Ep 369 | Republicans Are Losing the PR War Over ICE | Guest: Jim Bovard

Summary

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Episode Overview

Episode Title: Republicans Are Losing the PR War Over ICE
Podcast: Kibbe on Liberty
Host: Matt Kibbe
Guest: Jim Bovard, Investigative Journalist
Release Date: January 28, 2026

In this episode, Matt Kibbe and Jim Bovard dive deep into the current controversy over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions, specifically focusing on the fatal shooting of a protester in Minneapolis. They explore the parallels between this event and the infamous Ruby Ridge standoff, examine the shifting political dynamics around police power, and discuss the dangerous implications of both parties embracing heavy-handed government tactics. Throughout, they underscore the erosion of civil liberties and the perils of political short-sightedness.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. ICE Actions in Minneapolis & PR Fallout

• Fatal Shooting Incident: The discussion opens with analysis of the fatal shooting of Alexander Preddy, a protester in Minneapolis, and the subsequent public relations disaster for Republicans.
• Public Accountability & Cell Phones: The hosts note the futility of suppressing information in the age of ubiquitous cell phones, which has undermined official narratives (01:43).
• Legal Overreach: Trump’s DHS declared photographing or videotaping ICE agents illegal, contradicting court rulings and further eroding public trust (04:01).
• Confiscation of Evidence: Agents were reportedly confiscating cell phones to control the narrative after the shooting (05:10).

2. Political Strategy & Clash Creation

• Questioning Policy Motivation: Kibbe challenges whether the ICE prioritization of Minneapolis (a strongly Democratic area) was intentionally provocative, speculating it may have been designed to spark confrontation (07:42).
• Agent Training Concerns: Bovard points out the expedited training of ICE agents, noting that “47 days” was chosen as a nod to Trump being the 47th president—calling into question the agents' readiness (08:44).

3. Parallels to Ruby Ridge

• Summary of Ruby Ridge (1992): Bovard recounts the details of the Ruby Ridge siege and draws comparisons to the current Minneapolis case regarding federal overreach and loss of life without due process (14:49).
• Rules of Engagement: Both cases involve questionable use of deadly force under broad engagement rules set by federal agencies (17:53).
• Media and Public Pressure: Media exposure, via Bovard and others, was key in eventually achieving partial accountability at Ruby Ridge (18:59).

4. Flip in Political Alignments

• Role Reversal: The hosts remark on the reversal of traditional left-right stances: conservatives once championed civil liberties in cases like Ruby Ridge, whereas now, some Trump supporters defend aggressive federal policing (21:12, 22:04).
• Weaponization of 'Domestic Terrorist' Label: Both Biden and Trump administrations have misused the label for political advantage, eroding its meaning and chilling dissent (35:45, 38:00).

5. Deeper Erosion of Civil Liberties

• Suppression of Oversight: The Trump administration’s assertion that Americans have no right to know the identity of the agents involved in fatal shootings is called a "complete travesty" (30:36, 32:00).
• No Suspension for Shooters: Contrary to standard practice, the ICE agent involved returned immediately to duty, suggesting a lack of accountability (34:03).

6. Bipartisan Creep of Surveillance & Enforcement

• Both Sides Guilty: Democratic and Republican administrations have expanded definitions of criminality and terrorism, encouraging a cycle of abuse whenever power changes hands (39:29).
• Poor Long-Term Thinking: Kibbe warns that blindly empowering government enforcement arms sets a dangerous precedent for future administrations (42:00, 43:01).

7. Traffic Cameras as a Tangent on Authoritarianism

• Small-Scale Authoritarianism: Bovard discusses the unintended consequences of DC's increased use of traffic cameras—a microcosm of government overreach (46:06).
• Revenue vs. Safety: Policy has boosted revenues for the city but has done little or nothing to improve public safety; may have worsened it (47:05, 48:37).

8. Some Trump Administration Policies Supported

• Praise Where Due: Bovard acknowledges approval for Trump administration actions on rolling back DEI, climate policy, transgender guidance, some foreign aid cuts, and federal workforce reduction, while decrying defense budget increases (50:34).

