Ex-ICE Insider Exposes Cruel Practices, It's Even Worse Than You Imagined

Summary

IHIP News: “Ex-ICE Insider Exposes Cruel Practices — It’s Even Worse Than You Imagined”

Hosts: Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan
Guest: Elliot Williams, CNN Legal Analyst & Author of “Five Bullets”
Date: January 24, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this hard-hitting, candid episode of IHIP News, Jennifer Welch welcomes CNN legal analyst and former senior ICE official Elliot Williams to discuss the ongoing transformation and collapse of the U.S. justice system under the re-installed Trump administration. With brutal humor and deep expertise, the conversation explodes the myth that cruelty at ICE is the result of a few “bad apples”—it’s woven into the agency’s fabric. Williams shares eye-opening insider perspectives, exposes the media’s complicity, and addresses the national and moral implications of an unchecked authoritarian regime.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

Supreme Court Radicalization & Judicial Accountability ([00:05]–[08:48])

• The Erosion of Moderation:
  • Williams points out the staggering rightward shift of the Supreme Court, noting, “We live in a world where Brett Kavanaugh is regarded as a moderate voice... and that’s how much the court has shifted.” ([01:29])
  • Publicly, Kavanaugh is rattled by being associated with racially charged policing tactics, such as “Kavanaugh stop”—a reference to racial profiling by ICE.
• Loss of Judicial Impartiality:
  • Discussion around Alito’s flag incident after January 6: “You have tainted your ability as a Supreme Court justice to hear cases on that issue.” ([07:06])
  • The hosts question whether super-educated justices are immune from the same right-wing propaganda as the general public: “Are they just so radicalized by the Heritage Foundation?” ([06:04])
• Shadow Docket Concerns:
  • Jennifer notes how robust federal judges appear at the lower level, only for cases to be undermined at the Supreme Court on the “shadow docket,” often to Trump’s advantage.

Justice Department Disintegration ([02:42]–[07:06])

• Departure of Legal Talent:
  • Williams mourns the drain of competent officials: “These people are gone from the Justice Department. They're going one by one.” ([03:04])
• Unprecedented Erosion of Democratic Norms:
  • Williams: This isn’t “normal ebb and flow” but core value erosion, as unconfirmed, unqualified cronies take key legal positions, damaging even pro-Trump cases. ([04:27])

ICE: Cruelty, Policy, and the Roots of Injustice ([10:18]–[21:36])

• Masculinity, Cruelty, and “Toughness” as Policy:
  • Williams exposes the posturing: “If you look at ICE’s Twitter feed... it’s all about how tough and how mean you can be to people. Cruelty and meanness is never okay, no matter the political party.” ([10:54])
• Extreme Examples of Cruel Practices:
  • “Of all the ICE things that ought to break your heart... removing people from the United States to countries they’re not from or don’t live in is just about toughness and fear, not policy.” ([11:24])
• Congressional Apathy & Complicity:
  • Gone is congressional oversight; both parties once pressed ICE to change, but “Republicans in Congress have gelded or castrated themselves as a body” ([14:41]), with only temporary exceptions (e.g., Jeffrey Epstein).
• Abolishing ICE—Is It the Solution?:
  • Williams: “No, I don’t think it should be abolished... ICE needs tremendous oversight, new leadership, new guidance... but it does not have to be like this.” ([16:00])
• Budget Bloat as Facilitation of Abuse:
  • “They plussed up that budget to be able to do that, which does not need to happen.” ([17:52])
• Core of the Policy: Systemic Racism:
  • Jennifer: “We know it is. Stephen Miller has said that he wants to deport 100 million people. The data lines up that that’s the amount of people that are not white.” ([19:03])
  • Williams: The Trump administration relies on “national security crime, racially coded, if not boozela-shouted, racism.” ([16:48])

The Media’s Role: Complicity and Fragmentation ([08:48]–[41:27])

• Media Enabling of Authoritarianism:
  • The panel skewers submissiveness in mainstream media: “They provide a permission structure for this batshit stuff to go on and on and on.” ([25:28])
  • Williams explains media’s struggle: “Not all criticism of the president is partisan... Some things reach a moral or rule-of-law point.” ([37:04])
• Journalistic vs. Corporate Media:
  • Jennifer on journalism: “Journalism is a guardrail... I would not be able to do my job without journalism.” ([36:12])
• Algorithmically-Driven Radicalization:
  • Williams cautions about the “echo chamber”: “It’s not just the media now... it’s the algorithms only feeding you like-minded things. That, actually, is radicalizing people.” ([45:38])

The Submissive Right & GOP Morality Crisis ([08:48]–[17:44], [25:59]–[34:09])

• Scott Jennings and the “Beta” Right:
  • Jennifer deconstructs media personalities like Jennings: “The submissive nature... toward Donald Trump... is the moral collapse.” ([12:24])
  • “Let’s get on with somebody who hasn’t sold his morals out.” ([13:18])
• Personalities over Principles:
  • Williams: “You can’t pluck Donald Trump out of MAGA and put someone else in and have the same movement... It’s a cult around one person.” ([26:14])

Future of American Politics: Incubation and Backlash ([27:25]–[37:04])

• Rise of Even Further Extremism:
  • Jennifer warns: “What comes after Trump is worse... Nick Fuentes’ growing popularity, J.D. Vance becomes more psychopathic by the day.” ([27:24])
• Hope in Democratic Awakening:
  • There’s a “big awakening” in the Democratic Party post-Citizens United, and a rediscovery of its heart, as exemplified by successful left-populist candidates. ([29:23])
• Populism, Disillusionment, and the Thinness of MAGA Conversion:
  • Williams: “They’ve not created a generation of black conservatives in New York... It was an economic populist message... That’s a somewhat thin rationale." ([32:34])
  • Jennifer suspects “anti-status quo sentiment” is driving some unlikely Trump support, not ideology. ([34:09])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Supreme Court Radicalization:
  “The moment you fly a flag in front of your house expressing a political view, you have tainted your ability as a Supreme Court justice to hear cases on that issue.” — Elliot Williams ([07:06])

