← Here's the Scoop
Here's the Scoop
Minneapolis on Edge After Shooting; Iranian Protests Continue Amid Internet Blackout
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C
Hey, everybody. Welcome to here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Bisugian. Today on the show, hundreds of thousands of anti government protesters taking to the streets of Iran, how the United States has threatened to intervene, plus the races to watch at this weekend's Golden Globes. At first, though, overnight there was another shooting incident involving federal agents, this time in Portland, Oregon. According to police, Border patrol officers shot and injured two people during a targeted traffic stop in what federal officials are calling an act of self defense. Protesters took to the streets. I spoke to NBC News correspondent Dana Griffin on the ground in Portland. Hi, Dana.
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D
Hi, Yasmin.
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C
It's great to have you. Tell us about the mood on the ground there in Portland. What have you been seeing? What have you been hearing from folks?
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D
So I think the, the height of the, of the frustration we really saw last night as people took to the streets, especially outside of this ICE facility. We are parked in front of it right now. This is the kind of the epicenter of where protests have been for months, especially starting last summer when the National Guard was starting to be deployed here. There were so many people here that they were like they spilled into the streets. There's not a lot of sidewalk space. And so the protesters were saying they just didn't have any space to really voice their concern. So a lot of them were arrested. We saw some minor clashes with law enforcement here yesterday and they say they're frustrated. They say that seeing not only what happened in Minneapolis, but now what happened in Portland with the Shooting of two individuals. They're pissed off, essentially. They want their voices to be heard. And they feel like they're not getting the respect, the transparency. And so we expect more protests here today.
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C
Dana, walk us through what took place with the shooting there in Portland.
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D
Okay, so this started around 2:15 yesterday. There was supposed to be this targeted vehicle stop. I don't know if people knew about it because a lot of times we see these kind of operations. Sometimes people are tipped off, they're blowing whistles, they're trying to like alert people. These people were at a local health center, looks like a medical center. Somehow CBP officers tried to stop this car. We're not sure what that exchange was because there's no surveillance video, there's no witness video. And according to dhs, the male driver tried to use his vehicle to run over the agents. And so one of the agents fired several shots out of self defense. That's the narrative. At first it came out that it was one shot and then DHS corrected their statement and said there were several defensive shots because two people were shot here. His passenger, a woman. DHS calling them both gang associates, the Venezuelan gang, Trinidad. Officials here locally say that they cannot corroborate some of DHS's statements. And I think that that's part of a trend here. I've been digging into a story that hasn't even aired yet about just some of these ICE incidents involving ramming situations where video directly contradicts those initial statements. And we've reached out to DHS and said, hey, here's the evidence. Can you explain? And we have heard nothing. So right now, DHS appears to be on some sort of campaign to try to paint these people as the bad guys, gang members. They tried to hit our officers. And that could very well be true, but we don't have any evidence to really show that at this point.
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C
NBC News correspondent Dana Griffin. Thank you. So this incident is coming just days after an ICE officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, Minnesota. NBC News has now obtained cell phone video that appears to show Renee Good just moments before the shooting. NBC News senior national law enforcement and intelligence correspondent Tom Winter is with us. Hey, Tom.
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E
Hey, Yaz. How are you?
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C
I'm good. So NBC has gotten access to this cell phone video and it shows Renee Goode just minutes before she was shot by an ICE agent. Where is this footage from and what is it showing? If you can take us through as much detail as possible, sure.
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E
So the video appears to be from the actual ICE officer who fired the shots. The fatal shots that killed. And it's showing us a couple of things. First off, just how fast this all takes place. I mean, from the moment that there's a command to get out of the car, that the ICE officers are approaching the car, to the moment shots are fired is seven seconds. That's just how fast these incidents happen. The other thing that it still doesn't show us is what is occurring in the moments leading up to this. What was good doing? Why is her car positioned there? Had there been a previous interaction? What's happening before? Had there been no interaction before? And then on this video, getting a couple of things. So we've been talking to law enforcement officials this afternoon. These are current and retired law enforcement officers. Here's what they point out. First and foremost, she is given an order to get out of the car. That is a lawful order. She must get out of the car. We've talked to some of our own legal experts here at NBC News. They say, yep, she's given a lawful order. She's got to get out of the car. And so that's not up for a discussion. It's not up for a debate. You can't drive away. They point that out. They point out a couple of other things. One, walking in front of the car, and obviously that's the point where once the car goes in forward motion, we see and hear the shots being fired. They point that out, and they say that's not a tactic they would take. Why put yourself in front of a vehicle?
