57:10)

• Frustration expressed at lack of federal response:

  “If the federal government would devote a fraction of the resources… It would send such a powerful message and it would just be such a demonstration of force that we honestly, desperately need to see, because this kind of stuff is not going to stop.” (39:17, Kylie Griswold)

• ICE and Department of Homeland Security often lack proper support; local police have only recently begun minimal cooperation, mainly focused on crowd control, not immigration enforcement.

  “They’re not going to help ICE do immigration enforcement. They are going to support ICE in the crowd control department.” (57:10, Breccan Thies)

• Both speakers articulate a sense that anarchist groups are treated with more leniency than right-leaning protesters, and political expediency is hampering serious action.
• The political consequences regarding congressional apportionment and long-term party dominance are explored in depth, warning that lack of enforcement will have generational consequences.

8. The ICE Ride-Along Experience: Procedures and Atmosphere

(63:18 - 72:45)

• Thies recounts how, due to security protocols, his ICE ride-along had to be scheduled last to avoid being “outed” or attacked by agitators, who keep 24/7 surveillance on ICE staging areas and anyone associated.
• The ride-along involved long periods of surveillance and profiling, police work involving databases and monitoring, with the actual arrest involving a DUI offender.

  “It’s a lot of nothing and then a short amount of something… a lot of waiting, running plates… until the person of interest is there.” (66:20, Breccan Thies)

• During the arrest, crowds quickly assembled, many filming and shouting at ICE; the arrestee resisted, requiring ICE to break a window.
• Griswold highlights the importance of understanding the reality of ICE’s work—contrary to the “Gestapo” media narratives, their approach is methodical and human.

  “It’s police work… federal officers putting in the time to make sure they have the right person…” (70:48, Kylie Griswold)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “[Agitators] are just going to tell you everything they think about [ICE]… And none of these guys are actually from Minneapolis… A lot of people are bused in, flown in, many of them getting paid very clearly.”
  (06:53, Breccan Thies)

• “Most of the time you don’t hear about ICE operations at all… The only difference in Minneapolis is that the politicians and the people are making sure it doesn’t go smoothly, and that’s how you create a dangerous scenario.”
  (14:56, Breccan Thies)

• “These anarchy groups, they thrive because the federal government hasn’t done a whole lot… Why do we have to deal with this anarchy every other year? Why is it worse in the summer than in any other time?”
  (32:36, Breccan Thies)

• “If you deport 75 illegals from Minneapolis, they lose a congressional district. That would happen around the country in all these states.”
  (54:50, Breccan Thies)

• “It’s a lot of nothing, and then a short amount of something.”
  (66:20, Breccan Thies, on the ICE ride-along)

• “We need to think past the midterms for a handful of reasons… If you do not run with the mandate that the American people overwhelmingly gave you in 2024… you can kiss goodbye ever winning another election again.”
  (45:11, Kylie Griswold)

---

Important Timestamps

• 03:36 — Thies’ mindset before arriving; family’s concern, risks
• 06:53 — Disguising as an agitator, the non-local nature of the protest movement
• 10:20 — Disconnect between street reality and media narratives
• 14:56 — Political/civic dynamics that enable or curb ICE operations
• 16:55 — The “mind virus” and misinformation among agitators/debunking ICE raids at schools
• 23:38 — How agitator tactics change ICE arrest procedures
• 27:55 — Blockade logistics and operational sophistication
• 32:36 — Chronic problem of anarchist organizing and lack of federal government response
• 39:17 — Frustration at lack of FBI/intelligence agency action; double standard in protest response
• 45:11 — Political consequences and the stakes for future elections
• 63:18 — Security protocols around the ICE ride-along; agitator surveillance on ICE facilities
• 66:20 — Step-by-step of the ICE ride-along, culminating in a high-tension arrest at a McDonald’s
• 70:48 — Griswold’s summary: The real human, procedural, lawful face of ICE operations

---

Takeaway Themes

• Street-level reality in Minneapolis is far riskier and more anarchic than national media accounts allow.
• The sophisticated, well-funded, and nationalized protest/agitator network makes ICE enforcement functionally different in Minneapolis versus compliant regions.
• Local government’s tolerance of anarchy, combined with minimal or delayed law enforcement, has emboldened anti-ICE groups and complicated even the most routine federal operations.
• Political consequences are enormous—not just in election security but in congressional apportionment and, ultimately, the durability of American sovereignty.
• The reality of ICE work, while demonized, is procedural, targeted, and often marked by professionalism and patience, in stark contrast to activist myths.

---

Recommended Follow-up:

• Read Breccan Thies’s full article: “Checkpoints and Street Corner Sentries: In Minneapolis, ICE-hating Anarchists Are an Occupying Force” (thefederalist.com).
• Watch for further Federalist reporting on American law enforcement and border issues.

---

Transcript

[Ebay Advertiser]

Every day it's the same thing for my treatment for opioid addiction it reminds me of my addiction Every day it's the same thing for my treatment for opioid addiction. Every day it's the same thing Every.

[Podcast Promoter]

Day, day after day. Does treatment for opioid addiction leave a bad taste?

[Brecken Theise]

Visit rethinkyourrecovery.com to learn more and find a doctor.

[Ebay Storyteller]

The worst part about loving cars might just be buying them and all the parts. But on ebay, behind every car and part is a story waiting to be shared. There was a guy who bought a 2021 Porsche Cayman that was well loved. I mean, there are plenty of Caymans in great condition on ebay, but this one needed some work. This guy buys it and rebuilds the whole thing, all with parts he found on ebay. And now that nearly scrapped Cayman is out tearing up the track. From Toyotas to Aston Martins, ebay has thousands of cars and the largest online selection of vehicle parts and accessories. Ebay, Things people Love Hi everybody and.

[Kylie Griswold]

Welcome to the Kylie Cast. I'm Kylie Griswold, Managing editor at the Federalist. Please like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We have a channel specifically for the Kylie cast on Spotify and Apple podcasts. So if you are only subscribed to the Federalist Radio Hour or you're wrong with Molly Hemingway and David Harsanyi, two of our other awesome Federalist podcasts, be sure you are also subscribed to the Kylie cast so you never miss an episode. Leave us a five star review. It's one of the easiest and best ways you can help out the show. And even better yet, if you're just listening to the show, go check out the full video version on my personal YouTube channel or the Federalist channel on Rumble. And then of course, like and subscribe there too. If you'd like to email the show, you can do [e-mail] I would love to hear from you. As always, thank you. Today I'm so excited to welcome to the show Brecken Theise. He's my colleague here at the Federalist and our White House correspondent. And Brecken recently made a trek to Minneapolis where he went on an ice ride along and needless to say, his experience on the ground was a little bit different than what you may have heard from the corporate propaganda media. It's definitely an episode you won't want to miss if you want the real story about what's going on in Minneapolis. So without further ado Please, please. Welcome to the show Breckenthis. Brecken, thank you so much for joining me today on the Kylie cast. It's great to have you.

[Brecken Theise]

Thanks for having me.

[Kylie Griswold]

Yeah, it's always my favorite thing actually to host my coworkers because we all work remotely and so we chat with each other on the regular over email and chat. But it's so fun to do a face to face interview or a. As close to face to face as we can get. So, so fun having you. Brecken. You were recently in Minneapolis and you got to do an ice ride along and really just see things with a clearer perspective on the ground than I think probably most of our Federalist readers and most of the people in the country who either are pro ice or anti ice. You got a much clearer view of what's going on than really any of them are getting, specifically from the corporate press, which is of course skewing everything that's coming out of Minneapolis. So I'm super excited to pick your brain about how it went. I would love to know just off the bat, like, what your feeling was going into it. Were you nervous? How, what was your mindset like before you got on the ground in Minneapolis?