• On ICE Cruelty:
  “Cruelty and meanness is never okay, no matter what the political party.” — Elliot Williams ([10:56])

• On Systemic Racism in Immigration Policy:
  “Stephen Miller, they call Mr. Prime Minister. And this man is diabolical. He wants this to be a white country and America is for Americans and Americans only. That’s what he said, which is what Goebbels said about Germany.” — Jennifer Welch ([19:03])

• On Complicity:
  “Scott Jennings does not represent a conservative point of view. Scott Jennings represents the moral collapse and the submissive nature of all these triple Trumpers.” — Jennifer Welch ([13:18])

• On MAGA as a Cult:
  “You can’t pluck Donald Trump out of MAGA and just put somebody else in and have the same movement. Right. It’s a cult around one person.” — Elliot Williams ([26:14])

• On Mainstream and Social Media:
  “It’s not just newspapers anymore, but it’s the algorithms now... that is radicalizing people.” — Elliot Williams ([45:38])

  • “Journalism is a guardrail and a very important guardrail.” — Jennifer Welch ([35:36])

• Global Comparison:
  “Can you imagine if... in Somalia... an arm or agent of the Somali government shot a protester in their car, and the president of Somalia came out and lauded the action?... If in France... we would be watching that with, ‘Oh my God, what a backwater, crazy place.’” — Elliot Williams ([39:31])

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Important Timestamps

• [01:29] — The Supreme Court’s rightward shift, Kavanaugh as a “moderate.”
• [03:39] — Inside the Justice Department: The myth of the “deep state.”
• [07:06] — The Samuel Alito flag controversy and judicial impartiality.
• [10:54] — ICE’s social media and the performance of cruelty.
• [13:56] — Congressional oversight’s collapse.
• [16:00] — Should ICE be abolished? Elliot Williams’ nuanced answer.
• [19:03] — Stephen Miller, racism as policy, and ICE’s real agenda.
• [25:28] — Media’s permission structure for authoritarianism.
• [26:14] — MAGA as a movement built solely around Trump, not policies.
• [32:34] — The “thin rationale” of minority MAGA support.
• [39:31] — “What if this happened in another country?”—Global double standards.
• [41:27] — Williams discusses his new book, Five Bullets, and media’s role in stoking fear.
• [45:38] — Social media algorithms as the new radicalizer.

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Episode Tone

• Bold, Direct, and Fiercely Moral: The hosts and guest do not mince words about the collapse of rule of law, the toxic culture at ICE, and the dangers of media appeasement and algorithm-driven radicalization.
• Darkly Humorous & Relatable: Jennifer’s gallows humor and potent analogies keep the episode moving, even as it covers grim territory.
• Informed Insider Perspective: Williams offers a rare, candid look from inside ICE and the Justice Department, refusing to whitewash the truth.

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a must-listen for those seeking the unfiltered reality of authoritarian drift in America—delivered with frankness, dark humor, and a deep understanding of both law and politics. The discussion about dismantling ICE, the evolution of the right, and the uniquely toxic fusion of media, algorithms, and power is chillingly urgent.

Further Reading:

• Elliot Williams’s book, Five Bullets, offers a deep dive into fear-driven media cycles and American vigilante mentality ([41:27]–[45:38]).

Transcript

[A]

Today I'm joined by CNN analyst and author of the new book Five Bullets, Elliot Williams. Elliot, how are you doing today in 2.0 Trump's America.

[B]

It's a crazy, crazy time. You know, I, last night was on television about the firing of or you know, the Supreme Court hearing around Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve Board commissioner. I was just on. That's why for as viewers may not know this, but I literally was a couple minutes late to meet with you because I was just on television talking about this Jack Smith hearing in Congress. This is whiplash in a whirlwind time, certainly in legal news, my world. And it's. And it's just can't keep up.

[A]

Okay, let's start with. I noticed that Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh was the most outspoken about the Lisa Cook thing. And I'm wondering if some of this is a reaction to how badly he has been branded in public for. They're calling the Kavanaugh stop. And I read that this. This branding was really like he. It really personally bothered him. And the Kavanaugh stop, of course, is that an ICE agent because of the way you look. And those of you that are listening, Elliot has a little more melanin in his skin than I do, that they could legally stop him. And so what is your take on Brett Kavanaugh?

[B]

Oh, my goodness. He is the great story to come out of the Supreme Court over this generation because we live in a world where Brett Kavanaugh is regarded as a moderate voice on the Supreme Court. No, it is. That's how the court has shifted so much, certainly in my lifetime of following the court. And there are circumstances where Kavanaugh does buck the party line somewhat. Now, let's be clear. It is an unabashedly conservative Supreme Court. And Brett Kavanaugh, for his entire career has been, you know, an unabashed conservative. And so this, it is quite fascinating to watch the middle, what we think of as the middle on the Supreme Court just shift before our eyes. Now, with respect to this idea of stops of citizens and so on, that's quite profound. Now, obviously, we know and going back to the history of law enforcement, law enforcement does have really broad authority to stop people for. For a host of reasons. But ICE has lost the thread here and in the huge incentives that they've been given to carry out their immigration enforcement mission. My gosh, look at what's happening around the country.