9. The Loss of Constitutional Principles

• From Tea Party to Trumpism: Kibbe laments the decline of constitutional, limited government rhetoric on the right—replaced by a cult of personality and disregard for prior civil liberties advocacy (42:00).
• Danger of Historical Amnesia: Both highlight the danger of Americans (and especially conservatives) forgetting the lessons of past abuses (44:22, 44:49).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On ICE, Technology, and PR (01:43)

Jim Bovard: "You got people with cell phones, and it is devastating the official storyline."

On Policy and Public Relations (02:04)

Matt Kibbe: "If nothing else, it was always going to be a PR disaster because these conflicts lead to things like we just saw in Minneapolis."

On the Dangers of Expansive Federal Enforcement (04:01)

Jim Bovard: "Trump’s Department of Homeland Security... said that videotaping ICE agents is a crime... This is just a complete travesty of freedom of speech."

On Cell Phone Suppression (06:20)

Matt Kibbe: "Imagine thinking you could get rid of all the cell phones..."

On Training ICE Agents (08:44)

Jim Bovard: "...what was the training period for the new agents? It was 47 days. And why was it 47 days? Because Donald Trump is the 47th president. So here's your badge and your gun and your $50,000 signing bonus, and have fun."

On the Turnabout of Political Roles (21:12)

Matt Kibbe: "It was conservatives that were outraged at this assault on individual liberties... and now it's upside down."

On Misuse of 'Domestic Terrorist' Label (35:45)

Matt Kibbe: "It’s total bullshit that they have no business playing that game because that's what the other side does."

On Suppressing Officer Accountability (32:00)

Jim Bovard: "It's funny that the Trump people think that they can say the word doxing... and therefore it's okay to keep secret federal agents who killed American citizens. This is a complete travesty."

On Repeating History's Mistakes (43:01)

Matt Kibbe: "I've taken this radical, predictive position that someday a Democrat’s going to control that stuff again."

On Erosion of Fourth Amendment (43:08)

Jim Bovard: "DHS said... agents don't need a warrant to go door to door to search for illegal immigrants... just like the general warrant that the British had in the 1760s."

On the Loss of Principles (42:00)

Matt Kibbe: "These concepts have kind of left the vocabulary of the conservative right today..."

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00 | Introduction, episode theme: government abuse and parallels between ICE, Ruby Ridge | | 01:43 | Cell phones and the collapse of the official storyline | | 04:01 | DHS declares videotaping ICE agents a crime; legal and constitutional concerns | | 08:44 | Questionable training and hiring of ICE agents | | 14:49 | Ruby Ridge summary and parallels to current case | | 21:12 | Role reversal: conservatives vs liberals on civil liberties | | 32:00 | Trump administration excuses for concealing shooter’s identity | | 35:45 | Weaponization of 'domestic terrorist' label by both parties | | 42:00 | Loss of constitutional rhetoric since Tea Party days | | 44:49 | Dangers of forgetting political history | | 50:34 | Brief discussion of Trump policies Bovard supports | | 53:57 | Trump attempts to de-escalate Minneapolis situation |

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Closing Reflections

Kibbe and Bovard challenge their listeners—libertarians and conservatives alike—not to surrender civil liberties for short-term political gains. Their deep historical perspective and sharp critiques serve as a warning: empowering government to suppress dissent or over-police will backfire, regardless of which party is in power. In a time when both sides play the same dangerous games, defending the Bill of Rights must not become a partisan matter.

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Where to Find Jim Bovard

• Website: jimbovard.com
• Articles: New York Post, Libertarian Institute, Mises Institute, Future of Freedom Foundation

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This summary captures the flow, tone, and content richness of the episode for those who haven’t listened, spotlighting the core arguments, memorable lines, and the broader significance of the issues discussed.

Transcript

[Matt Kibbe]

Welcome to Kibbe on Liberty. I'm talking to my friend Jim Bovard, an investigative journalist who has looked at police abuse of power and government abuse of power his entire career. We're going to be talking about the fatal shooting in Minneapolis and the eerie parallels between it and Ruby Ridge in 1992, 1993, and how the politics, the good guys versus the bad guys, has flipped in a bizarro world kind of way. Check it out. Welcome to kibby on liberty.