[Brecken Theise]

Yeah, it's a good question. It's, it's kind of funny. So I, I sort of saw both sides of what was going on there. I mean, I spent the first couple of days with agitators, actually, and just talking to them and going around to local restaurants or bars and like, kind of getting local chatter and then, you know, seeing what they actually thought about certain things and how, you know, what they really believed and stuff like that. And then the last thing I did was the actual ice ride along. And I mean, I guess I was, I was nervous for different reasons for both of them. I mean, first of all, I mean, my, it's so funny. I, when I was like telling my mom and my fiance I was gonna go do this, they were like, please don't actually go do that. And I was like, well, you know, it's, it's gonna be fun. They're worried about it. So I was like a little nervous because, you know, you know, getting married this year, like, I don't want to get like beat up by it or like killed by agitator or whatever. But. So, I mean, I don't know, I'm.

[Kylie Griswold]

Not all the feminine energy stoking, stoking fear in your heart and mind.

[Brecken Theise]

Yeah, that's right. That's right. But mind over matter. We survived. And, and, and I. And I did it anyway, despite what they were saying, because, I mean, honestly, it's actually like the most fun stuff you can do sometimes is even just talking to people. Even people who are, you know, kind of, frankly, pretty violent and have pretty bad ideas. It's actually like. It's very interesting. But. But I mean, yeah, it's. It's a little bit like, you know, you're. You're just way more alert than you normally are in both instances. One, because it's like you're there talking to people and you kind of don't want to get made or say the wrong thing. And then they. Their, you know, body language changes and all that stuff. And then the other one is like, you know, you're with ice, where agitators come every time. Like, we did two stops with ice. Only one ended in an arrest because the other one was. It wasn't the right person. It wasn't the owner of the car he was driving. It is what it was. But every single time that was on the side of the highway. I didn't publish that. Even then on the side of the highway or on the shoulder. And agitators come over the hill and start filming you out of literally nowhere. And so no matter where you go, it's. It's. People are coming to make this situation a lot more tense, potentially a lot more violent. And that's something, you know. Yeah, I felt it. I can't imagine being an ICE agent and having to do that multiple times a day every day.

[Kylie Griswold]

Yeah. When you were talking to the agitators before you did the ride along, is it. Was it hard to blend in? I mean, did they just readily talk to you or are they skeptical of anyone that they don't recognize, you know, trying to make conversation with them?

[Brecken Theise]

Yeah, that's.

[Kylie Griswold]

They assume you were one of them.

[Brecken Theise]

So. Okay to be. I am pretty good at acting. Like I can fit in with. With people on, like, the far left. I will say I've been to so many concerts. I grew up going to concerts. I grew up in the. In the music scene, playing music and stuff like that. So these are like, pretty familiar people to me. So I can kind of blend in and talk like them if I need to and all that. But I also. I also did dress up a little bit differently than I normally do. I mean, I wore like a barista beanie with like hair sticking out and stuff just to. Just to like, cover my bases, you know.

[Kylie Griswold]

You're on septum piercing that you wear only on the weekends usually, but yeah, okay.

[Brecken Theise]

Exactly. Exactly. So, I mean, still, though, I mean, they. There were times where I was wearing. So for the ice ride along, you. They require you to wear a bulletproof vest. And I was like, well, I'm probably just going to wear the bulletproof vest no matter where I went. But I had to figure out how to conceal it when I was going out with the. With the agitators and, and talking to them. I mean, it's. It's. Unless they can kind of see that you have something like that under your jacket, which everyone, thankfully, is wearing a puffy jacket because it was like five degrees, so.

[Kylie Griswold]

Right.

[Brecken Theise]

A lot harder to do unless they touch you and feel like a steel plate. Which almost happened, actually, with one of the guys because he. He tried to like, you know, give me a handshake and the hug thing. And then I was like, oh, don't do that. You know, that's not going to be good. But I. Yeah, talking with them, it's, it's the, The. The biggest thing is like, sort of starting the conversation. Right. It's like, you know, what's going to happen when I bring up ice to people who are living in Minneapolis and obviously very agitated and angry about it? You know, it typically just ends up that they are just going to tell you what everything that they think about it. But, but in terms of being an unfamiliar face, that's actually the most important or maybe most important, most interesting thing about it is that, like, all these guys are unfamiliar faces because none of them are from Minneapolis. I mean, some of them are, for sure, but a lot of the people are bused in, flown in. Many of them are getting paid very clearly because they're taking weeks and weeks and weeks off of work. They don't live there. They don't. You know, the guy, one of the guys I spoke to is from Washington State. He's like, yeah, I've been here for a couple weeks or whatever. And he was just manning the. The Renee Good kind of makeshift memorial that they have there at the, at the site. You know, they have a fire in a fire pit and are serving people coffee or whatever. And it's like, yeah, he just, you know, he's. He's just here to. To agitate, I guess. I guess he can afford to do that. Personally, I doubt it. But. So everyone's an unfamiliar face, it seems like. And so they don't really. They kind of feel you out in other ways. They ask you about who you are or whatever, and you kind of have to have a little bit of a backstory, so.

[Kylie Griswold]

Right, well. And that guy specifically that you're talking about at the Renee Goode memorial, I think you included him in your write up. And he also was at the George Floyd riots in Minneapolis despite not being a local. So clearly this is just a pattern. Like, this is what he does. He. He parachutes into wherever the agitating is happening and takes part in it. If I'm thinking of the right guy.

[Brecken Theise]

That'S the right guy.

[Kylie Griswold]

Yeah, exactly. We'll get back to some of the ICE Watch stuff and the people on the ground in a little bit here. But I'm curious how your perception of things on the ground matches up or does not match up with what the media is painting is going on or what? Obviously, at this point, people have seen countless videos on social media. Twitter is full of cell phone footage of people recording ice officers, recording agitators. We've, of course, seen lots of footage of the Good shoot and the Predi shooting and all these other things. Was your experience, did that match what you're seeing in the media? Or is it completely 180 different? Like. Like, was it shocking to you, or was it exactly what you expected based on what you'd already seen?

[Brecken Theise]

It's. It's a little bit. It's a little bit what I expected. Not from what the media was saying about it, though. I mean, I think that in general, most of the time, things that you see that are blown up in the media are not actually happening in real time now. Like, there are. There are certain things, for example, where the day. Let's see, the Monday, I think I was there from a Monday to a Thursday. And the day that I got there was the day that they had started building blockades in a certain part of a certain neighborhood, which was close to where Renee Goode was. Was shot. And it was just sort of in a pretty, you know, pretty busy area. A lot of people live there. And so that was there. And I had seen or another reporter from the Daily Caller actually that day, or maybe it was that Tuesday. Either way, the. The blockade was up and the people who were manning the blockade assaulted him. Like, actually it's. And he got it on video. And, you know, you're kind of seeing all this stuff going around on. On Twitter and you're checking in to see, you know, first of all, where things are happening, but also, like, how dangerous it is and, you know, trying to make a decision whether to go. And. And so in that way, I mean, those things do happen. They pop up. Things kind of happen. Escalate and de. Escalate pretty quickly. So, you know, when I was there, that was happening, and then the Minneapolis police, the local police actually came in and cleaned up that situation and. And threw away all the stuff they were using for the blockade, like pallets and chairs and other things.

[Kylie Griswold]

Right.

[Brecken Theise]

And then the. The. The next weekend, there were more blockades. I believe there were more protests outside of Governor Walls's mansion in St. Paul. So, I mean, things kind of ebb and flow. And anytime you hear something, it's when something pretty major happens or there's a major arrest or something goes wrong. And oftentimes, I mean, ICE is. ICE is running a pretty tight operation, I would say, there, because most almost every single one of their arrests, you know, goes well, as it were. Like, it was. It was done safely and efficiently, and they kind of got in and got out, and that was the way it happens. It's really only when it seems to me there is sort of a convergence of agitators able to get to an ICE arrest, an operation at the time they're doing it because ICE tries to be pretty quick and pretty nimble because of the agitator situation.

[Kylie Griswold]

Right.