[A]

Okay. You served inside the Justice Department.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you're sitting here watching it get completely dismantled, and you're watching really smart, competent people that believe in justice, that did not join the Justice Department to become rich because they could have. These people are so smart, they could have gone to work for a top tier law firm in Manhattan, Los Angeles, London, wherever, but they believe so much in the rule of law. And these people are gone from the Justice Department. They're going one by one. And so how vulnerable is the entire Justice Department from complete collapse as it pertains to the real rule of law?

[B]

You know, it breaks my heart to say it, Jen. Jennifer. But, you know, I don't know. I really don't know. And it's because, you know what people don't understand. And I not only worked at the Justice Department, you know, I worked at ICE for four and a half years.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah. I was a senior political appointee at ICE under Obama, which, you know, talk about a volatile time. What people don't understand is that most of these, maybe not most of these folks, but a, but a great percentage of these folks are actually political conservatives. This idea that it's this left wing, deep state behemoth out to take over America and ruin its values is simply not true. These are people who, particularly in the national security context, transcend or traverse Republican and Democratic administrations, and that's a good thing. And I'll be the first to tell you, having worked in all these agencies, that fine policy's gonna shift from one president to another. Things were different under Bush, than Obama, than Bush 41, than Clinton. And in a way that's good for America. It keeps us sort of thinking about what's truly important to us, evolving, working together and so on. What we're seeing here is not a normal partisan shift. This is not the normal ebb and flow between left and right at the Justice Department. And this is the erosion of core values, of how the organization ought to admit and I think ought to exist. And I think, to me, the worst part of it is if folks are following the hiring of these US Attorneys who haven't been confirmed by the Senate at all. You saw it in New Jersey with Alina Haba, Trump's former lawyer. Again, some of the personal connection to the president. You see it in Eastern District of Virginia with Lindsey Halligan, also unfit for the role, not put in it by the President of the United States, not confirmed by the Congress. And, and what supporters of the president aren't seeing is that this is actually screwing up. I was going to say a bad word, but, you know, it's still early in the morning. The world's fucking up. Cases that they want to bring. Is it better go? Yeah, no, it, no, it screws up, screws up cases that they want to bring because the person at the top of the office, courts are seeing that person as improperly in the role. And so it's a problem not just for partisan reasons. It's literally damage the very work that apparently they put their folks in to do. Just mind blowing.

[A]

I want to talk to you about kind of like the, the guardrails that are remaining. And I think this is really interesting. My husband's a criminal defense lawyer and he says the federal judges are doing their job, holding up the rule of law. Like they are really doing their job. And then it gets kicked to the Supreme Court in the shadow docket and they are completely in the tank for Donald Trump. And my question is like, psychologically, I think about, as a layman, a non lawyer person, when I think about a Supreme Court justice, I think like Ivy League educated, uber intellectual. And then now I look at like Alito or Thomas and I think, are they just radicalized, just like Bubba is in rural Oklahoma by Fox News? Are they just like the flags that they're flying up the Alito's wife? And are these people, are they just so radicalized by the Heritage Foundation? Like, can you lift the veil on any of that at all? Because it's fascinating to me from a psychological standpoint that somebody that has that much education is, cannot critically think or is just so incredibly biased.

[B]

It's really interesting. It's, you know, every president is entitled to put in people that share what he thinks is his judicial vision or what he wants to put on the court. All sorts of presidents have done it. You know, you really touch on something important with the Samuel Alito flags issue, which is something I've commented, I commented about publicly quite a lot when it happened. The court's allowed to have conservatives on it. It's allowed to have people that have those views. The moment you fly a flag in front of your house expressing a political view, you have tainted your ability as a Supreme Court justice to hear cases on that issue. And that came up, you know, so Samuel Leto had had flown a flag on his house that some January 6th folks were seen to have, were seen to have flown. And many observers thought, wait a second, that's endorsement of a side, you know, something I said, Jennifer, to your friend Scott Jennings on air, went around this issue is imagine two things. One, I am an Eagle Scout, proudly, if I were a judge and flew a Boy Scouts of America banner on my House and the Boy Scouts had a case before me and they were being sued or suing somebody. I could not be, even if I were fair in my heart, I could not be seen as fair by the public based on the public position I'd taken on how I decorated my house. And the Alito thing was exactly that. So we've lost some of this veneer or notion that justices are or ought to be apolitical. And it just seems to have gotten more extreme in the past years.

[A]

And actually losing that veneer I had on last weekend, authoritarian expert Professor Ruth Ben Guyot, the best selling author of Strongman and some of that flagrant behavior like the rules that apply to everybody else don't apply to us. And the Supreme Court's acquiescence to him is intentional. It's an intentional part of this whole autocratic play. You brought up Scott Jennings and you work. I appear on CNN sometimes. You appear on CNN sometimes. How helpful do you think in the media landscape having somebody and there's a lot of Scott Jennings because Scott Jennings is not unique. You have this breed of men that support Donald Trump, that are submissive first and foremost. They get on the moral high ground as a, we're alphas and we're so tough and Donald Trump's our leader. Mind you, Donald Trump wears a full face of makeup every day. If he changes his mind in the morning, we're going to go to war with Greenland. And by the evening he's been dog walked by NATO. Though they go, oh, brilliant art of the deal. I mean, I've never seen such. They talk about women needing to be submissive to men in their Christian nationalist worldview. The submissive nature of the Scott Jennings and others towards Donald Trump. Do you think that type of whiplash is helpful in media? Because I, I just, I kind of don't like, I don't think his messaging helps us.