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C
You're talking about the ICE officer, I'm.
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E
Sure, about the ICE officer that walked.
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C
In the front of the car and actually shot her.
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E
That's exactly right. The ICE officer walking in front of the car. Not good tactics there. And there's a number of different reasons for that. So they point that out as something that. That probably shouldn't be done. The other thing that they point out is up until the moment the shots are fired, they all say, we don't think this incident should have ended up this way, that it should not have escalated to that point.
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C
Just back to the video, Tom, because I want to focus on this one moment only, because this video comes out and what some people are seeing is Renee Goode smiling in that car, waving off the officers. And then as she drives away and a shot is fired, it then careens, hits another car. And you hear someone say, effing B.
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E
Thank you for raising this. That is heard at the end of the video. We don't know with certainty who said that. That's Obviously going to be an inflammatory moment. And that's something that people are already reacting to, understandably in terms of the investigation. In terms of could there be charges filed here against the ICE officer? Every legal expert we've spoken to today says they don't think this video that's released today is particularly altering when it comes to the course of the investigation. Ultimately, if you look at the use of force policy by the Department of Homeland Security, it says that if the officer effectively says the officer has a reasonable belief that that their life is in danger or there's going to be serious bodily harm, they're allowed to use deadly force. So from the officer's perspective, he's near the front of that car. Everybody seems to have a different viewpoint of where he's at, standing in front of the car, but he's towards the front of the car. The car starts moving and then we hear the shots being fired. That's a second or two, maximum of three seconds where this is all going down. And from a legal standpoint, if that's going to be the standard here, does it really change anything today? But I think it definitely answers some questions that we've had and I think that's generally people's kind of conclusion on what does this all mean.
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C
So I know this is a quick moving story and you've been doing a lot of reporting on it. Tom, I do have one more thing for you though, because you just mentioned it, right? More ICE agents headed to Minneapolis to the state of Minnesota. You got the governor saying he's going to engage the National Guard. We have the release of this video. What are you hearing from state, local officials, law enforcement, as well as to what they're expecting on the ground this weekend there?
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E
I think it's a take each hour as it goes. Time will tell. We've obviously seen follow up protests at federal buildings in the greater Minneapolis area. I don't expect those will abate anytime soon. Will this debate change anybody's mind? It has been well remarked by many reporters, including this one, by members of law enforcement. This particular incident appears to be an incident where people are believing their perspective on it. There is definitely a belief of people just saying this is what happened, that's it, investigation closed. People aren't even waiting for the investigation to barely start, let alone conclude before coming to any sort of conclusions. There could be a fact that changes the whole dynamic of this or doesn't in the coming couple of days, weeks and months and that's how long this is going to take. So how any new release of evidence or information will impact things. I think is a great question that you've asked. I just don't know if anybody has an answer to it at this point.
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C
Tom Winter, thank you.
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F
Thanks.
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C
All right. We are going to take a very quick break. And when we are back, Iranian leaders have cut off access to the Internet to quell two weeks of protests. Could the US get involved? That is next.
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And we are back with here's the scoop from NBC News. No WhatsApp, no email. Almost no international news. Iranians have been shut off from the world after the regime imposed a total blackout to Iranian protests that have rocked the country for nearly two weeks. Activist organizations telling NBC News that hundreds of thousands of people have been taken to the streets in multiple cities, setting fires, tearing up Iranian flags and clashing with security forces. I want to bring in Babak Diche. He's our NBC News digital international editor and reporter. He's covered the region for years, including serving as the Baghdad bureau chief and Beirut bureau Chief for Newsweek. Hi, Bobak.