[Brecken Theise]

And. And one of the agitators did actually tell me, he's like, you know, because they have these. These, like, street patrols that are. That are, you know, on every block, every other block telling, okay, we see an SUV, maybe with dark windows on, you know, 34th and Nicollet, and it's headed west or something. And then they'll ping up and ping up and down the neighborhood blocks, and they try to get as many people, agitators to the location as possible in order to disrupt ice. And so if that converges the way they want it to, it's going to turn into more of a news event. You're going to see a lot more videos come out because it's going to be people shrieking, maybe assaulting an ICE officer. ICE has had situations where they've actually got an illegal alien in handcuffs and, like, an agitator will come in and, like, rip the ICE agent off of the illegal and trying to, like, free the illegal and stuff like that. There's a term that they have for it that I can't remember, but it's called. I think it's called de arresting, I think, is what they call it. Don't quote me on that. But anyway, so very original. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I mean, it's. It's.

[Ebay Advertiser]

They.

[Brecken Theise]

If that happens, then. Then it will be bad. If it doesn't happen Then they just kind of run a normal police operation and as it should be. I mean you. Most of the time I was making this point when I interviewed the, the field office director in, in Minneapolis and it's like most of the time you don't hear about ICE operations at all. In fact, right. The week prior to me going there, there was a arrest operation of almost 700 illegal aliens in West Virginia. Now of course, West Virginia politicians are and police departments are working with ICE and that's why you don't hear about it because it all went extremely smoothly. The only difference in Minneapolis is that the politicians and the people are making sure it doesn't go smoothly and that's how you create a dangerous scenario.

[Kylie Griswold]

Yes, yes, that's such an important point because the non sanctuary cities, the non sanctuary states don't seem to have any problem. It's like the, the variable here is the agitators. It's not actually the ICE agents. And that's why you're seeing it get so violent and out of.

[Chris Markowski]

How has consumer confidence fallen to the lowest level in over a decade? The Watchdog on Wall street podcast with Chris Markowski Every day, Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet. The median income is $84,000, but people feel like they need 130,000 just to feel like they're getting ahead until housing and insurance costs go down. Will there be more of the same? Whether it's happening in D.C. or down on Wall street, it's affecting you financially. Be infl informed, Check out the Watchdog on Wall street podcast with Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get.

[Ebay Advertiser]

Your podcast on ebay. Every find has a story. Like if you're looking for a vintage band tee. Not just a tee, the band tee from the last show your favorite band ever played. You wore it everywhere. Then your BFF started wearing it, which is cute. Until they unfriended you and took it with them, which was not so cute. Anyway, now you're on ebay. And there it is. Same tea from the same tour, still living in your memory, rent free forever. See, the things you love have a way of finding their way back to you. But ebay isn't just for getting whatever your ex BFF stole back. It's also for that rare championship foul ball you caught, then heroically gave to the kid next to you. And where else are you going to find your first car? The one you wish you never sold, but now you finally get the chance to take back home for good this time. Shop ebay for millions of fines, each with a story. EBay, things people love.

[Kylie Griswold]

There's so much to unpack in what you just said. First of all, one thing that you said reminded me of a part in your piece and that was, you know, you talking about the perception on the ground versus the perception in the media. And it strikes me that even the agitators themselves don't have a clear view of what's happening on the ground because they themselves are so skewed by the media. And there was one particular part in your write up where you were talking about, I think it's this guy named Josiah. Although maybe it was somebody else that had given you this quote about ICE doing arrests at schools or like that they needed to keep a careful watch on schools because otherwise ICE was going to go in and get the kids. And it's like that's just not reality. That's not happening. Like ICE is not conducting targeted enforcement at schools or churches. So that's just crazy to me that like even the agitators themselves, they're there, they're seeing it with their own eyes and they don't have a clear view of what's, of what's happening at all. So. Interesting.

[Brecken Theise]

They, they don't. And I mean it's sort of like.

[Kylie Griswold]

Any.

[Brecken Theise]

I don't know, any group chat, any kind of weird social thing where they can, you can kind of snowball yourself into thinking certain things and sort of concoct ideas in your mind. Oh, well, I saw this and you just sort of, I mean, I had a situation like this from another person in the piece where they just saw a random police officer and they literally started like concocting all these theories in their mind that were totally untrue. But, but you know, these all get reported into their group chats. They, they keep say seeing all these things that they, that they think are evil. I mean, on the school point. So that, that sort of lookout situation, I was telling you that it was Josiah and he was telling me how that works, which is it works the same thing as the, as the pinging up and down the blocks. But they'll say like, oh, well, they're near a school and you'll have a group of, he said somewhere around five people in high visibility vests at the school and they'll warn the school administration and the school will go on lockdown. I don't know if that's actually true. I think that some of what these people think is happening and some of what is really happening Is, you know, I think they think that they, they want to think that they have more control over things like sending a school into lockdown than they actually do. But. Yeah, I mean, you're exactly right. You know, ICE doesn't operate near schools. They don't arrest anyone. You, the only, the only instance I've ever heard of that is the illegal alien who was the superintendent of that school in Iowa, in Des Moines, who they did run an operation on him. I don't think they arrested him at school. But I mean he was, he was like a violent person who had a gun or something like that. I mean, he, the way I, because I asked the Minneapolis field director, St. Paul field director that exact question and, and he said if there's an actual threat, like any police, you know, authority, we're going to go deal with the threat because you can't have threatening people at a school other than that they aren't operating near schools or churches. And so, you know, these people have clearly kind of concocted in their mind they sort of like warped their way of thinking into, into believing that, oh, ICE is just going and arresting elementary school kids when that's right. Not true. Now meanwhile, apparently some of these parents are letting their kids get driven home by these random people in high visibility vests in order to avoid ICE or whatever. Now again, I don't know if that's true, but that is, he, Josiah, was very adamant that that is exactly what's happening. They're walking teachers to their cars, they're, they're bringing kids to their parents or bringing kids home. And you know, I think that Minneapolis as a, as a, as a city and the people who actually live there, I mean they are the most radicalized group of people I've ever witnessed. I didn't, I did not run into a single person who wasn't anti ice who lived in, in Minneapolis. Not one person. It was pretty absurd.

[Kylie Griswold]

That's so insane. And yeah, it's the same mind virus that leads you to believe that a five year old is being used as bait, you know, by ice. That, you know, this idea that, that ICE officers are posting up outside the door when the bell rings to demand that brown kids show their papers. Like it's crazy. That's just, it's just not what's happening at all. Let's see. So you're talking about these sentries or these people who stand watch and they will watch for SUVs or like anybody that they suspect of being ICE and send messages and ping each other up and down the block to basically track ICE movement. I assume this is the same thing as ICE Watch. Like, these two concepts are one and the same, right? Like, that is the group that's doing this, correct?

[Brecken Theise]

Yeah, I assume so. I think. I think there's a. There's quite a few groups. I mean, even some that are providing people with signs or like. Like kind of cards that say, you know, give you lines to say to the police or something like that. Like, I'm pra. I'm exercising my Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can't come in here. You know, ICE isn't allowed to conduct operations in our business, whatever. So there's a couple different operations going on there. ICE Watch is obviously one of them. I mean, you know, Renee Good at the very least, you know, was part of that. There's other ones that are kind of distributing, like I said, those. Those signs and there's, you know, pamphlets in businesses saying, you know, we're having a community event to learn how to basically get out of being arrested by ICE and. And things like that. So there's a couple. I think one's called. I mentioned it in the piece, and the name Escapes. It starts with an M. And they were. They're the ones handing out these signs, which is apparently a. A pretty big organization in Minnesota that. That is kind of doing all this sort of training. And I will say on that point, by the way, those sorts of trainings and lines to say to police and signs that they provide businesses to put in their windows is definitely changing the way law enforcement is conducted by ICE in Minneapolis. And the reason is because people who are being detained or arrested by ice, they feel a lot more confident in their ability to not comply with ICE because they believe that they're armed with this sort of silver bullet. Like, if I say these words, I won't be arrested, which isn't true, number one, but. And then number two, they also know that no matter where they're being arrested, a massive group of. A massive group of protesters will basically give them the sort of like. Like social confidence, if you will, to. To not comply with ice. And that is also an aspect that's not just from agitators. It's like agitators kind of kind of changing the dynamic with the illegal alien they're trying to arrest themselves. So it sort of makes the. If you think about agitators being a circle around the ice, like, detainment situation, like, it makes it dangerous outside the ring and inside the ring for ICE Ages and that's why ICE has had to. I mean, you know, there were eight, 10 ICE agents to arrest one person. And the reason there are so many people there is because they just know in the middle of a parking lot, which is where the arrest took place that I was witness to. Yeah, people showed up. I mean, there were people everywhere. There were people showing up. They're pulling out their phones, they're on tick Tock or whatever and they're being like, you know, we heard over this one guy, like, oh, they're about to shoot this guy or whatever. Which is just like, not true. The guy was not complying. They did have to break his, when his window to get him arrested, but. And then he complied after that. Like, you know, why would you even, why would you even resist when you're not going to like, actually resist arrest once you're out of the car? But anyway, whatever. People shouldn't resist arrest, but.