[B]

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. It's, it's definitely whiplash. And all of media is figuring out who they are and what their voices are in this world now on this idea of toughness and versus submissiveness or whatever else, which is something fascinating that I've thought about quite a bit and quite frankly in the, in just here. Stay with me for a second. In the immigration context too. So much of what governs policy coming out of Washington right now is about the toughness and the masculinity and the right aggressiveness. If you look at ICE's Twitter feed or Instagram feed, I don't know if.

[A]

You do I've seen it, unfortunately.

[B]

Namaste Om. I can't imagine you're a loyal follower, but no, it's all about how tough and how mean you can be to people. And I get back to this point again and again and again. It's okay for there to be political differences, but cruelty and meanness is never okay, no matter what the political party. And by way of example, the thing in immigration policy that I think is just of all the things to be, to be mad about removing people from the United States to countries that they don't, that they're not from and don't live in. No, you know, if I wish folks would stop and think critical, you know, even Trump adjacent people would just stop and think about what that actually means. And we as a nation, the law says that we can remove people from the country if they're not here lawfully. That's been the law for quite some time. But we got to make some effort to get them back to their own home. Just think about the, the intentional saber rattling cruelty that it is to take someone who's say, from Jamaica or Mexico or whatever else and put them on the plane to sub Saharan Africa where they don't speak the language and don't have family ties or anything like that. That's all about toughness and fear and not about actually solving some of the political and policy differences that we have in the country. Of all the ICE things, and I say this as a former ICE person, of all the ICE things that act among. Well, I don't want to say of all of them because there's a lot that ought to break your heart right now, but that's really bad.

[A]

And I agree with you that it's okay to have political differences and those political differences should be televised and we should have critical thinking conversations about these things. I do not see my differences with the Scott Jennings of the world as political differences. I see them as moral differences. He wakes up every single day, submits to the leader, as you see the speaker of the House who wields so much power. Little Moses, Mike Johnson, he has so much power and he was followed by Manu Raju a couple of days ago blaming Norway for keep preventing President Trump from getting a Nobel Peace Prize award. So I argue this, yeah, we're going to have a conversation with a conservative. Let's get on Mitt Romney, let's have a conversation with a conservative who hasn't sold his morals out. Let's get on the horn with somebody who is genuinely a conservative. But Scott Jennings does not represent a conservative point of view. Scott Jennings represents the moral collapse and the submissive nature of all of these triple trumpers. And he gets on every day and provides a permission structure. These are our talking points. And I think it's really damaging because he doesn't humanize these people, these little kids that ICE is stopping and asking for their papers. There's no humanization on the other side. So for me, my differences with Jennings, not political, totally moral, cosmic, you know.

[B]

But where I think it's even more acute. And you talked about it in the. In the lead up there. It's with Congress. And let me explain. And let's. Let's use my personal example as somebody that worked, worked at ICE with a Democratic and Republican Congresses, right. Both times, we had tremendous pressure from Congress over the actions the agency was taking and doing. Democrats did not like when ICE would go into workplaces like a meatpacking plant or whatever and just start rounding people up. And the policy very early on in the Obama administration shifted because of pressure from Democrats in Congress. Congress said, we don't like what you're doing. It's not who we are. It's not what we're paying you to do, and you got to stop that kind of activity. Right.

[A]

Great.

[B]

We were Democratic appointees. Democratic Congress held us accountable. Congress switched in 2010 when the Republicans came in. It was much more. You're not deporting enough people. You need to, you know, we need to. And there was a conversation about how ICE could, could, could better suit what the majority in Congress wanted. But in either context, there was at least an attempt to either defy the president or hold the president and the administration accountable. That is gone from this Congress right now. It is just gone. They have overwhelmingly bent the knee on every issue other than, I'd say, Jeffrey Epstein, where you did see some broad bipartisan bucking of the White House for a short time. It's not, you know, everybody's moved on to Greenland right now, but at least for that moment, Congress came together and held the President accountable. And something as fundamental as ICE or who we are as a nation, how we enforce our borders, that's the kind of thing Congress ought to be weighing in on. And those Republicans in Congress have gelded or castrated themselves as a body and just chosen not to. To really engage in any meaningful accountability.

[A]

Okay, I'm going to ask you this question, personal perspective. Having worked in ICE and seeing what the Trump regime has turned ICE into.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Do you think ICE needs to be abolished?

[B]

No, I don't think it should be abolished because every entity around the country has some interior enforcement mechanism. Denmark, even countries that we would want to emulate or some in America would want to emulate. I think ICE needs tremendous oversight. It needs new leadership from at all levels, new guidance and all of the above. I think it does not have to be like this. We can enforce our laws, we can enforce our borders, we can enforce our immigration policies, but it does not have to be like this. And the Trump folks came in and said, well, because we ran on this necessarily, this is the way it has to be. We gotta get all these criminals out of here. Even that fact is a huge distortion of the truth. Of course there are people who are unlawfully present in America who have broken the law. Of course there are. That does not mean that nanny at the abuela at the bodega is of the same status of somebody who has committed a rape or arson or a homicide. And there actually aren't nearly as many of those folks that the Trump administration wants you to believe that there are. And they've used this national security crime, racially coded, if not boo, boozela shouted racism to drum up support for what they're doing. It does not have to be like that. We can still enforce our laws and not have it be like that. So I don't think that's scrapping the entire, like, undoing the entire agency, because what do you. What do you replace it with? And if someone has a good idea for what you replace it with, I'm all ears for it. But I think you just start over, maybe even break the whole Department of Homeland Security up, because it's just such a behemoth that no one person can manage effective, manage effectively. You heard me.

[A]

Do you think it needs that kind of budget, the increased budget that Trump. Yeah, that's really problematic.

