NBC News Correspondent Shaquille Brewster (2:12)

Great to be here.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (2:12)

Shaq, I want to start with you. We have been seeing these images of ICE interactions with with ICE protesters and then what we're calling and what they are calling themselves at times, ICE observers, folks that are following around ice, documenting, for instance, their interactions the streets of Minneapolis. And you have been talking to some of them, including Sarah Lechner. I want to play that for folks. And then we'll and then we'll talk on the other side.

Sarah Lechner (ICE Observer) (2:38)

I got pepper spray all over me it's the first time I've had pepper spray. My. I couldn't see to walk home hardly because. And I was coughing. I mean, it affected everybody. And it's just neighborhood people who gather. It's not. Nobody's paying us. We're not paid agitators. We're just ordinary people who love one another and want to protect our own neighborhood.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (3:03)

Tell me about your interactions with Sarah and what was happening in that situation there.

NBC News Correspondent Shaquille Brewster (3:09)

Yeah, Sarah is an interesting case because she is someone who you can almost say turned into an observer. She told me that she was drinking coffee in the kitchen of her home, heard commotion outside, grabbed her whistle, grabbed her coat and went outside to see what was going on. And she said she had these things ready because she's outraged at what she's been seeing take place in her community, though she didn't think it was going to reach her neighborhood. And she said as she was out there, she told us about what she saw. And at the end of the interaction, she said she was keeping distance. She stayed on the sidewalk. You saw the agents deploy tear gas, and she ended up getting tear gassed and stumbled home.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (3:48)

Agents tear gassed the observers.

NBC News Correspondent Shaquille Brewster (3:51)

So people go outside, they hold their phones up, they're documenting. Many of them are yelling at the agents, and sometimes when they're leaving, they deploy tear gas, they deploy pepper spray. You see those interactions, and that's why it's always hard when you're labeling these folks, because for Sarah, was she an observer? Yes, because she was there. She was documenting what was taking place. She had her whistle. Is she a resident? Yes, because she walked a couple doors down from her home because of what was brought to her neighborhood. So the labels get weird. But you see those scenes over and over again as these clashes happen between immigration officers who say they're just kind of enforcing immigration law, and residents and observers who are upset at what they're seeing.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (4:32)

And are any of these protesters and. Or these observers, are they following these ICE agents, ICE officers in cars as well?

NBC News Correspondent Shaquille Brewster (4:39)

Without a doubt. And we saw that even earlier today. We saw vehicles. We saw with what we presumed to be ICE agents because of the masks, because there were some lights. They appeared to be rental cars. And behind them, you had people blowing whistles, honking their horn, seeming to follow the agents and warn the public about what was taking place. And these are quick interactions. We got a tip we were there within 10 minutes, and you would not know anything happened.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (5:08)

Misty, one of the reasons we wanted to talk to you today is because we want to Understand if this is legal, like the interactions that are happening on both sides. So you have the protesters, right, in the traditional sense. You have the folks that are possibly following around ICE in cars, filming them. ICE is saying that they're impeding their, their investigations. What rights do these individuals have? Is, is this legal and, and, or do, does ICE actually have a point that they are impeding the investigation?

NBC News Legal Analyst Misty Maris (5:36)

Yeah. So it really depends on each individual interaction because it's going to be fact sensitive and based on all the circumstances, which is difficult to break down. Watching these videos with so much chaos erupting on the streets. But just in general, protest is of course protected by the First Amendment. So some of these actions, like recording an officer, there's a lot of case law on that, that that is protected by the First Amendment. However, there is a line with any protest. There's time, place and manner. It has to be reasonable. Blocking traffic is something that, again, line of case law that says that that is not reasonable, that could be illegal, that could lead to arrest.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (6:15)

Just to get specifics here, if I'm out filming what ICE is doing in my neighborhood with my phone and I'm standing 20ft away, am I impeding what the work they're doing on the ground?

NBC News Legal Analyst Misty Maris (6:28)

I would say you'd have a very strong argument that you are not impeding the investigation and you would be protected under the First Amendment because you would have that right to film for the purposes of transparency, specifically law enforcement activity. But you get too close to somebody, get too close to an operation. Some of what we're seeing knocking on windows, maybe standing in front of cars, getting involved in trying to impede an arrest, it becomes a bit more clear cut on the other side that that could actually transition into criminal activity.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (6:58)

What about giving a heads up that ICE is on their way whistling for instance, letting people know, is that considered impeding an investigation in general?