[Jim Bovard]

Foreign.

[Matt Kibbe]

How's it going?

[Jim Bovard]

Doing good, Matt. Thanks for having me back.

[Matt Kibbe]

I figured we'd do something remote since neither my district or your state is probably dug out from all the ice and snow right now.

[Jim Bovard]

Well, it's a heavy burden, but at least I've got enough beer and ammo to survive.

[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah. If anyone's doubting the efficacy of government, maybe they're reminded that if they can't plow the streets, do you really expect them to do complex things like extract 11 million immigrants without trampling the entire Bill of Rights simultaneously? Seems like a lot to do.

[Jim Bovard]

Yeah. And the most important thing is it's not photogenic. I mean, this is the thing that's really coming back to vex the Trump policymakers. Those, you know, it's the same trouble that the Bush administration had at Abu Ghraib. You got people with cell phones, and it is devastating the official storyline.

[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah. And I've been making this point, I think, for two or three years, and, you know, the question with Trump is whether or not he's. He's bullshitting or if he actually intends on pursuing a policy. But I think he's got guys on his team like Stephen Miller that actually believe that a policy of, what do they call it, mass deportation is somehow logistically doable. Forget about right or wrong, forget about good policy or bad policy. How would you actually go about extracting all of these individuals from households all across America? And if nothing else, it was always going to be a PR disaster because these conflicts lead to things like we just saw in Minneapolis.

[Jim Bovard]

Yeah, well, and what you need is a much bigger federal iron fist. And that was Trump campaign on the idea of draining the swamp as well as ending the endless wars. And so a lot of his supporters expected him to make government less oppressive. But when you are trying to expel so many people and with almost no. With no brains involved in the process, I mean, it seemed like the. It seemed like the Trump people have been a lot more effective at deporting roofers than they have rapists. And this is not good for their credibility.

[Matt Kibbe]

If you paid attention to the big, beautiful bill, one of the most remarkable provisions in that legislation was new mandatory spending and new entitlement that locked in this domestic police force that currently we're calling ice. But, you know, the next Democratic administration might refashion it for their own purposes. Let's say they're more interested in suppressing.

[Jim Bovard]

Speech, and they're more interested than the Trump people are. I mean, this is, I mean, one of the most appalling things is that you've got Trump's Department of Homeland Security that's come out and said that videotaping ICE agents is a crime, that people have got no right to make a, take a picture or a videotape of these ICE agents in action. And this is just a complete travesty of freedom of speech. They've also said that if people are videotaping, that's basically an assault. It's doxing, and federal agents are entitled to respond forcefully. And I think that was a lot of what led to the killing on Saturday of the Minneapolis protester.

[Matt Kibbe]

Had they made that claim before the shooting in Minneapolis?

[Jim Bovard]

Yes. I mean, this is something I covered in a piece on Friday for the Libertarian Institute, and it was actually highlighted in a Fox News Minneapolis affiliate story that talked about the, the, the, the different statements from the DHS on, on how there is not and how people have got no right to, to videotape police or law enforcement in general. And this is in complete contrast to, to the. Every ruling by a federal appeals court that's ever touched this issue. But, but the, but the Trump people seem to think that, that, that their law enforcement is a sacred, sacred cast and people are not allowed to look at them directly. Maybe, I don't know. But this has been, this is an absolute Pandora's box, and it guarantees a total collapse of accountability. The only reason that, that we've got, you know, there was so much controversy around the shooting on Saturday, was that you had some private citizens whose phones were not confiscated because the agents after the shooting were going around and confiscating phones, cell phones, of the people there on the scene. This is part of their effort to obstruct the investigation and totally control the storyline and whitewash whatever their agents did.

[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah. Imagine thinking you could get rid of all the cell phones, it seems.

[Jim Bovard]

Yeah.

[Matt Kibbe]

I mean, that cow's out of the barn.

[Jim Bovard]

It's kind of late for that.

So.