[B]

It is. And that's a great question. When we talk about this idea of abolish, it has that budget, because what they're talking about is removing or deporting a million people a year. That's the budget they've given them. You don't need to do that. Right. You can still have a robust immigration enforcement policy without the civil rights enforcement and 3,000 people a day, and a million people a day. Because necessarily, when you have those kinds of numbers with the kind of personnel that the agency has right now, you're going to end up with the civil rights violations and nanny from the bodega and the guy who's. Whether it's whatever. I don't want to generalize about who immigrants are, but those are the folks who are getting rounded up. Like, let's have an honest conversation about the brown folks at Home Depot who are getting rounded up. Right. Who aren't necessarily, you know, with criminal records. And so that budget, they plussed up that budget to be able to do that, which does not need to happen. And if it's all about safety and national security and the folks who are killing our, you know, livestock or people, get them out. Right.

[A]

Or just figure out it's not about that. We know it's about racism. Yeah, we know it is. Stephen Miller has said it that he wants to deport 100 million people. And interestingly, the data lines up that that's the amount of people that are not white. And Stephen Miller, we've all seen Trump, pudding boy. His brain is total mush. We've seen how cooked he is. I mean, it's just, he confusing, you know, Greenland and Iceland, and he's in his Marie Antoinette era, obsessed with this ballroom. And this guy is so mentally cooked. Stephen Miller, they call Mr. Prime Minister. And this man is diabolical. This man intentionally uses Nazi language, Nazi propaganda, Nazi fonts, and he wants this to be a white country and America is for Americans and Americans only. That's what he said, which is what Goble said about Germany. Yeah. And so this is about racism. And I just. I don't know. You're smarter than me regarding this because you've been in government. I haven't. I'm a podcaster. My impulse is to say we need to abolish ice, but I'm always open to being evolutionary in my thoughts. And I do believe we have to have, you know, some sort of border enforcement. I feel like this agency is so cooked.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I feel like the type of people it's recruited are so broken. This murderer was a 10 year veteran, a firearms instructor. Three lethal shots. The first two weren't lethal. An autopsy is coming out right now. The third was. And afterwards he called her a. Oh, that's. And this whole group, you know, like my black friends were like, dang, if they're killing white women like that in the street, who's.

[B]

We're next? I mean, that. Yeah, yeah. No, it's. Yeah, I think, you know, there's a few things there. I think, yes. If. Yeah. It's just a question of. When I'm asked the question, do you think we should abolish ice? My response is, okay, but then what would you replace it with? Right. And the answer can't be nothing. I think both as a policy and practical matter but also as a political matter for it's probably Democrats coming with the argument. You have to have some answer as to what's next. Now there might be a really smart answer to be had of just reframing our whole thinking about immigration and our whole immigration apparatus. So. But not unlike the whole concept of defunding the police, the term means worst name.

[A]

It's the worst name and it means more planet.

[B]

It's the worst name. And it also means more things than just that one phrase said. So.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Abolish ice Star. And then you know, beyond that, I want to respond to the Greenland Iceland thing that you noted and let's play this game. I hate playing this game. But we're going to play a game called what if Obama. Right? And yes. Just you know, I, it's okay, man. You want to have an imperialist policy. Okay, that's you. Well, you know, a new president will come in soon and not have that. Right. If Joe Biden or Barack or George or George W. Bush had with that frequency and that consistency, not even mispronounced, got the name of the country wrong of an entity that was ostensibly his main focus right now, the world would be, America would be going bonkers. The media would be going bonkers. And again, it's just another instance of something on which Donald Trump really was allowed to have a free pass on something that other presidents would have been eviscerated for. And again, look, I'm in public life. I speak. I just wrote the book Five Bullets. I'm out there a lot. I misspeak all the time. The Internet lets me know when I misspeak and say something wrong all the time. You, oh my God, you might, you might have haters. I don't know, I don't really check the Internet. I don't know. But, but needless to say, one or two there but for the grace of God go we. Right. And sometimes, you know, I said things I shouldn't say and had to walk them. Okay. Right. I'm human. That's a biggie. And that's a biggie from an 80 year old man. And that's biggie from an 80 year old man whose critics were quite successful in piling on another 80 year old man who was president the United States a few years ago. So I just, I was, I've been so struck by the ice Greenland flob.

[A]

But all of these things in my opinion are connected to everything we've spoken about. So his Misspeak. And it's so obvious that he, the standards that Democratic politicians and presidents are held to are completely different for the, these delicate, childlike standards that we have for Republicans. I mean that's abundantly obvious. But, but as a, a commentator, a podcaster, I criticize both Republicans and Democrats.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

And the, and then taking it back to Scott Jennings and again, he's an example of the one that hits the news the most of, of this group of hive mind, submissive men towards this tyranny that Donald Trump is wanting to impose on the United States. And that's what he wants more than anything. He wants, wants it to just be ruled by him. But all of these things are connected because if anybody inside that Death Star, inside this submissive, it's fully operational. Yeah. If anybody would say, you know what he does seem like, pudding brain, he does seem cooked, then that, then that starts putting pressure on the Congress people and the constituents. But when they provide a permission structure for this batshit stuff to go on and on and on, that's where I think mainstream corporate media gives an assist. And think about how hard they were on Obama, that tan suit. Think about how hard they were on Joe Biden. You know what? I think that's healthy. I think if you're going to run for president, get ready big boy. You got to have thick skin and they're going to come after you. You can't play victim and have a bunch of, of sycophants fluffing you on CNN all the time. You've got to be ready from your own party, from everybody, every which, every which direction. But this guy, pudding boy, he's so thin skinned, but nobody inside his movement except for, much to my surprise, Marjorie Taylor Green.

[B]

I know, man. What, what was that on your bingo board criticism?