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I
Hi.
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J
Thanks for having me on.
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It's great to have you on. I wanna talk about these protests. What started them and how is it looking on the ground right now from what you've been hearing?
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I
Sure.
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J
I mean, the protest kicked off last week for economic reasons. The inflation has been soaring in Iran for quite a while. The currency, the value of the Iranian rial, tanked against the US dollar. And that seemed to be the main spark that kicked things off. So the initial protest started off in the main bazaar, the main market area of Tehran with people closing up their shops. That spread to other cities. But then pretty quickly it turned into street protests with people coming out not only chanting slogans about wanting a better life, wanting the economy to improve, but then turning very political and chanting slogans against the government, against the supreme leader of Iran, who is the highest authority in the country.
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C
MSD International is saying that they have unlawfully used rifles, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, shotguns loaded with metal pellets, water cannons, tear gas, beatings to disperse and intimidate and punish, largely, as they put it, peaceful protesters. How bad is it getting? How violent is it getting?
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J
It seems it's about as bad as it's ever been in terms of the violence of the crackdown. Unfortunately, this is a the sort of, as one analyst that I talked to called it, the crackdown playbook of the way the regime deals with these situations. And that is to really come out and do a show of force and to kind of push people off of the street as much as they can. And the videos we're seeing pretty regularly since last week, almost on a daily basis, security forces are opening fire on protesters. There was one pretty egregious and notable raid on a hospital last weekend, and there's video of it of security forces shooting into the courtyard of a hospital. Then the security forces rush into the hospital compound. There was accounts of that raid, of them actually beating up medical staff, tear gassing inside the hospital. So, you know, it just really seems like the, you know, all the boundaries have been kind of dropped and they're really kind of going at it pretty full force.
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C
It's interesting you say that, the crackdown playbook, but we're at a different time, though, right? You talk about, for instance, you know, the Internet, why are they doing that? How long is it expected to be out? And talk about how we're in a different moment that is within the Trump administration after a 12 day war over the summer between Iran and Israel.
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I think this Internet blackout is A clear sign of how desperate the regime is. In previous protests, we've seen the Internet being slowed down, but a complete and total shutdown of the Internet shows how serious they're taking this. And as you mentioned, part of that is this external threat that they're feeling. Trump posted on Truth Social that if the violence continues, the protesters are killed, that the US May intervene. He didn't specify what that exactly means. He said that again in interviews yesterday. And I think the officials are listening, particularly after this raid in Venezuela last week. Venezuelan government is a close ally of Tehran, so they are very scared of this intervention and the shutting off of the Internet. That does two things. I mean, it prevents people from communicating with each other, to organize places to meet, but it also prevents videos of the violence being carried out, the attacks that the security forces are carrying out on the protesters from being sent out to the rest of the world, essentially just closing the country off.
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C
The Supreme Leader Khamenei made his Friday prayer speech, and he essentially said, the protesters are doing the bidding. And of course, I'm paraphrasing here, they're doing the bidding of President Trump because the president has threatened to intervene in these protests if the Iranian government continues to crack down Iran. I wonder, you know, with these protests that we have seen pop up over and over again, whether it was over oil prices, over food shortages, over human rights issues, over the death of Mahsa Amini, we could go on and on and on. There was always this idea of, is this the end of this regime? And it wasn't. And things went back to, quote, unquote, normal, as normal as they can be in Iran right now under the pressure that they are facing. What do you see with these particular protests?
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Well, first of all, I mean, going back to the previous set of protests of the Masa Amini protests, I mean, I think the government still took a pretty hard hit out of those protests. I mean, the change that came out of that, part of it was. Part of it was for women's rights. Part of it was about the issue of mandatory hijab and the way women could dress. And you can look on the Internet, on social media these days, and they essentially won that fight. There are a lot of women in Iran these days who aren't wearing the hijab and dress more freely than they did prior to those protests. Yeah, I mean, the regime appears strong in a way in that they have the security forces out in the streets as they have in the past. They are giving out the hardline messages. You mentioned Khamenei today in his Friday prayers drew a very clear hard line, saying that they're not going to back down. The the judiciary has said that they're going to come out to the full extent of the law and clearly beyond the law in that they're protestors being killed in dealing with this. So how shaky the government is or the regime is kind of hard to assess at the moment.