[Kylie Griswold]

Right.

[Brecken Theise]

It's kind of funny to think about, but yeah, there's a lot more confidence there with people that just makes it a lot more testy. Like, we're going to have to go further. We're going to have to break someone's window. And I heard from one of the ICE agents who I spoke to that that's just not normally the case at all when they're making an arrest in like pretty much anywhere other than, than Minneapolis or like anywhere in the country. Because, you know, when you get caught by ICE and you get arrested, I mean, most, most illegal aliens actually just kind of comply and get arrested. You know, that's, that's the way it usually goes.

[Kylie Griswold]

Right, right. So not only do you have the component of these illegals and these agitators all feeling emboldened by each other because you have this safety in numbers, but you also have just this absolute drain of resources of the federal government and local law enforcement because you need so many more bodies to handle. Like, you don't just need two people now to arrest someone, you need eight people to arrest the person. And also, by the way, to do crowd control and make sure that you're not going to be, make sure that your perp is not going to be de. Arrested by a legal observer, for instance. Yeah, yeah.

[Brecken Theise]

And the crowd control is again, 360 degrees around you too. That's the, that's the thing is like, you have to create like a phalanx around the arrest in order to actually make it successful and, and, and safe arrest.

[Kylie Griswold]

Yeah, yeah, Crazy.

[Ebay Advertiser]

On ebay, every find has a story. Like, if you're looking for a vintage band tee. Not just a tee. The band tee from the last show your favorite band ever played. You wore it everywhere. Then your BFF started glaring it, which is cute, until they unfriended you and took it with them, which was not so cute. Anyway, now you're on ebay. And there it is, Same tee from the same tour, still living in your memory rent free forever. See, the things you love have a way of finding their way back to you. But ebay isn't just forgetting whatever your ex BFF stole back. It's also for that rare championship foul ball you caught, then heroically gave to the kid next to you. And where else are you going to find your first car? The one you wish you never sold? But now you finally get the chance to take back home for good this time. Shop ebay for millions of fines, each with a story. EBay, things people love.

[Kylie Griswold]

So another thing I wanted to talk to you about logistically is the blockades. You mentioned that a little bit. So are these set up at intersections or on two sides of a street, basically, to make sure that like, ice can't go through or that it's only ice. Watch people who can pass or. I mean, it's crazy to me because the cognitive dissonance of like, hey, we're setting up a border and we're going to do border enforcement in Minneapolis is so wild. And like, just the idea that, that you can't see how backwards that is is just. It's laughable to me. But yeah, I'm curious a little bit more about the logistics of how they work. And then I know some of them have been removed, but it's seems like the agitators are ready to just put them back up whenever needed. Correct?

[Brecken Theise]

Yeah, that's. That's pretty much correct. Yeah. You know, it's sort of the old, the old thing, which is like, if it's. If it's what I think, then it's cool, and if it's what you think, then it's not cool. I mean, that's, that's what they're kind of doing there. They're set up. They're set up at roundabouts often. So there's some like, kind of smaller roundabouts. They're not like full on drive around, but they're the ones where you have to like kind of swerve around. So there's already sort of a natural, if you will, barrier there. And then they're just able to sort of get pallets or couches and other sorts of things that can like be put in the street. So in the way that it works is you'll have a car drive up and then they, because all these sort of ICE Watch people have access to big Excel sheets that, or maybe they're Google sheets, I don't know what they're using. But anyway, they're big data sheets that have what they believe to be are ICE license plates in them. So they could be isolation plates or they could just be a random person who owns an suv. Now I think ICE also like changes over license plates and has the ability to do that. But anyway, so they have all these license plates. They cross reference someone's license plate with their database and then if they aren't in the database, then they let them through. That's, that's kind of how they work. And then the local police, which up until the week I was there was not working with ICE at all. And now they're sort of starting to, in certain ways, including the sort of crowd control situation, the lawlessness. Because I mean, there's videos of, of police officers being like, hey, you know, you know, we're gonna, you know, basically we have to disperse you because there might be ambulances or fire trucks that have to get through this neighborhood. And then the anti ICE people will be like, well, they'll be obviously be allowed through. And it's like, yeah, well we don't really trust you to be able to do that. Like, you know, we saw what happened in, what was it, Chaz Chop in Portland where people literally did die because ambulances couldn't get to them in time because of the blockade that they had. I mean, this is not, it's not like a funny little blockade, you know, I mean, yeah, it was pretty easily taken down, but as you said, they're easy to put back up too, right? Kind of instantly. And, and you know, they, I think, I think they did at least the, the. One of the accounts online that was sort of organizing a lot of the blockades. It's since been suspended actually, but it was putting out sort of, sort of step by step instructions as to how to create your own blockade in your own neighborhood and have the lookout system and all that stuff. They were really open about it. And, and yeah, I mean it's, it's just a, it's just obviously a dangerous situation. You're also, I mean, leaving it up to these sort of extremely lawless minded anarch, anarchist minded people who, you know, you know, like I was kind of referring to earlier, you know, if you have someone who is concocting all of these evil things in mind's like, oh, what if they're hiding, what if they're hiding ICE agents inside the fire truck? Like it's a Trojan horse in order to get through. Like that is not far off from how these people think and they just can't be dealing with that situation.

[Kylie Griswold]

Right. I just have so many questions about this ICE Watch group and just, I mean any other groups that are coordinating on this because the more I hear about it, the more I just think this is so sophisticated. Like this has to be more of a top down type of thing because even these spreadsheets, license plates, like this is such a huge time investment and to have this many bodies and this coordinated, coordinated of communication. And I mean I know that these groups have been infiltrated, but it took a while and it seems to be that like not many people can infiltrate them. So how are they vetting and recruiting and getting, you know, loyal members who have all this time on their hands? Like, it seems to me that there is no way this is a ground up thing. It has to be AstroTurf. It has to be like it's very sophisticated and, and it just makes me wonder whether, you know, this has just been perfected because of all of the instances of anarchy like with the George Floyd riots and all this stuff. Like have they just been doing this for so long that it's, that now it's perfected, that now they just have all these systems in place so whenever it's the next time to agitate in a new city, boom. They're just ready to deploy these people. I mean, I'm not even expecting you to have answers to these things, but it is just so wild to me. The more I learn, I'm just like, this is, this is not like a few radical people who have time on their hands. This is a well orchestrated, well oiled machine and operation here. It's crazy to me.