[A]

No. And so that's, all of those things are connected. The, the obsequious, obvious nature of corporate news in enabling liars, people that get on TV every night and lie and lie to the American public and say oh no, he really meant it was just a bit of ice. Or maybe he got it wrong. But what's the big deal? They're lying and gaslighting the American public and corporate media is betraying their customer base by allowing it to happen.

[B]

What I am genuinely curious about Jennifer. I like and I think about this all the time and let's use Scott as an example. But, but every person in the Trump ecosystem, and that includes members of Congress 2026 election and 2028 election, they have to look to the Future. At some point. Yes. All the saber rattling about Donald Trump being president forever in three terms and all that, they have to look to the future. At some point. At some point there will be some fight over who the standard bearer of that movement is and what are they going to do? Like, are they going to continue to sort of follow a movement that really is modeled around a man, a figurehead? Right. It's not. You know, I don't think if you could take Donald Trump out of MAGA and have this or maga. Somebody corrected me on air for saying that once. You could take literally, I got a dm, it's MAGA from, you know, I don't think you can pluck Donald Trump out of MAGA and just put somebody else in and have the same movement. Right. You can't. It's a charismatic figure. Whether you like it, it's a cult around, if you want to call it that, around one person. So one, what does it look like in 2026? And two, someone has to run for president. Somebody and someone can, whether it's J.D. vance or Marco Ruby or whoever else, and can purport to be carrying the mantle of maga. Right. But what's that going to look like? And it's going to like, will it be factual?

[A]

It's going to be worse.

[B]

It's gonna be. Right.

[A]

So like because George W. Bush, Bush, Reagan, corporate Democratic policies incubated this and what MAGA is incubating is going to be worse. Look no further than Nick Fuentes growing popularity and the groipers.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Look at J.D. vance who becomes more psychopathic by the day. He is a man who has a woman whose parents were immigrants from India. He has mixed race children and he echoes white nationalist talking points. So what comes after Trump is worse? What this is incubating is far worse.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I also think the electorate is getting smarter throughout all of this. I think getting off of the propaganda from corporate media is making people smarter. I think the autopsy of how the did we lose an election to this moron that tried to overturn the government hang as vice president is a convicted felon. For me personally, it has made me really look into. I know I'm never going to change the Republican Party, I've lived in Oklahoma. These people, these crusty old white folks, they're never going to change. I get it. But urban areas and my participation and buying into a lot of the propaganda from the Democratic Party, which was really, for me, the Democratic Party was a savior in Oklahoma because it prevented an Obama presidency. A Kamala presidency meant that women in my state, if they got raped by their uncle, could go have an abortion. You know, this type of presidency means you're going to be completely dehumanized. But there is a big awakening I think that's happening in the Democratic Party where we are starting to realize that after Citizens United States did, it damaged Republicans, of course, but it damaged a part of the Democratic Party and we lost our way.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I'm really happy to see that Zoron at the perfect timing showed and whether you call him a democratic socialist or whether he's for really regulated capitalism is irrelevant.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It showed what the, the heart and soul of the Democratic Party is supposed to be.

[B]

Yeah. And look, I, I repeatedly on air made the argument about Mayor Mum Dominique as he was running, saying, you know, everybody, he's actually tapping into a lot of the arguments that Donald Trump tapped into just in different packaging. A lot of people say that's crazy. He's a socialist, he's a this, he's that. And I'm like, no, there's a Venn diagram. And you don't get that far to jump from Zoran, believe me. Zoram Abdani to Donald Trump. Like there are corners of folks who are curious about them. Something, you know. You know, I know you mentioned my book at the top of the show, something that comes up and I interviewed this guy, Guy Bernard gets the subway vigilante shooter in the book. And hearing this man from the 1980s, this sort of bigoted white guy and all kinds of stuff, but hearing him talk about his politics, I said and I put it in the book. This guy is at the intersection of rfk, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. His views of populists, of the media, of mainstream media, of fat cats. And everybody's scratching their back for some altogether political game. And it just takes one smart politician. The first time it was Donald Trump. It'll just take another smart politician to figure out what that special sauce is that brings those folks together. But no, I think to your point about what happens to maga, just so I don't mispronounce it again, all those forces are, I don't know if they're gonna break up MAGA into the Nick Fuente's wing, into the Marco Rubio foreign policy wing, into the, into the economic, conservative or social. Who knows, right? Who knows what it's going to look like. But a lot of it right now is around Donald Trump, the guy, not maga, the movement.

[A]

He's the, he's the leader of this authoritarian cult. He's the cult of personality. And you're going to have. Their fissures are already happening. You have Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene. But here's what's going to piss me off the most. If he either drops dead or is voted out. One of those two scenarios. Here's what's going to really piss me off the most. The, the total racist, continuing to be total racist. Whatev. We all know what that is. Yeah, it's going to be the Marco Rubio's that, that trot out and say, I was trying to be the voice.

[B]

In the room, the grown up voice.

[A]

Of reason in the room. I know those Republicans, the Scott Jennings of it that had moral clarity on January 6th and now is completely inside the personality cult. Those are the ones that are going to piss me off the most. And so it's going to be interesting. But I think the fissures are already happening because the strong man is frail. We all see this guy's cooked. And so the, the infighting is just going to escalate. But the embrace of the Fuentes, of the white nationalism and the real anti Semitism in the world is not in college campuses. And I, I think it is in maga. It is in the heart of maga. Okay, go ahead.