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C
You can't help but wonder if this is kind of a death by a thousand cuts, whereas it may not be today, it may not be tomorrow. But with everything that has happened over the last two decades, of course, yeah.
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J
There is a momentum. Each one of these protests takes a toll. The analysts I'm talking to basically are saying there isn't much that the government can offer when the people are coming out again and again, every two years, every three years, every four years, coming out and kind of chanting. Essentially, a lot of times it has been about the economy starting out or for social freedoms, but then quickly turns very political again and it keeps building.
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C
Barbach de Ron Pichet thank you.
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Thank you.
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All right, let's get to some headlines. Job numbers came out today, and they don't look good. 2025 was the worst year for hiring since 2020, when Covid brought the global economy to a standstill. Employers added just 50,000 jobs in December and only 584,000 jobs overall last year. The unemployment rate has ticked down to 4.4%, though federal data shows part of that drop came from statistical adjustments. Meanwhile, mortgage rates fell below 6% Friday for the first time in years. The sharp drops came after President Trump said he told his representatives to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds. It's his latest push to combat the affordability crisis at the start of an election year. But the bond buying plan may not be a silver bullet. The average interest rate of U.S. residential mortgages is well below that of a new mortgage, which means the impact of Trump's plan could be limited. American oil executives met at the White House today to discuss restoring Venezuela's oil infrastructure.
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We're going to be making the decision as to which oil companies are going to go in that we're going to allow to go in going to cut a deal with the companies. We'll probably do that today or very shortly thereafter.
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In an early morning true social post, President Trump wrote that at least $100 billion in investment is needed for, quote, big Oil. Trump says he also plans to meet with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corinna Machado next week. The administration supported Delsey Rodriguez as the country's interim president to replace Nicolas Maduro. But several Republicans in Congress are now openly backing Machado as the country's next leader. Three Democratic senators are urging the CEOs of Apple and Google to remove Elon Musk's X and Grok apps from their stores because of sexual deep fakes. X AI's Grok tool has been used to generate thousands of sexualized, non consensual images of real people. People, including kids. Senators Ron Wyden, Ed Markey and Ben Ray Lujan argue in an open letter that the apps violate both app Stores terms of service, which prohibits sexual imagery without consent. Hours after the letter, X started restricting Grok's image generation to paid subscribers, though the standalone Grok app still allows such content. Apple and Google have not responded to requests for comment on the senator's letter or NBC News's questions about X's policies. A non consensual sexualized imagery. X and Elon Musk have also remained silent following NBC's requests. Russia launched a massive strike on Ukraine using its Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile for only the second known time. The attack killed at least four people in Kyiv and hit critical infrastructure near the NATO border in Lviv. Moscow said the barrage of nearly 250 drones and dozens of missiles was retaliation for an alleged Ukrainian strike on Vladimir Putin's residence last month that has been rejected by both Ukraine and the United States. European leaders called the use of the nuclear capable Mach 10 weapon, quote, escalatory and unacceptable. And finally, the Golden Globes are this weekend and comedian Nikki Glaser is back as host. One Battle after Another leads the film nominees with nine nods while HBO's the White Lotus tops television with six. Jeremy Allen. White has double nominations across film and television in yes Chef while Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are facing off for Wicked for good. Plus, all eyes are gonna be on presenters Hudson Williams and Connor's story, the stars of Heated Rivalry, one of the year's hottest most talked about shows. And then speaking of rivalry, the Golden Globes introduced a brand new Best Podcast category this year. We did in fact miss the cutoff for nominations. But do not worry everybody, I have already got my dress picked out for next year. All right, that is going to do it for us at here's the scoop of NBC News. I'm Yasmin Vesugin. We'll be back on Monday with whatever the day may bring. And if you love what you heard, subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you Monday.