But there's, there's so much animosity towards any kind of civilian oversight and also towards any protesters and you know, the story I mentioned last week last came out Friday, one day before the shooting was making the point. Look, it's a protest. You're going to have some people being. I've been to a lot of protests in D.C. most of them as simply to photograph or to write about them, sometimes to support the cause. Most of the time you got some people who are just complete. But I mean, the whole idea that one or two makes, makes the entire protest unconstitutional or illegal. This is nonsense because that would be a way to, for the government to totally suppress.

Suppress any demonstrations because that happened during the Vietnam War. You would have government agents who would infiltrate and do violence. And then you'd have the politicians say, see, all the protesters are violent. That means we've got to suppress all the protests. And I wonder if we're heading in that direction right now.

[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah, I was wondering about this, and I don't know the answer, but I think it's interesting that ICE and the Trump administration and Homeland Security have somehow made Minneapolis, Minnesota a priority for their efforts. And obviously there's, you know, the governor is a former candidate for vice president who ran against Trump. Very, very Democratic controlled state. Why didn't they go to someplace like Texas where they might get cooperation from law enforcement and not create this sort of clash that inevitably, it seems, will lead to violence?

[Jim Bovard]

Well, it sounds like you're assuming that they did not want to create a clash that led to violence. I mean, you send all those ICE agents in there and, you know, we don't know exactly what the rules of engagement are that the ICE agents have been given as far as use of.

Deadly force on American civilians.

What we do know is they've had this huge hiring spree. And what was the training period for the new agents? It was 47 days. And why was it 47 days? Because Donald Trump is the 47th president. So here's your badge and your gun and your $50,000 signing bonus, and have fun.

[Matt Kibbe]

Thank you for joining me today on.

[Kibbe on Liberty Announcer]

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[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah, I mean, you've been covering police violence for your entire career, but it does strike me that some of what's going on is a bunch of untrained amateurs that don't know how to de escalate situations that don't require violence. Is that your read?

[Jim Bovard]

Oh, yeah, very much. But I mean, I don't know all.

The motivations, but yeah, I, I mean.

I've, I've, I've seen a lot of law enforcement, federal, state and local in situations where they were, where they use good judgment and self restraint and were able to de escalate and were able to avoid violence or just get, or.

To get people who were screaming at.

Each other to settle down and back.

Away from each other.

But the, but the Trump recipe, dhs, as far as what we've seen in Minnesota is it seems as if they were attempting to spur more violence. And I was talking to a lady from Minnesota a couple days ago. She's very frustrated because you had this huge fraud scandal that was snowballing down. You had all this evidence coming out, it was looking so much worse week by week. Then all of a sudden you have this massive deployment of federal agents who are very aggressive. And you know, the folks I've heard from Minnesota, it's not just a bunch of left wingers who are appalled by this. I mean, they're just kind of, you know, rampaging everywhere. And there, there is a swagger about the agents. I mean, that was clear on the videotape from Saturday. Why did they attack Alexander Preddy? Why did they beat him? Why did they pistol whip him? I mean, yeah, the shooting was completely unjustified. But before that they, you know, they went and beat the hell out of him. And part of what fascinates me on this is there, there was a line that Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, was saying. She was stressing that if anyone even touches a federal agent, then they're going to be charged with assault and probably a bunch of other stuff as well. Whereas these agents have got a license to go out there and assault, throw people down on the street, knock them over, smack them around. As long as they don't shoot people or maim them, then there's, there's basically no controversy, especially if the government can block the videotaping.

[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah, you said this earlier, but it strikes me that both sides, the people behind the curtain on both sides, the people that are creating this level of confrontation, seem to love it because it changes the subject. Personally, I think the Republicans have the PR campaign all wrong. I think they're losing this national conversation. But for partisan Democrats who were worried about Somalia, welfare fraud, this is a great Way to change the subject.