[Brecken Theise]

Yeah, it's totally organic. It's, I think it is pretty much what you described. Now here's the thing we could and should know, but you know, it'll take the federal government getting serious about actually investigating these groups which they've said they're going to do a million times and we've seen basically zero from that. Infiltrating all of the money sources and there have been very minimal arrests of people. And the arrests they have of people are people who are, you know, actively being violent in the moment. Not, not people who are kind of call them lieutenants in the. In the sort of hierarchy that they, that they almost certainly have not enough is known about them. And that's a huge part of the problem. There have been some reporters who have infiltrated the, some of the group chats who then I think someone at City Journal did that for several months. And so the best information we have is what individual reporters have been able to spend their day to day doing when you know, that's, which is one person basically with Google and like in like a signal chat. I mean that's, it's totally insufficient to be able to, to take down these anarchy groups. And I have no idea why we haven't heard anything from the federal government who, you know, the Trump administration said Antifa is a, is a terrorist organization. It's like, well, you're certainly not treating them like one yet that we know of. We have seen again, zero arrest. So I don't know my inkling just from some of the people that I've talked to now maybe this is just a, there's this like hive mind in Minneapolis and in probably Seattle and Portland and things like that. But you know, some of these people were around during George Floyd. Maybe they've been around since, you know, Michael Brown or something like that. And you know, when, when we had riots for years on end, you know, I think people forget about the Baltimore riots after the Freddie Gray incident. I mean there have been these kinds of like race or similar riots across American cities for a long time. So I think a lot of these people are known and they, they can be called upon and maybe they have jobs that allow them to be relatively transient where they could be like, oh, I'm gonna take off X amount of time and then they're gonna get, you know, paid by all of these huge funders, whether it's Soros or Ford foundation or Kellogg or all the big names that are totally involved with these left wing agitating groups or, or maybe they're groups that we don't even know about and we should because the federal government hasn't done a whole lot. I think that, I think that the question you're asking is, is the main question, why do we have to deal with this anarchy every other year? Why is it that it gets worse in the summer than in any other time of the year? And I know people are going to say, well, it's cold in the winter. It's like, yeah, it's cold in the winter. But you know who all else is not working in the summer is teachers. Like where are the teachers unions with this thing? Because Teachers get off the whole summer and other people who do seasonal work and then maybe the next, you know, season is the, is the protesting, rioting season. They get work that way too, I remember.

[Kylie Griswold]

Or during election years. That's another classic. Like, oh, shocker, it's a midterm year. Yeah, Yep.

[Brecken Theise]

Yeah, that's exactly.

[Kylie Griswold]

You off?

[Brecken Theise]

No, no, no, I was going to say, I mean, I remember I went to school. I'm here, I told you before we started recording, I'm here in Charlottesville. I was here, I went to school down here during the Unite the Right rally. And I remember there were Craigslist ads for getting like paying riders, like, hey, be a writer for today and we'll give you like 800 bucks or something like that. There were actual Craigslist ads down here. They, they, you know, that was also another inside job with the state police, the, the National Guard and the local police because they're all run by Democrats and they gave stand down orders for the purposes of it turning violent, which we all know it did. And you know, that was sort of the first test. Remember that was a couple months into the Trump, the first Trump administration and the mayor maybe a little bit earlier in that year said we're going to be ground zero for resistance to the Trump administration. Then in a couple months they were able to orchestrate something that was pretty significant and everyone still remembers now, I mean, yes, these are sophisticated groups. These are not organic. These are, these are totally kind of now getting more technologically advanced too. I mean, I guarantee you to deal with the getting bodies to an enforcement operation problem. I mean, they're going to start seeing how many vehicles they can get there, might be starting renting vehicles so they can caravan as many agitators to a location as possible without people having to do it on foot. There are already cars that will, that will follow us vehicles around. If we got, when, when I was there with them, we got followed down and like made by several cars because these people are just on the corners of every street and they'll just start following you and then you just hear over the, the police radio like where you got, we got a couple of people following us. We got to shake them. And so you got to drive a weird way around the neighborhood and try to find a new spot to do some surveillance or whatever on, on the next kind of target to arrest. And it's constant. People are looking out of windows and the police have to have lookouts, you know, with binoculars looking at all the windows to make sure that they're not being watched. And then, you know, kind of told about the group shot. I mean, it's. It is everywhere you look. It is inside the the city. And it is. Every single person that I saw there was just ready and willing to stand in the way of all this.

[Ebay Advertiser]

On ebay, every find has a story. Like if you're looking for a vintage band tee. Not just a tee, the band tee from the last show your favorite band ever played. You wore it everywhere. Then your BFF started wearing it, which was cute until they unfriended you and took it with them, which was not so cute. Anyway, now you're on ebay, and there it is, Same tee from the same tour, still living in your memory, rent free forever. See, the things you love have a way of finding their way back to you. But ebay isn't just for getting whatever your ex BFF stole back. It's also for that rare championship foul ball you caught, then heroically gave to the kid next to you. And where else are you going to find your first car? The one you wish you never sold? But now you finally get the chance to take back home for good this time. Shop ebay for millions of fines, each with a story. EBay, things people love.

[Kylie Griswold]

Well, and I think what's so frustrating for so many Americans, I know, for us, but I think a lot of people who think like us too, is like, it's this lack of action that we're seeing from the federal government on this. From the FBI, you know, from the intelligence agencies. Like, you have a handful of reporters doing the hard work of like, infiltrating a group chat or whatever. Like they're, they're getting information despite having limited resources, limited funding, whatever. And meanwhile, you have the federal government who's, yeah, like, sending letters and writing white papers and designating groups as terrorist organizations. And it's like, okay, sure, that's a start. But like, where is the action? Why are we seeing no arrests? Because, you know, use the word anarchy and that is absolutely the appropriate word to use for this. These are anarchist groups. And I just think about, like, what people who were non violent protesters at the January 6 Capitol demonstration, what they were subjected to for far less. Like, far, far less. And it's just like if the federal government would devote a fraction of the resources, like a fraction to do anything about these anarchist groups, it would just be. It would send such a powerful message and it would just be such a demonstration of force that we honestly, desperately need to see, because this kind of stuff is not going to Stop. You're going to see more non player characters like Renee Goode and Alex Brady be sent to the front lines of these riots and more people are going to die and more stuff is going to happen because the federal government is not taking the action that they need to to designate these groups as what they are and then actually take action. Like if you, if you are going to say that Antifa is a terrorist organization. Yes, agree. If you're going to say the ICE Watch is an antifa or is a terrorist organization. Yeah, really seems to be that way. Then why are you not treating them like terrorists? Like a designation is not enough and we just need to see like a fraction of effort from the federal government on this specifically like the FBI and intel agencies. And it's just, I think it's really demoralizing and frustrating for Americans who is just like yeah, I hear you. And we just kind of roll our eyes because it's like what are you going to do about it? Nothing. And it's just going to continue.

[Brecken Theise]

Totally. It is going to continue. It's going to get worse too. I mean, you know, Alex Preddy and Renee Good, these people, the, the, the left, the anti ICE people, I mean they're thrilled when someone like that dies. They absolutely love it when someone like that dies because it gives them so much more fodder to be more violent. And you know, people like that, that shouldn't be put in this situation to die not because they're not going to put themselves in that situation. Obviously they will. I can't remember who wrote it for, for the Federalists, but someone, someone said that they're these, you know, these people are willing to die for like illegal aliens and so, but that can't get in front of law enforcement operations. Like we need a surge of more people in, in places like Minneapolis to make sure that, you know, unfortunately you have to have more people in order to, to get in the way of these people who are trying to put themselves in, in line to getting killed. Because they, a lot of them, you know, I can't speak to what Alex Preddy, Renee Good were thinking at the time, but a lot of them sort of don't mind getting killed or, or the idea of it at least and will put themselves in pretty dangerous scenarios because it helps, it helps the cause. I, I, I mean totally agree with everything you were saying. The, the, it is really unfortunate that the federal government is not, I mean surging anything. They're not seemingly the FBI is. No one's even hearing from the FBI I'm a little bit concerned that the Trump administration and perhaps President Trump himself and other kind of people who are looking out for the political fallout potentially from whatever enforcement operations look like. I mean, you've seen the Trump administration sort of back off a little bit in, In Minneapolis. The. The day I got there was the day that Tom Homan announced that they were taking 700 federal agents out of the city. Whether people are looking forward or looking toward the midterms or not for the elections, I'd say that that's probably true. Maybe there's some other considerations there. But I. I heard an interesting thing, and I can't remember where I heard it from, but that, you know, Republicans might get slaughtered in the midterms. They could. I don't know. I'm not sure that the. The setup is for the midterms, though. I think the setup's probably got to be for 20, 28. You have a little bit longer. I mean, it's. It's typical for the, for the party that just got elected to the White House to get slaughtered in the midterms. That's just right how it works. And that's on. It's on a cycle in a. In a. In a similar situation. You know, look back to 1972. I think in 1970, this is when Richard Nixon was president. I think in 1971 was when Kent State happened, and there were, like, massive riots at Kent State. And the. When Nixon sent the National Guard in, the National Guard shot a couple of people at the Kent State riots. You know that the whole history of that has been totally bungled. But that's not even why. Why I'm bringing it up. It was a similar situation, and it was the year before a presidential election year, and the very next year was the biggest landslide that any president has ever won. Richard Nixon won reelection in the biggest election victory ever in history to this day. So I don't think you can. I think enforcement is probably the better bet if you want to be winning elections. If you want Republicans to show up and start voting for you, people need to start seeing better numbers than 600,000 deportations. That sounds great, but we're talking about 20 to 35 million illegal immigrants in this country. 600,000 is not going to cut it at all. It's not particularly close.