[B]

No, I would say the fissures are happening. And, and the support was always, not always has been somewhat soft. When you speak about, if one were to look at Latino man in the sand and the Rio Grande Valley, for instance, who flipped quite dramatically to Trump, if you look at black and brown progressives in New York who went to Trump or New York or New Jersey, my home state, were to go to Trump. That's thin support. It's not, you know, they've not created, and it's not a knock on the president, but they just haven't created a generation of black conservatives in New York City. It was an economic populace. No, I'm like, come on, man. It's an economic populist message to people that felt in pain and suffering, felt that the parties and the Democratic Party was not looking out for them and didn't care about them, didn't care about their public safety, didn't care, care about their economic needs, didn't listen to them even about immigration at times, and turned to what felt like an attractive option. That was a somewhat thin rationale, maybe. You know what I mean when I say thin? It was just, it's not dyed in the wool. Deeply held beliefs. And those folks for the Democratic Party, I do believe are gettable certainly in 2020. And as you're looking, you know, you saw governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey and I just some of that, that, this idea that this wave of new support for MAGA or conservatives or Republicans among dyed in the wool Democrats. I just, I, I don't know if I don't buy it.

[A]

Yeah, I don't buy it.

[B]

I think there's totally with you on that.

[A]

Yeah, I think there's a lot of anti status quo sentiment going back into Trump. I think some of the, some people get drunk on testosterone and bro culture for an election cycle which is, you know, a part of us going from controlled media to now independent media, which can also be dangerous and feed some of our worst impulses.

[B]

I was going to ask you that.

[A]

I wasn't factoring into the electorate.

[B]

Yeah, I was really going to, I really wanted to ask you that along the lines of, you know, people are disillusioned with mainstream media. We can, we can agree with that full stop. But what happens when, and I'm really curious to hear your views. I know you talk about this a lot on the air. You know what happens? Is there a point at which media can get so factionalized that people are calcifying in their views and not broadening their views and actually maybe even worse off. What's the balance there?

[A]

Yeah, I totally think it's a huge problem. I think that corporate media is cooked and year after year after year you see that just the numbers are down and that has to do with the way we view programming is completely different than the way you and I grew up. Up watching the O.J. trial or what, you know, seeing it. Greta says Van Sestren, remember all that, that was so exciting. And you had 24 hour news. Now it's different. And I think that in that you have a danger where people are getting into certain ecosystems like Joe Rogan or Nick Fuentes and then I mean on the left, I'm sure there's, you know, radicalization. I don't think it's as bad as the right by any stretch. And I don't want to even of course pretend that, that, that that is because that would be a total false equivalency. But I think there is, you know, we try in our Ihip news to start. Journalism needs to be the gold standard always and forever. Journalists work hard. Journalists expose injustice. Journalism is a guardrail and a very important guardrail. And you see it under attack by Trump sycophants buying up TikTok, buying up CBS News, very wise. Spiking stories. Jeff Bezos spiking stories. And so, so those of us that have microphones need to always advocate for journalists. Because I'm not a journalist, but I would not be able to do my job without journalism. Because when we get on our to start an episode, I typically start with something that has been fact checked, an article or a story from a journalist. And I'm hopeful that, you know, as the media, you know, evolves and I'm going to misstep, but I always try to remind my audience of how important journalism is. And I'm just, I'm a bullshitter. I sit here and talk about the journalism.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And people feel a sense of community and there's a relatability to that. But journalism is, should always be the gold standard.

[B]

And I would also say, and this has been something that journalists, myself included, confront and I try to be honest about not, not all criticism of the president is partisan. Not all criticism or challenging of the policies or the actions of ICE is partisan. Right. And I just think some things, like you said, reach a moral or rule of law point. When I talk about the Justice Department, this is not me as, oh, Elliot worked for a Democratic administration and is just anti Trump. No, to the contrary. I came in as a prosecutor under Bush when I was young, right. When he was president and Alberto Gonzalez was attorney general and I shook his hand on his first day. And that's, you know, look, I get it, but when we, when, when you have these things that we were talking about earlier, like putting in US Attorneys outside of the Senate confirmation process who are not fit for the job and are just former attorneys of the president carrying his water in court and losing their top staff. They're all resigning, they're all leaving cases. That's not partisan. That is a rule of law question. It needs to be covered. Not as, you know, we shouldn't be shy just because it's a Republican president who's critical of the media. We should not be shy in saying this is not a left right thing. This is a moral question. This is a rule of law question. This is an identity of the United States question. And I think many struggle with that and quite frankly get it just really wrong in trying hard to think. Well, on the one hand, but on the other hand, when covering Trump, well.

[A]

There'S, they're sane washing. If they covered him the way that they would cover a dictator from a Muslim nation, the headlines would be very, can you imagine?

[B]

Can you imagine?

[A]

Very clear.

[B]

Oh, my God. Can you Imagine just Minneapolis. Can you imagine if that were what's, let's use the on the nose again. If in Somalia we know exactly that, that the Somali government. And, and I'm just going to be. You speak in the most neutral terms possible, an arm or an agent of the Somali government shot a protester in their jeep or car, then the president of Somalia came out and lauded the action. And then there was unrest in Somalia. And then the president of Somalia and vice president of Somalia went there.

[A]

Called the victim a terrorist, called the victim.

[B]

A terrorist, sent armed, fully fatigued, masked military. And to keep the peace, ostensibly, let's, let's just state what have. Right armed, masked, tacked out law enforcement. Somalia. Not even Somalia. If in France we had heard that that was happening, we would be watching that with, oh my God, what a backwater, backwater, crazy place. And it's an important point you make there, Jennifer. It's, it's a really important point, this idea of what if elsewhere we were reading the same exact facts?

