IHIP News Podcast

Episode: Trump Explodes on Fox News and ICE Terrorizes Portland
Hosts: Jennifer Welch & Angie “Pumps” Sullivan
Date: October 6, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of IHIP News delves into recent authoritarian tactics used by ICE in Portland and Chicago, Donald Trump's public meltdown over Fox News coverage, and the rise of new progressive politicians challenging entrenched corporate and right-wing interests. Hosts Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan offer a raw, sharply comedic, and emotionally charged analysis of America’s shifting socio-political landscape, calling out hypocrisy, racism, and the dangerous consolidation of power under Trump-era policies.

Key Discussion Points

1. ICE’s Aggressive Tactics & Human Rights Outrage

(00:00 - 04:09)

• Jennifer opens by forcefully condemning ICE’s use of chemical agents (tear gas) on civilians, including children, in Chicago, likening the tactics to “Gestapo style” operations.
• She draws a direct line to the Trump administration’s white nationalist agenda, accusing them—and figures like Stephen Miller—of deliberately pursuing cruelty:
  • Quote:
    “The Trump administration is trying to say, oh, you can't say that. You can't compare us to Nazis, you can't compare us to fascists. They are these things.”
    —Jennifer (00:00)
• Jennifer addresses Christian supporters of Trump, particularly the “MAGA evangelicals,” questioning their indifference to the suffering of marginalized groups:
  • Quote:
    “Do you like little kids getting tear gassed and zip tied? Is that how racist MAGA evangelicals are that they don't care about this?”
    —Jennifer (01:19)
• She highlights systemic cruelty driven by both politics and a particular flavor of Christianity that revels in oppression and punishment:
  • “These are Old Testament Christians... their religion, their God has oppressed them their whole lives.” (01:44)

2. Recruitment and Culture of Cruelty within ICE

(02:45 - 04:09)

• Angie expands by exposing ICE’s recruitment tactics—offering large signing bonuses and targeting “pitiful broken men,” suggesting a deliberate appeal to those attracted by power and cruelty:
  • Quote:
    “They are attracting this group of people that crawled out from under rocks to become ICE agents... for these power hungry, weak people to come into ICE. And it is disgusting.”
    —Angie (03:39)
• Echoes of political and institutional depravity are discussed, with references to Republican figures Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller specifically called out for embodying these tendencies.

3. Trump’s Obsession with Fox News and Media Meltdown

(04:09 - 05:23)

• The conversation shifts to Trump’s online tirade against Fox News for platforming a Democrat (Sen. Mark Kelly), highlighting his obsessive consumption of right-wing media and fragility in the face of criticism:
  • Quote:
    “He has ego. He wants to fleece the poor poor. And he sits around and just binge watches television, which is just Fox News by the moment.”
    —Jennifer (04:17)

4. Health Care Crisis Under MAGA Policies

(05:23 - 05:59)

• They play a clip of Sen. Mark Kelly detailing the dire consequences of projected Republican cuts to healthcare—premium spikes and loss of coverage for hundreds of thousands:

  • Quote:
    “There are folks in Alaska who have received letters that their premiums are going to go up from $600 a month to $4,000... In my state in Arizona, 109,000 people are likely to lose their health care...”
    —Sen. Mark Kelly (05:35)

• Jennifer highlights the sharp contrast: MAGA inciting chaos and Democrats attempting to safeguard basic needs for all, regardless of political support.

5. Debunking Right-Wing Moral Authority

(05:59 - 09:14)

• Jennifer critiques right-wing rhetoric, especially among MAGA-supporting Christians, for being diametrically opposed to the inclusive, compassionate principles ascribed to Jesus:
  • “They fight for the rural Americans that go to these mega churches... full of hate and white supremacy.”
• She briefly introduces Graham Platner, a progressive politician rejecting corporate and lobbying money, and highlights his message:
  • Quote:
    “People are angry because they know they're being screwed... People are being robbed of their critical thinking... The answer to that is not shame... it's empathy and compassion.”
    —Graham Platner (09:14)

6. Predatory Politics, Scapegoating, and Corporate Corruption

(10:01 - 11:12)

• The episode emphasizes the intersectional predation:
  • Right-wing scapegoating of immigrants
  • Corporate exploitation of workers and consumers
  • The manipulation of the judiciary and military for partisan gain
• Jennifer warns of the mounting danger in the MAGA movement’s efforts to turn the country against itself along every possible fracture line.

7. Confronting Cruelty with Empathy—And Staying Vigilant

(11:12 - 12:12)

• Angie expresses her struggle with empathy for MAGA supporters, yet concedes that economic anger is widespread and justified due to stagnant wages and U.S. policies that neglect Americans.
• They emphasize the minority status of the far-right but caution against underestimating their destructive influence:
  • Quote:
    “There is a portion of the population that enjoys the cruelty... but we are larger than they are. I really believe that.”
    —Angie (11:58)

8. Hypocrisy & Symbolism: Trump’s Face on U.S. Coins

(12:12 - end)

• Jennifer breaks the news that the Treasury will issue dollar coins with Trump's face, seeing this as the logical endpoint of cultish authoritarianism:
  • She contrasts how Obama was vilified as “arrogant” while Trump is embraced for overt self-aggrandizement—exposing profound double standards and the underlying current of white supremacy.
  • Quote:
    “Because at the core of it is this selfish white supremacy that these people think everything in this country should be built and done to make their lives easier and make them more comfortable at all times.”
    —Jennifer (13:02)
• She ends on a call to vigilance and action, describing the present as a battle to preserve democracy:
  • “We are on the precipice of fascism. We are living under a fascist regime right now in the United States of America.”
    —Jennifer (13:51)

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “They are these things. It is Stephen Miller's long wet dream to have a white nationalist country.”
  —Jennifer (00:18)
• “The people that they are hiring are manosphere, pitiful broken men that think it's macho to hit children and women and spray tear gas...”
  —Angie (03:00)
• “I don't give a shit what people say about me or my appearance... This guy gets so wound up because the Democrats have the real moral high ground.”
  —Jennifer (04:38)
• “People are propagandized, people are misinformed. But people are not stupid and we shouldn't treat them as such... the answer to that is empathy and compassion.”
  —Graham Platner (09:14)
• “We are on the precipice of fascism. We are living under a fascist regime right now in the United States of America.”
  —Jennifer (13:51)

Tone & Takeaways

• Tone: Fierce, darkly humorous, urgent, and unflinchingly critical of right-wing ideology and complicity.
• Key takeaways:
  • The hosts call for plain language about authoritarianism in America.
  • They urge empathy for the propagandized, but uncompromising resistance to actual cruelty and fascism.
  • The podcast provides catharsis and solidarity for progressives feeling isolated, highlighting both the dangers of the current political moment and the imperative to keep organizing and fighting back.