[Kylie Griswold]

Right. And honestly, I'm so tired of these political expediency arguments because you're so right about what usually happens in the midterms. Like, we need to think past the midterms for a handful of Reasons one, we're probably going to lose in the midterms anyway because Republicans outside of immigration enforcement are giving voters nothing to vote for. So, like, if you don't deliver on this, you're not delivering on anything else. So why would anybody vote for you anyway? Plus, typically, the party out of power out of the White House is the one that makes gains in the midterms. Beyond that, though, it's like, okay, sure, you might get trounced in the midterms because you have a bunch of Instagram moms who don't like the optics of deporting people. Okay, so those are the people who are emotionally blackmailing you and holding the administration hostage right now, which is so frustrating to me. But it's like, okay, sure, you might lose a few seats in the House. You might lose. You might take some hard, hard losses in the midterms. If you do not run with the mandate that the American people overwhelmingly gave you in 2024 to crack down on border enforcement, deport people who have no right to be here, and basically, like, reclaim national sovereignty. You can kiss goodbye ever winning any election because this is going to affect how our numbers and congressional reapportionment go in the next census. Like, you're just welcoming untold numbers of anchor babies, like the. The numbers that blue states are going to be able to get. Like, we will never win another election again if we don't get this right. So the idea that it's like, oh, no, but we might lose a couple of seats in the midterms. Yeah, well, you are going to lose them anyway because Congress isn't doing jack squat and we have a Republican in the White House. Like, deliver on the mandate. Do the thing that the majority of the American people elected you to do, and that's to deport and that's to crack down, to maintain law and order to ensure that we don't have any more Lake and Riley's and Jocelyn Nungares. And I'm sorry if it looks a little unpleasant in Minneapolis to get the job done. But, like, at the end of the day, it's what we already talked about. Like, immigration enforcement is not the problem. It's lawless agitators being spurred on by the likes of Tim Walls and Jacob Fry that are the problem. Which is why Minneapolis is a flashpoint and not, you know, West Virginia or literally any other state where the local police comply with ICE and enforce the law to carry out deal deportation orders. So I digress. I mean, this is. It's just such an important thing, and I fear that we are just the optics problem is so stupid, and I'm so tired of the political optics being part of the equation or being like a determinative factor in how we carry out immigration enforcement.

[Brecken Theise]

Yeah, that's exactly right.

[Podcast Promoter]

What it means to be a conservative used to be clear. Tax cuts, free markets, Christian family values, and supporting democracies around the world. That's not true anymore, as anyone following politics sees every day. That's where the new podcast Conservative Crossroads with Henry Olson, senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy center, comes in. It doesn't shy away from these disputes. It leans into them by putting two conservatives who disagree about an important issue together to hash it out on the air. Every other week, Conservative Crossroads does what no other program does explore conservatism's disagreements without name calling. Conservative Crossroads is the podcast for conservatives who want to understand what's happening to their movement. Join Henry Olson and his guest at Conservative Crossroads every other Monday as they hash out the ideas and principles that will decide the future of the right. Download Conservative Crossroads from our partner Ricochet, or any platform where you get your podcast. Conservatism is at a crossroads, which is why all conservatives need Conservative Crossroads.

[Ebay Advertiser]

Listen Today on ebay, every find has a story. Like if you're looking for a vintage band tee. Not just a tee, the band tee from the last show your favorite band ever played. You wore it everywhere. Then your BFF started wearing it, which is cute, until they unfriended you and took it with them, which was not so cute. Anyway, now you're on ebay. And there it is. Same tee from the same tour, still living in your memory. Rent free forever. See, the things you love have a way of finding their way back to you. But ebay isn't just for getting whatever your ex BFF stole back. It's also for that rare championship foul ball you caught, then heroically gave to the kid next to you. And where else are you going to find your first car, the one you wish you'd never sold? But now you finally get the chance to take back home for good this time. Shop ebay for millions of fines, each with a story. EBay things people love.

[Brecken Theise]

I mean, you know, there are a lot of people who I won't name who I know who work in the Trump administration. You know, lower level political appointees. I don't think I know a single person who isn't very angry. I will say that the Insurrection act didn't get invoked pretty much immediately, which it should have, obviously on Tim Walls, Jacob Fry and sort of every other agitator who was, who was aiding it, whether they were, whether they were funding it or whether they were active themselves. You know, it should have been a, what they call in the Bush administration shock and awe campaign in Minneapolis. The moment it turned, it turned bad and everyone knew it was going to turn bad because it's Minneapolis. They do this, this is like their bread and butter. They love doing this. They don't have much else to do apparently. And it should have, it should have happened immediately. I don't know if, if the sort of detente that it seems that the Trump administration is trying to reach with them is, is a political thing or you know, maybe President Trump is a, is, doesn't want to get impeached for a third time. It's like, well, you know, I don't know that Daytone in Minneapolis is going to stop an impeachment. Like if, if there's a one person majority in the House of Representatives for the Democrats, you can, you can bet you're getting impeached multiple times. You're going to get impeached for the next two years or until whatever, until whoever, like, you know, there's a, there's a different majority. You're going to get impeached, you're not going to get removed, you're going to get impeached for literally anything and everything you do. So it's, it's the same thing like don't worry about the midterms, don't worry about getting impeached. Like just owned that that might happen. And, and do the mandate that the American people want you to do because if, if that doesn't happen then, then 28's gone. And the retribution campaign from the Democrats, if they get back the White House in 2020, 28 is going to be insane. I mean people, they, they are going to arrest people they are gonna get for no reason. You know, the people that the Trump administration should be arresting like actually deserve to be arrested. And, and just like with January 6th or with, you know, invoking this, the face act on, on praying nuns outside of an abortion facility, you know, yeah, their people are going to get perp walked, they're going to get broke. You know, their SWAT teams are coming to their house at 3am who don't deserve it, it's going to look pretty bad. So I think the Trump administration is going to be remembered. Maybe they're thinking of legacy. They're going to be remembered a lot more for setting up the right in, in our country for complete and total failure and domination in 2028. Unless they kind of deal with this immigration thing and show that they're actually dead serious about, as you said, taking our country back, making sure that our congressional districts aren't, aren't heavily weighted toward having illegals. And so California has an enormous amount of power that is entirely made up of illegal aliens. Like they have.

[Kylie Griswold]

Right.

[Brecken Theise]

I think it's like they have like, like six or eight too many congressional districts in California because of the illegal alien population there alone. And, and then you talk about Illinois and then you talk about New York and it's the same situation there. You know, this is, this is existential. It actually is existential. I know everyone loves to say that, like this is the most important election or whatever, this is the most important thing. But like, I mean, we're getting to a point where we don't have, we don't really have. Some people don't want us to have a country and other people are, are wondering where their country went and if people are going to be serious about it. So.

[Kylie Griswold]

Yep. And it's really important that we get the messaging right on it too, because the elections point is such a huge component of this. But it's not just about keeping our election safe and secure from non citizens voting. Not that that doesn't happen because we do have plenty of documented instances of this happening. But the problem is the apportionment. The problem is that people who have no legal right to be here are currently included in our census, which is how you get political power, which is why, of course, you have sanctuary states and sanctuary cities. It's the whole point. It's about political power. It's not about compassion for non white people. And it's just, it's such an important thing that like a lot of Americans who are swept up in the media propaganda don't even know that. They have no clue about that political reality. And so it's just so important that we like, communicate the importance of these issues because they are not like side issues like this. This will determine the future of the country for decades to come by people who have no legal right to be here. And that's, it's just really important that we, that we get our messaging right on that. So.