NBC News Legal Analyst Misty Maris (7:08)

That's going to be very, there's strong, strong arguments that that would fall under your First Amendment protections.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (7:13)

Misty, you had at least six prosecutors that have resigned from the Minnesota U.S. attorney's office over concerns with the direction that the investigation is going into Renee Goode's death. What does that say about the case if the very people who are supposed to be handling it have just walked away?

NBC News Legal Analyst Misty Maris (7:33)

That's actually a real tragedy because you're talking about non political rank and file prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota who are resigning. And the reports indicate that the directive. Cuz remember, it's important to remember the structure, right? So the U.S. attorneys report to the DOJ. The DOJ is the head of it. All right, so there's objectives that are given to the local U.S. attorney's offices about how to conduct this investigation. And apparently what the directive was was to specifically look into Renee Goode's partner to see if she had ties to organizations who were working to impede ICE enforcement or other organizations who were engaging in criminal conduct. So that was the directive, which, by the way, has absolutely zero and nothing to do with an investigation into excessive force by a federal officer.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (8:22)

Misty Accourtos denied the injunction from Minnesota, Minneapolis and St. Paul, the lawsuit essentially on behalf of the city and the state to essentially get ICE officers out of the state. They're going to remain, though, on the ground because of this injunction. Now they have fast tracked arguments. Shaq has been speaking a lot of folks and we played for everybody an interview he had with Sarah a little bit earlier. I want to play a little bit more from her and then we'll talk.

NBC News Correspondent Shaquille Brewster (8:47)

They say this is not stopping. Does that scare you?

Sarah Lechner (ICE Observer) (8:50)

Yeah, they're sending more. It's not stopping. It's not good. It's very terrifying. A friend of mine was just telling me on the phone she had a panic attack driving the other day and thought she was having a heart attack and had to call an ambulance because everyone is so, so stressed, so upset, so stressed.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (9:11)

When you look at the decision made by the court with this preliminary injunction, what does that signal to you about the potential of ICE being able to remain on the ground there?

NBC News Legal Analyst Misty Maris (9:21)

You know, I'm not surprised that the request for injunction was denied. And I say that because we have to look at what the two prongs are that the court looks at when analyzing whether to grant an injunction and actually halt ICE and its operations in Minnesota. And the two prongs are irreparable harm. Now, I think that is an easier argument to make if you're the state of Minnesota interviews like Sarah. What's happening in the community that the type of harm that's going to continue on kind of shooting.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (9:51)

Renee Goode.

NBC News Legal Analyst Misty Maris (9:52)

Right. And this harm, what's happening in the community, all of this, it can't be reversed if it's allowed to continue. So that's one prong, but the other is likelihood of success on the merits. And here there's a real uphill battle, if not an impossibility, that Minnesota will be successful. But there may be more activity in the courts while this plays out.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (10:12)

Misty, Marisol, Shaquille Brewster, thank you. Meanwhile, the president has been ramping up his attacks on so called sanctuary cities. Starting February 1, the government is going to deny federal funding to states with municipalities resisting the administration's immigration policy. Two previous efforts to do that were shut down by the courts. Also, San Diego county supervisors advanced an ordinance further restricting cooperation with ice. Building on existing policy, the rules bar federal agents from non public county property without a judicial warrant and mandate regular reporting on all federal law enforcement interactions. The measure aligns with a similar policy recently adopted by the city. All right, we are going to take a very quick break and when we are back, what we're hearing from the administration about a potential US Military strike inside Iran. That's next.

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NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (12:39)

Welcome back to here's the scoop from NBC News. In Iran, what started out as protests over inflation and the cost of living has quickly turned into an anti government uprising. The U. S Based Human Rights Activist News agency says more than 2,500 people have been killed. President Trump had been threatening Iran with, quote, very strong action over the protests and he posted about the protests on Truth Social saying, quote, help is on the way. So with that, I want to bring in our NBC News national security reporter Gordon Lubold to talk about what that could mean. Hey Gordon.

NBC News National Security Reporter Gordon Lubold (13:14)

Hi. How are you?

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (13:15)

Good. Good to talk to you. I Want to start with that post. The President saying help is on the way, urging Iranians to continue to protest in the streets. What do you think this could mean?

NBC News National Security Reporter Gordon Lubold (13:30)

What I think the President is probably looking at, which is a range of options to respond to what's happening on the ground in Iran. The President has expressed very publicly and repeatedly his interest in helping the Iranian opposition. At this moment, US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, the command that would be responsible for any military action, has presented a range of options to him, which could be from kind of high end kinetic, with the military likes to use the word kinetic strikes of various targets to a much lower kinetic operation, which could be more of a signaling operation versus the high end version that means anything and everything. So at the high end with these strikes, go after specific target, specific individuals, compounds to take out regime leadership. You could walk it back from there to maybe not quite that high, but, you know, prime targets on the ground inside Iran in some cases and certainly in other operations where they've telegraphed the targets ahead of time to ensure, like in the cases of Syria, for example, where there was Russian sites, told the Russians that they were going to be going.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (14:49)

They did it with the Iranians too, after Soleimani, right?