[Jim Bovard]

Oh, I mean, this is a godsend for them because, yeah, there was horrendous fraud and there were there, I mean, if the plain facts are put on the table, I think there'd be a lot of support for a lot, for deporting a lot of the Somalis who are here illegally. I mean, they've, they've a lot of troubles there in Minnesota and there are some good, good Somalis as well. I mean, I'm somewhat biased because I'm a big fan of Ethiopian restaurants and, and people don't recognize a huge difference between the Ethiopian immigrants and the Somali immigrants and especially how they treat women. So I won't get graphic on that. I'll just move along. But it's amazing to see how the Trump White House has apparently presumed that using maximum force and with almost no questions asked is going to somehow help them. I mean, but I've, I've had the same, the same puzzlement as far as what Trump did in Venezuela. I mean, it's like, okay, so you're throwing the dice. You're throwing the dice again and again. And I think on Saturday, the, you know, the Trump people threw the dice and they lost and it's starting to recoil badly. Even Trump was appalled, I think, or at least Trump would not endorse that killing like he did the killing of the 37 year old lady driving the SUV.

[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah. Yes. So let's take a step back because the whole impetus of this conversation, you've been on the show before, but the impetus of this conversation was the landmark work that you did to expose the truth about Ruby Ridge. And you wrote a piece a couple days ago comparing the circumstances of, of.

[Jim Bovard]

The.

[Matt Kibbe]

Ruby Ridge murders by the FBI to what has happened here. Give us a little bit of history of your work on Ruby Ridge and what happened as a result of your reporting. And then, of course, tell the story of Ruby Ridge.

[Jim Bovard]

Yeah. Well, Ruby Ridge was a case where the Feds went after Randy Weaver and his family in 1992. They were living on an isolated mountaintop in northern Idaho. He had moved there basically to try to get away from, you know, what he and his wife felt were a very corrupt American society. But he was entrapped by an ATF undercover agent into selling a sawed off shotgun to him. And then the Feds went after him to try to convert him to become an informant for them, going after some of the racist, extreme groups there in Idaho. He would not do that. So the Fed sought to destroy him. August 21st, 19923 US Marshals dressed in ninja outfits with face mask illegally intruded on his land and ambushed Weaver's 14 year old son Sammy and a 25 year old family friend, Kevin Harris. The the federal. The marshals fired submachines, submachine guns at them. They killed the boy's dog. A firefight ensued. US Marshal got killed. As the 14 year old boy was going home. He was shot in the back and killed by a federal by a U.S. marshal. U.S. marshal. US Marshals made a lot of false statements about how that fight went down. The FBI panicked. The the next day the FBI snipers arrived and within one hour of them taking position, every adult in the cabin was either dead or severely wounded. Even though they had not fired a single shot at the FBI and even though the FBI never called out for them to surrender, the FBI just started shooting. The FBI sniper, Lon Horiuchi shot Randy Weaver in the back as he stood outside his shack and then fired a shot that killed Vicki Weaver as she stood in the cabin door holding her 10 month old baby. So what the FBI did was initially say that the killing of Vicki Weaver was justified because she'd been out in the front yard firing at an FBI helicopter. That was a complete load of bs and that story eventually collapsed. So then the FBI said that they killed her accidentally. But so the, so the trapped, the trapped people. I was tweeting about this starting on the day of the shooting on Saturday. A lot of the Trump people got very angry, said that there was no comparison because the protester was killed, had a firearm with him and Vicki Weaver was unarmed. Not true. She had a.380 pistol on her side underneath her sweater at the time the sniper blew her head off, but neither she nor Alexander Preddy were brandishing and threatening, threatening the Feds. Part of what was really key here was the rules of engagement that the FBI snipers were given. And they were told that any armed adult male observed in the vicinity of the Weaver cabin could and should be killed. Federal appeals court said that was a new James Bond standard for use of deadly force on Americans. Completely illegal and unconstitutional.

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[Matt Kibbe]

How much, how much of your muckraking actually brought some of these guys to justice in the Ridge? Well.