[Brecken Theise]

That's exactly right. Just, just to add to that exact point, I mean, you know, if you're, if you're wondering why Minnesota is the way it is, it's partially because they retained a congressional district that they shouldn't have by like 75 people in the last sentence. So they were about to lose a congressional district and they were 75 people away from doing it. And they just got over the top this time around. You know, if you deport 75 illegals from Minneapolis, they, they lose a congressional district. I mean, that's, that, that would happen around the country in all these states that have imported so many of these illegals. So just, you know, they're thinking about that because their political power, their national political power goes down when they lose congressional districts.

[Kylie Griswold]

Which is so interesting because, you know, you're always going fight. Fights over redistricting, which is what we're seeing, you know, with Indiana and Texas and Virginia. And you know, of course the Democrat states are much more apt right now to redistrict, which is how you ended up with, you know, Abigail Spamberger days into office. Like redistricting to, to make sure half of the Republican state is represented by only one congressional district versus 10 allocated to Democrats. So of course, like, there are political ways to do this that are like, you know, legal but unsavory and are frequently contested, you know, in the courts. But when it comes to immigration, it's inherently illegal. Like it is legalized because we count, we count non citizens in the census, but they are not legally allowed to be here. And so, you know, it's like a non starter. Like we shouldn't even have this question because it's like, well, just deport them. Like it's not, it results in political outcomes, but it is an important thing to do regardless of whether you're a Republican or Democrat. It's a, like, go home. You are, you are not allowed to be here. Like, you have broken the law. Goodbye. Okay. Okay. We like went down this rabbit trail for quite a while, but I think it's such an important, important thing. But I want to, I want to pull back a little bit to the local law enforcement cooperating with ice. So I know before you were there, local PD was doing nothing to help with ICE and immigration enforcement at all, but I know that's changed a little bit. And I'm curious what you observed on the ground as far as like what local PD is doing or not doing as it relates to these deportation efforts.

[Brecken Theise]

Yeah, I think it's, I think it's sort of a bare minimum thing now. The, the main thing that that's changed is so ice, Department of Homeland Security has a, has a thing, I think it's called 287G. It's like a, it's like an agreement that a Local or state or both police force can enter with ICE in order to basically help ICE operations on the ground. Whether that's, you know, reporting that illegals that they pick up for other crimes for detain, actually helping with the on the ground enforcement. Now my. Now the Minneapolis police are not doing that, and they're still not doing that. And that's been a major point of Jacob Fry, who's obviously in charge of them. But when I. So I asked the field office director in St. Paul that exact question, and he said that first of all, you know, the cooperation with local police is better than it's portrayed in the media, but there have been significant issues with trying to get them to cooperate, but it's even gone down. I mean, there were reports of. It used to be really bad and now it is slightly better. So there used to be reports of, you know, basically off duty ICE officers or maybe they're on duty, but they were like grabbing lunch at a restaurant or something and then they were in, you know, uniform and a bunch of agitators come and start making the situation extremely dangerous. And they can't leave because they're blocking their ability to leave. ICE officers call police and the police just literally don't respond and, and leave the ICE officers there to out to dry. And in again, a situation where these ICE officers could be killed. I mean, you don't know Alex Perry had a gun on him. You know, what if these people. Another person has. Not that he shouldn't have. Honestly, like a lot of people say that you shouldn't have a gun. You can have a gun, but like, you know, these people are very crazed and so they might be dangerous, but. But now apparently they will respond to those calls, is what I was told, which is, you know, again, a bare minimum thing, but. Bare minimum, yeah, that's, that's a happy thing, I suppose. And then the other thing is that they are not going to help ICE do immigration enforcement. They are going to support ICE in the crowd control department. So that's. And that's sort of the biggest thing. That's the reason why Customs and Border Protection officers were there in the first place, because they didn't have the support from local police and so they had to send in more federal agents to create that failings. I was describing earlier. Like I said earlier too, the local police were the ones who, who took down the, the barriers and the blockades and things like that that may or may not have happened otherwise. Because, I mean, that is just an actual concern. Aside from the ICE situation. But, but that sort of thing, it seems like there's a little bit less lawlessness that's going to be just allowed to happen in the city. And I mentioned this in the article that I wrote. I mean, that seems to be the function of the Minneapolis government and police force is that like the anarchy is allowed to happen for a long period of time until it gets a little bit too hot. And then the, the government sort of springs into action and acts like, oh, yeah, well, we've been here the whole time. And then they, they, so stamp it down. But they don't really. They don't really kill it, so to speak. That's sort of the ebb and flow. That's part of the whole dynamic in Minneapolis of like these actual dye in the world anarchists who push the envelope until the local government is, is like, that's a little bit too far. Like, we're, we're willing to work with you guys up until a certain point. So that seems to be the situation. What it remains to be seen, when I was there last week, that was when all of this stuff was changing over. And so the, the, the Tom Homan had just gotten there. He had, you know, the agreement, I guess, is taking away 700 federal agents. It. Because they've gotten agreements with Jacob Fry and, and Tim Walls. And I think it just remains to be seen at this point. It'll, it'll be interesting to see if and when the next sort of major confrontation happens and how local police interact and react to that. We've seen a couple of instances of, you know, agitators outside of hotel rooms where they believe ICE officers are staying and stuff. And that used to be a situation they would just let slide, and now it looks like they are. They're responding and kind of like dispersing the crowd in those situations. So again, it's bare minimum stuff, but it is better than it was. I mean, you're talking about. You're talking about putting the lives of a bunch of federal agents who are there doing their job at risk just to, to gain political points because, you know, you want the situation to spiral out of control. That's the game. That's the, that. That's the playbook of Jacob Fry, that's the playbook of j. Of Tim Walls. And you know, again, it remains to be seen.

[Kylie Griswold]

Yeah, yeah, well, we'll have to keep tabs on it moving forward here on ebay.

[Ebay Advertiser]

Every find has a story. Like if you're looking for a vintage band tee. Not just a tee, the band tee from the last show your favorite band ever played, you wore it everywhere. Then your BFF started layering it, which is cute, until they unfriended you and took it with them, which was not so cute. Anyway, now you're on ebay. And there it is. Same tee from the same tour, still living in your memory rent free forever. See, the things you love have a way of finding their way back to you. But ebay isn't just for getting whatever your ex BFF stole back. It's also for that rare championship foul ball you caught, then heroically gave to the kid next to you. And where else are you going to find your first car? The one you wish you never sold? But now you finally get the chance to take back home for good this time. Shop ebay for millions of fines, each with a story. EBay things people love.

[Kylie Griswold]

We've been talking for almost an hour and I we've barely even touched on your ICE ride along experience. So let's, let's chat about that for a minute. First of all, I would love to just hear you originally were supposed to do a ride along on a different day, but you had to move it. Can you explain why you had to move the ride along and kind of what happened there?

[Brecken Theise]

Yes. So I was there Monday through Wednesday, left early on on Thursday, and I originally had my ICE ride along so for the Tuesday. So in the middle of it and. But I also had planned on, as I did, go out and talk to agitators and things like that. I was told by numerous people inside of the Department of Homeland Security and outside of the Department of Homeland Security that if I'm planning to go out and into the city as. As just even a civilian, not even going to the agitators as a civilian because there are so many people in these group chats and stuff like that that I should not do that after I've been seen in a ride along with ice. So they, they told me that pretty much it was going to be unsafe to do it on Tuesday and then go out and. And into the protests or into the talk to the agitators on Wednesday because you're just gonna get attacked. Like you're like they. My face is all over their group chats because I have been filmed with being a reporter with ice. You know, I don't have a mask on, but they all ICE people have a mask on. And so my face is all over the group chats now. It's like literally the last thing that I could do in Minneapolis was the ICE ride along because of that situation. So I. I had to change it up, which ended up being fine, and did it on Wednesday. And as soon as I got back from it, I stayed in my hotel the. Pretty much the whole rest of the night until I went to the airport. I will say the other thing. Oh, this is. This is kind of part of that point is there are. There are agitators outside of the federal building where ice is staged like 24 7. And they are taking pictures. That's how they get all the license plates. They're taking pictures of everyone's license plate going in and out of the federal building, sending it into their group chat. They are taking pictures of everyone's face, sending into the group chat. So when I showed up in a rental car to pull in, I mean, it's just like a paparazzi of people taking pictures of you and, you know, making sure. Because then you gotta. That's where you stage and you leave through there too. So that's unfortunately how it is. But if everything ended up being fine, but like, you know, you don't really think about those contingencies until someone's like, oh, you really shouldn't. Like, you're gonna get doxxed, man, if you do that.