NBC News National Security Reporter Gordon Lubold (14:53)

Yeah, exactly.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (14:55)

Yeah.

NBC News National Security Reporter Gordon Lubold (14:55)

And so this is kind of a, almost kind of a, you know, gamesmanship back and forth. I think that what's very clear is where we sit at this moment today, that it could be any and number of those things. We just don't really know yet where his head is. We do know that he has signaled internally what he thinks his objectives are. We don't know exactly what those objectives are, but we think that he's now telegraphed that to his, to his age.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (15:25)

Let's talk about the US Bases and what that could signal. The United States pulling hundreds of troops out of an air base in Qatar. What could that mean about potential movements? Is that about an offensive position or a defensive position?

NBC News National Security Reporter Gordon Lubold (15:44)

Yeah, so that's a, that's a defensive move from what we can see right now. So what we reported earlier was that hundreds of U.S. troops have been evacuated from the sprawling base at Al Udid in Qatar. What we saw in June with what was called Midnight Hammer, when the US Went after nuclear enrichment sites and the Israelis went after the ballistic missile sites, the US Temporarily removed a lot of the troops, not all, but like most of them, from Al Udid in June, that was done a little more last minute. From what I understand of whether this.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (16:27)

Doesn'T feel last minute to you, Gordon, this.

NBC News National Security Reporter Gordon Lubold (16:30)

It feels a Little last minute, but I, and I'm, I will lose any bet on anything like this because I'm always wrong. But I do believe that this evacuation, whenever it exactly started, is seen as a little bit better coordinated than the one in June. But to, to your point, this is defensive in nature because what we saw before was, you know, a retaliatory response from, from Iran after those strikes earlier this year.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (16:57)

You talked about the operation that took place in June when the United States went after those nuclear sites inside Iran. That was an in and out strike, right? You blinked, it was over.

NBC News National Security Reporter Gordon Lubold (17:09)

That's right.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (17:11)

Is this likely to be like that or more drawn out? Is this a warning shot to the Iranian regime or is this a we're going full bore?

NBC News National Security Reporter Gordon Lubold (17:22)

It's a central question because what we've seen, and I would point to recent weeks in Caracas where the president sees these kinds of military operations, very high end, very sophisticated. The one in Caracas was extremely sophisticated and risky. The president likes to get in and out, likes to declare victory, and that's perfectly reasonable.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (17:46)

But this is different than Venezuela. I mean, you know, any analyst that I've spoken to, it comes to Iran. Any experts on Iran understand that if the president is to go in and go after those high end targets, like taking out leadership inside Iran, I mean, the country could feasibly, you know, descend into chaos, into, you know, mass killings. I mean, who knows?

NBC News National Security Reporter Gordon Lubold (18:07)

This is what's honestly confounding a little bit because this is a president who was declared that, you know, he wanted to end foreign entanglements, you know, certainly was disdainful of those who came before him, who got us into Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. And not to dwell on the Caracas thing, but it is, I think, top of mind for this administration right now was a surprise because now we haven't seen it descend into chaos, but we're still in the early days with Iran. If they were really to go at the high end version and potentially target individuals in the regime, the idea that suddenly the opposition, you know, is going to all come into place and they'll, you know, greet us as liberators or whatever as it was cast when we went into Iraq is far from, far from clear.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (19:03)

Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about what you said when it came to Venezuela and the planning that went into it because of what has been happening in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean for months leading up to Maduro's capture.

NBC News National Security Reporter Gordon Lubold (19:15)

Right.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (19:15)

Could we see a scenario like that play out in Iran where the president is getting everybody in position, biding his time until he sees the right moment.