[Jim Bovard]

Bringing the guys to justice, I mean that was my aspiration. So this, this went down in 90. The, the killings went down in 92, the killings of Vicki Weaver and Sammy Weaver and there was a federal trial in 93 and it was a huge effort by the Justice Department to nail these folks. It was a very high profile case in that northwest part of the country and a jury said BS and refused to convict in all the major charges against Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris. So I wrote about that in my 1994 book Lost Rights. In early 1995, FBI Chief Louis Freeh announced that there were basically no penalties for any FBI official involved in killing Vicki Weaver or setting the policy. I wrote a story for the Wall Street Journal on that called no Accountability at the FBI. Lewis Free then attacked my article and me in a response to the FBI and he was saying that I misrepresent, misrepresent all these key facts of the case. Well, There was a 500 page confidential report the DOJ had done in 1994 that had never come out. I managed to get a hold of that and did another follow up piece in the Wall Street Journal and that helped break the COVID up. I also wrote about for Playboy magazine, an American Spectator and you know, for years the FBI and Do just department said they did nothing wrong. By the late summer 1995, DOJ announced they were going to give a multi million dollar payment to the Weavers to settle their wrongful death claims. So that, that helped break the COVID up. There was the, a top FBI official was sent to prison for destroying evidence in this case. But the state of Idaho tried to prosecute the sniper and Janet Reno and Bill Clinton invoked federal supremacy and blocked any attempt to hold the FBI sniper liable for killing Vicki Weaver.

[Matt Kibbe]

You know, politically. So I worked on Capitol Hill at the time and politically the tables were turned back then because it was the Clinton administration and fighting with a few conservatives in Congress. Correct me if I'm getting my history wrong, but it was conservatives that were outraged at this assault on individual liberties and the brutality with which this family was murdered. And now it's upside down. Now you have some Democrats ostensibly embracing the Second Amendment and, and you have made senior Trump administration officials telling us that you don't actually have the right to conceal, carry or have ammo like they've made some strange arguments.

[Jim Bovard]

They've made some very strange arguments.

And it's been great to see how especially the gun owners of America have called BS on this. A lot of individual gun owners have, some of the gun rights sites have been great on this. NRA has spoken out to a degree on this. It's interesting. Going Back to early 1994, there was a press conference in D.C. talking about the abuses of Ed Waco and Ruby Ridge. And it was a joint press conference with the ACLU and the nra. And it was, it was very, very refreshing. And it was a bellwether to show that there was widespread support against unleashing federal, federal agents on the American people. And I don't know if, if a lot of the Trump supporters have any memory of those times. It was interesting to see the response on Twitter because I did a tweet on, I did the article and this came out yesterday. I did a tweet that's got like 150,000 views so far. And a number of the Trump supporters have, have denounced me for being a boomer. And it's like, okay, so we're not supposed to recall what happened, you know, 30 some years ago. Are we supposed to act like the world was invented on the day that Donald Trump took his second oath of office? Or what?

[Matt Kibbe]

So you've, you've watched a lot of these phone videos, is that correct?

[Jim Bovard]

Yes, yes, I have.

[Matt Kibbe]

So tell me. I've watched several, but honestly, I would have to spend a lot more time to figure out who's who. And in that scrum of people beating on Preddy. But what is your read of how did it unfold? What came first and what came last?

[Jim Bovard]