[Kylie Griswold]

Right, right. Yeah, Everything turned out to be fine, but probably because you did your ride along on the last day. So I'm sure that was an important component of that everything. Um, yeah, so. So let's talk about what happened during the ride along. I would love to hear about what that looks like kind of procedurally, procedurally, with the officers and. Yeah, just what kind of stuff you did.

[Brecken Theise]

Yeah, so it's kind of funny because it's. It's a lot of. It's a lot of nothing and then. And then a short amount of something. So the first. Mostly two. I was there for about three hours. The first two hours of it were sort of. Of watching and. And waiting. And, you know, they'll be reading license plates and. And they're reading license plates themselves and they're running it through there. A couple of different databases they have of like, kind of known illegal immigrants, because illegal immigrants can get driver's licenses and cars for some reason. And so anyway, they have that information and then that's how they get a lot of the people that they're arresting is they'll run plates and they'll be like, oh, okay, so we have. Have a person of interest here that if they have a rap sheet, the rap sheet will show up. Whether it's like a dui, the Guy that they arrested when I was there had a, had a dui. It could, you know, DUI is sort of the, the tip of the iceberg of what some of these people have committed. You know, murder, rape, things like that. And then they'll go and they'll sort of try to build a, they're trying to build like a profile of what their day to day looks like. So it's just like kind of standard police work, right? You know, you gotta, you gotta play date. You got a person of interest that you want to arrest and you know, you kind of follow them to see what their day looks like. Maybe you find out where they work. That that was the case with the person that was arrested when I was there. They found out, I think the day before that he works at the McDonald's and that he, his shift is 6 to 6am to 1pm and so that's, we were literally waiting for him to get off of work at 1pm to go make the arrest while kind of tracking other people down. Running plates. We did pull, I mentioned briefly, we pulled over another person on the side of the highway that had a plate. But they, they, that person was actually legally in the United States. They were given some sort of status. I don't believe it was citizenship because the person once again was, was not complying with ICE officers. And if you're given legal status by the federal government, you are required by law to show an ICE officer your ability to be in our country. And this guy wouldn't roll his window down. And then once he did, he was just like, you know, he was just filming. And, and the ICE officers, like, well, you're on camera too. Like, you know, we're on camera, we need to see your id. And the guy kept refusing to see the ID and, and all the rest of it, just not complying. Nothing ended up happening to him. Even though he might, if that had gone on further, they probably should have arrested him. But he eventually showed his, his ID and he was a citizen. But you know, that's the kind of thing where these guys just don't. They. They feel confident to not comply and that's what they do. And so. And then. Yeah, and then after that, the guy that ended up getting arrested got off work once again, did not comply. Now that was in a bit of a public setting. It was in the parking lot of a McDonald's. And the ICE officer I was with was like, this is this, we might get a crowd here because, you know, it's in the middle of a parking Lot and not on the side of the road where you're gonna get less of a crowd, although still a crowd. And we did. And so the, you know, the McDonald's workers come flooding out. Some dude parks his car and starts screaming at the ICE officers and other dudes behind, you know, filming a tick tock reel or whatever they're called. And, you know, the whole thing is very chaotic. And then the guy himself again, was not complying at all. They had to break his window. You know, I, I showed or I posted a video of the like, breaking the window through arrest thing, but the full video is like ICE officers in English and Spanish for about three or four straight minutes, being like, we need you to, you know, roll down your window and show us your ID and all the rest of it. I mean, the guy was gonna get arrested one way or the other because they're not gonna be like, oh, well, you won't comply, I guess. Guess we can't arrest you now. So it.

[Kylie Griswold]

It.

[Brecken Theise]

He's being told to comply. This whole time the guy's feeling confident enough to not do that. And then. And had to end up breaking his window. And then he just got brought in for, you know, and I don't know what his status is now, but he's, you know, just being processed and deported. I assume so.

[Kylie Griswold]

Right. It is so important just to see, though, how this kind of stuff works, because it's like you said, it's police work. Like, these are federal officers putting in the time to make sure they have the right person to identify people who have no legal right to be here and to, you know, clearly this is somebody who had broken additional laws in addition to immigration laws and then go through a process to. To lawfully remove them. I mean, you know, I've heard so many ridiculous fantasies from anti ICE people who are making up stories about how this is going down in Minneapolis, of course, partially stoked by the media because they're just painting this false picture of what's happening. But, you know, this idea that, that the Gestapo are going door to door in Minneapolis looking for people who don't have white skin and then demanding their papers. And it's like, that's not what's happening here. It's important. You know, we're getting so many human interest stories from, you know, everyone else. You know, Renee Good, we're hearing that she's a poet and, you know, a mother and all these things. But it's like the ICE agents who are doing this difficult work to undo years of lawlessness under the Biden administration to protect American citizens and our national interests. They are human beings too. They need to be humanized and they're doing really important and dangerous work every day. So it's super cool to get an inside look at that through through the eyes of Brecken, who got to ride along and experience it firsthand. So I think we're at Time Brecken, so I'll wrap it with that. But thank you so much for not only staying safe and defying your fiance and mother's wishes that you not go, but also for sharing all of your stories from on the road with us. Super fascinating stuff. Everybody should go read Brecken's piece at the Federalist. All of his reporting, but specifically this piece from Minneapolis. It's called Checkpoints and Street Corner Sentries In Minneapolis, Ice hating Anarchists are an occupying force. Thanks again so much Brecken. Appreciate you being here.

[Brecken Theise]

Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Kylie Griswold]

Thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode of the Kylie Cast. If you haven't done so already, please like and subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts, leave us a five star review. It'd be a great way for you to help out the show. Go read Brecken's article. It's linked in the show notes. I will be right back here next week with more. So until then, just remember the truth hurts, but it won't kill you.

[Lifelock Advertiser]

Are you a fraud paying American? 1 in 4 tax paying Americans has been a victim of identity fraud. With Lifelock, if your identity is stolen, they fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Last year billions in refunds were stolen. Could be from your salary, overtime or second job gone. But this year you don't need to stay a victim because this tax season, fraud paying American is something no American should have to claim. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com iheart Terms apply.

[Danielle Rob]

Hi, this is Danielle Rob, the host of Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, a podcast by hello Sunshine and I heart podcasts. I'm partnering with Simple Mills and I've just found my new go to reading snack, Simple Mills Almond Flour Crackers. Think of this as a quick book style review because these crackers deserve it. The premise? A snack that feels light, not heavy. Made with almond flour, sunflower seeds and flaxseeds. Nutrient dense ingredients your body can use. Not empty carbs. And the taste? Crunchy classic flavors that leave you feeling energized. For a good plot twist, try Pop' Ems. Cheesy airy Poppable crackers packed with veggies. Final Verdict these are a shelf staple. Find simple meals at your grocery store with Venmo Stash.

[Venmo Stash Advertiser]

A taco in one hand and ordering a ride in the other means you're stacking cash back. Nice get up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash on your favorite brands when you pay with your Venmo debit card. Card from takeout to ride shares, entertainment, and more. Pick a bundle with your gotos and start earning cash back at those brands. Earn more cash when you do more with Stash. Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cash back per month. See terms at Venmo Me Stash Terms.