NBC News National Security Reporter Gordon Lubold (19:27)

What we may or may not see in coming days could be a shot across the bow. You know what the military likes to say, kind of softening the target or kind of laying the groundwork for a limited but potentially more protracted effort for regime change in Iran. Whatever we were led to believe at the time in the Caribbean with the alleged drug vessels, and that started in September 2nd. And so we, there were several months of that, you know, as we reported, military even built a compound replica to, to practice and to train on the actual capture of Maduro and his wife. We are not aware of that kind of planning going into whatever it is that's potentially coming with, with Iran. I think the President has advisors around him who are, would be cautioning him about doing something in the region that could potentially put him exactly into where others have been, other presidents have been, and into some protracted thing that he doesn't want to be in.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (20:34)

Yeah, you think about what has taken place with Iraq, with Afghanistan, the long drawn out wars and the lives that were lost when it came to American military and thinking about the potential of what could take place in Iran. And we're hearing from Israeli officials, Arab officials, US Officials, it's not the right time that the government has not been weakened enough in order to. This is coming from a US official in order to strike quite yet that US Military action would not have the impact that they would want it to have. And Israeli officials also saying the US should not yet strike. Although I wonder if that is more PR from the Israelis not wanting to insert themselves into a situation which they feel as if would only weaken the efforts of the protesters inside the country.

NBC News National Security Reporter Gordon Lubold (21:28)

That's exactly right. We're all being extremely cautious because reporting in this environment is extremely perilous because of, you know, intentional misinformation and misinformation. But, but from what we've been reporting is that right, the Israelis are very concerned about picking the moment and this, we might not be in that moment and we don't see US forces arrayed in the region that would be used and summoned to execute this mission. We do see some concerns from the Israeli government. You know, of course this is the ideal, you know, to, to take out the regime and actually kind of like end potentially this kind of existential threat from Iran is, is Israel's, you know, I'm not making light of it, but it's their fantasy. And it's also a lot of the people who are advising the President right now. It's their fantasy to finally take down the regime in Tehran. But right picking the right moment to limit exposure for the US Military and the US And Trump politically is key. And so we're just not sure where that moment is just yet.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (22:42)

Gordon Lubold, thank you.

NBC News National Security Reporter Gordon Lubold (22:44)

Thank you so much.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (22:47)

All right. Let's get to some headlines. The Trump administration says it's suspending immigrant visa processing from 75 countries, including Afghanistan, Brazil, Egypt and Somalia. The State Department claimed that immigrants from these countries, quote, take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates. Most green card holders face limits in what kind of public benefits they can receive, including a five year waiting period for access to food stamps, non emergency Medicaid and the Children's Health insurance program. The pause will take effect on January 21. The Danish Foreign minister says that not respecting Greenland's sovereignty was, quote, unacceptable. After a meeting with Vice President J.D. vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio today, he told reporters that the US And Denmark will have to, quote, agree to disagree, but that they'd form a high level working group to discuss Greenland security. President Trump has been threatening to seize or buy Greenland from Denmark. Scholars and former U.S. officials estimate that the price tag for Greenland could be as high as $700 billion. But Denmark insists the territory is not for sale. Stacks Global, the company that owns the iconic luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue, has filed for bankruptcy. It is one of the largest retail collaps businesses since the pandemic. Saks Global has been struggling with debt it took on to buy its rival Neiman Marcus, weakened department store sales and a growing online market. The company is now appointing a new CEO and will use the bankruptcy process to restructure its debt or sell to a new owner. Analysts say the move casts further doubt on the future of luxury fashion. New Data from the EU's Climate Change Monitoring Service show that 2025 was the third warmest year in modern. It's not exactly a surprise the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record. But NBC News senior meteorologist Catherine Prosev says 2025 could have been different.

NBC News Senior Meteorologist Catherine Prosev (24:50)

It should actually be startling that we managed to have a top three warmest year globally despite part of 2025 being in LA Nina. That's because La Nina is characterized by cooler than average water temperatures dominating the Pacific 2026. We're all already forecast to swing the other direction, come out of La Nina, go into a neutral phase for a little bit and then eventually into El Nino, which is the opposite. It's that hotter phase around the globe. It can enhance those temperatures so we can look at a similar year of very warm temperatures, potentially a top three year again to come.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (25:26)

And before we let you go, amidst all the international tensions, you have two former enemy nations mending fences in a very unusual way. Japanese Prime Minister Sanai Takaichi and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung met up this week to discuss nuclear weapons, critical minerals and economic security. And then they put on matching blue jumpsuits and sat down behind matching drum sets for a jam session playing K pop hits like Dynamite by BTS.

NBC News Legal Analyst Misty Maris (26:02)

And.

NBC News Host Yasmin Vesugian (26:03)

Golden from the K pop demon hunter theme. The performance was actually meant to symbolize warming ties between Japan and South Korea, which do have a history of hundreds of years of political tensions. You know, maybe all world leaders need to give drum diplomacy or musical diplomacy a try. You could see Trump on the cowbell, Putin on the accordion. I don't know, Kim Jong Un on the harmonica. I would definitely listen to that. All right, that's going to do it for us. And here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Bisugin. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you tomorrow.

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