[A]

The headlines and the Chirons would be damning. They would be damning. And so that's the part where I agree with individual journalists that fight to disinfect and shine a light on injustices. But a lot of these institutions, these corporate news institutions are beholden to the same corporations that keep Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries from being a true resistance party and, you know, Moses, Mike and all of these others from being completely the submissive party to a man with full blown dementia. And so there's going to be an autopsy. I think there's an awakening already happening in an autopsy of all of this. But there, there's so much culpability and there's been so much, much incubation of this MAGA movement before he ever came down the escalator. Living in a red state around Christian nationals. I was not surprised by any of this because he is a, he's a, he's a mega church pastor. He's a grifter. Makeup the swirl. I mean, this guy is just like every mega church pastor in white evangelical America. I mean, I know this guy. He's a total con artist. But, okay, we've gone a long time, Elliot, I could talk to you for hours. Tell us about your book, Five Bullets.

[B]

Okay. Great. Many people. Thank you for asking. You know, so I've been talking about it all week and I've got a copy of it right here. Hold on. You know, I'll even show it. I, you know, many people will remember the 1984 subway vigilante shooting. Bernard gets shot and seriously wounded four young black unarmed teenagers in the subway. Sound familiar? Well, that's America. And so this book really is a tour through one. New York City was unsafe at the time, but what did that empower one individual guy to do? Why did he feel so empowered to act out and all of the forces that made the Bernie Getz story such national news? Why Bernie Getz is named in Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire because he becomes a bit of a cultural icon. Let me say, you know, something that's come up, that comes up in a lot of. I've had it broadcast and comes up a lot in my book and may resonate with your people is this idea of media bias and corporate media and so on. And I have an entire chapter in this book, Five Bullets, about Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the New York Post in 1976 or 1977, which totally turbocharged coverage of crime in New York City to frighten people, to make them more scared, to put big headlines, wink, nod, there are black folks running the streets and they're coming for you. And it was, it was all. And you can read it all about this chapter in Five Bullets. In this chapter in Five Bullets, it's all about how that one moment in a media takeover shifted the country's, the cities coverage of crime. All of the New York City tabloids, which you're familiar with, the Daily News and Newsday and so on, started doing the same thing. And if you think about 1985, where there wasn't CNN, MSNBC, Fox, I've had it, podcasts, the Scott Jennings show, whatever else, there was three games in town. And if the newspapers were constantly telling you, you're scared, you're scared, you're scared, you're scared, you're scared. People would buy the newspaper, get scared, buy the newspaper again, get more scared. And it just created this cycle of fear and resentment of other people, of black people and so on. And that was a huge moment in, in, in the history of news. And as I say in the book, there's. It's no secret that Rupert Murdoch goes on to found the Fox News Channel decades later because a lot of their success has been in frightening people. Right? You're right. You, you are far, you know, you're in a red state. You are far more likely to see images of people looting CVS than you are to see if you were to pan the camera, okay, looting, looting, looting. Black folks stealing diapers from CVS or whatever. If you Pan the camera to the right. In that city, there's probably a park that has children playing in it. That used to be a place where crack lords and organized crime or, you know, ran their, their stuff 20 or 30 years ago. But you're not seeing that. What you're seeing is the looting, which is a crime. But that's what, going back to that moment in 1977 media, that's what they've chosen to focus on. And it just makes people angrier, it hardens their views, it makes them more bigoted, it makes them more angry, and it makes vigilante shootings like the one Bernie gets engaged in more likely and more common. So it's really a look at, it's taking one moment in America and broadening it to why are we so obsessed with vigilantes and this guy, this white guy today.

[A]

I think that sounds fascinating. I'm going to get it, I'm going to read it. I also think it's interesting. One thing I've been saying a lot lately is the MAGA has everything they want now. They have the executive branch, they have the Supreme Court, they have the legislative branch, they have all of the oligarchs that have bent the knee to them and they're still terrified and scared and feel oppressed and they have ascended to all of this. And so that's a very interesting component, I think, to the fear driven propaganda in right wing media news that makes them feel like they're never safe even though they have all the power.

[B]

And you know, the one thing I would add to that, and I talk about this toward the end of the book, Five Bullets, it's not just the media. What is the media? Right? It's not just newspapers anymore, but it's the algorithms now that only feed you like minded things that like, to your point, actually is radicalizing people. And the example I use in the last chapter in the conclusion of Five Bullets is what if Kyle Rittenhouse, remember him from Black Lives matter protest in 2021, I believe 2020 crosses from Illinois to Wisconsin, grabs an AK or you know, a big gun and shoots a couple people and kills some? Right? What if Kyle Rittenhouse didn't have an Instagram feed or TikTok feed or Twitter feed constantly feeding him images of Kenosha, Wisconsin burning. What if he wasn't in an echo chamber, as many people are of, you know, this Black Lives Matter and Antifa are taking the city down and oh my God, we're going to lose Kenosha. You have to get there Right. He might have been. He might have been supportive or, you know, he might have. He might have been anti BLM or supportive of, you know, the caught, whatever. But I don't know if he crosses state lines and. And brings a gun and starts shooting people. It's just. That's the algorithm. We are all slaves to what? But tech companies are sort of, you know, it makes us hungrier when we see things that we agree with and sort of make us madder. And the maddest stuff, the most aggressive stuff, is what gets boosted. And it has far more, even more than any newspaper headline in Rupert Murdoch's New York Post or maybe even more than Fox News. That's the thing that is driving people bonkers and going to lead to more violence, I think over time, and I.

[A]

Think it's only going to get worse. Your next book can be how to be a good person as you navigate your algorithm.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Elliot Williams, thank you so much for joining me on IHIP News. I want to collaborate again.

[B]

Oh, this is great.

[A]

Yeah, it was awesome.