Okay, here's my assessment. But this is not, you know, this is not seen by scene. This is just, my, just. New York Times has another great analysis, either early today or late yesterday, going through the video scene by scene. They, they've been a lodestar in this entire shooting. They were great on the day of the shooting. And since then, my impression, okay, he was there videotaping Alex Preddy was, and he was, but he was not assaulting anybody. And, you know, there was probably some tense words exchanged between he and the federal agents. I don't know. But then I guess federal agents shoved a woman down into the snow and then he came over to help her. And then an agent started to spray him in the face with the bear spray or the pepper spray. And then other agents jumped on him, knocked him down, started beating him. One was pistol whipping him. And then one of the agents took away his, Alexander Preddy's gun, which had a license to carry and was walking away with that. And then, then the other agents apparently panicked and shot him 10 times. That's, I mean, hopefully, if, if there's, if that's not an accurate rendition, hopefully there'll be other videos that give a much clearer picture. Part, A huge part of the problem here, though, was that happened, you had, you had Gnome and maybe Stephen Miller as well, and maybe Bovino as well, come out and say that Freddy had been brandishing his, his weapon and he was assaulting the federal agents with his 9 millimeter semiautomatic pistol. Well, you look at the videos and it's like, well, which planet are they referring to? Because there was nothing like that. And it was striking that conservative newspapers, including the New York Post, have said, look, you know, what the feds said happened, what top officials said happened did not. It was nowhere close to what actually happened on the scene. And so, and they were quick to label the, the guy that the feds killed as a domestic terrorist. And you know it. I did a number of stories in 2021 and 2022 about how the Biden administration was vastly stretching the definition of terrorist, especially domestic terrorists, to vilify anybody who was in the same zip code as any Trump support in the same zip code of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. I was amazed at how, how the, at the prosecutorial abuses and the brow beating. And, you know, there was, there was a story which I did early on, shortly after the January 6th warning. Conservatives and libertarians, look, if an FBI agent comes and wants to talk to you about this, you don't talk because they're not recording. What they'll do is afterwards, they'll Write down form 302 and say this person said ABCD. And that's all the evidence that they need to either accuse you of perjury or some other claim. You know, there's no reason to talk to them when the government was trying to cast such a broad net. I mean, there is a parallel here to what Trump is trying to do on the deportations. The Biden people want to arrest and condemn as many Trump supporters as possible for January 6th. And they didn't care if the person didn't even go into the Capitol. They didn't care if they walked in, were invited in by the cops, and then walked out peacefully. They were there, therefore, let's destroy their lives. It was a numbers game. And, and basically they were saying, since there were 800 terrorists that we've, we've convicted. Boom. This proves that the Trump people were all terrorists. And it's a little bit like that with the deportations. There are, you know, if you sat down, had a list of the offenses of the immigrants, I think you'd have 80% or 90% of Americans agree. Yeah. People that did this or this or there should be kicked out. But simply because someone's been here working hard for decades and hasn't violated the law, you know, why are you going after him.

[Matt Kibbe]

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[Matt Kibbe]

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[Matt Kibbe]

The, the irony of the policy is that at this point at least, both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were performed much better when it comes to actually deporting people. So it seems to be that a lot of this conflict is political performance art in lieu of achieving the reasonable policy of getting real criminals out of this country.

[Jim Bovard]

I agree.

I mean, because there's advance and others were. Vice President advance and others were saying that there have been no cooperation from Minnesota. Apparently there has been cooperation from the Minnesota prisons with ice, and that's prior to last weekend's killing. But there's this, it's, it's almost like there's both sides are pushing a storyline that it's pure good versus pure evil and, you know, to get people all stirred up and full of vitriol. But there, if people would calm down, there's a lot of things that people could agree on. So. But once you get federal agents killing people in the street, that just, you know, there is a visceral reaction. I've, you know, I've seen that on social media. I mean, there were a number of folks who seem pretty reasonable, but all of a sudden it's like, okay, so you're saying the agents murdered him? No, I didn't say that. I said that the killing looks completely unjustified and I'd like to see evidence maybe. Yeah, I mean, it certainly looks like federal crimes have been committed.

[Matt Kibbe]

So what is the legal basis for Trump administration officials saying that we don't have the right to know who killed Preddy?

[Jim Bovard]

I can make some crude comments, but this is a family oriented show, so I won't. They, they are just pulling that out of their Ear.

So.

And it is, it's a complete travesty. And part of what's funny is that people like Povino pushing that line, they are so sanctimonious. I mean, it, it was, it was the same thing that the, that, that the Defense Secretary Hegseth was using to. Just a Secretary of War, I guess Hagseth was using to justify keeping secret the, the, the videos of the second strike that killed the survivors there in the boat near Venezuela back in September. Well, of course, we can't show that to you. That'd be a terrible thing to do for our national security, when a lot of people on the Hill had already seen the video, were horrified by it. But, I mean, this is, I mean, it's funny that the, that the Trump people think that they can say the word doxing and therefore it's okay to keep secret federal agents who killed American citizens.

This is, this is a complete travesty.

But this, this epitomizes their mindset that, that they're entitled to kill who they please and, and say what they want. And this is, this is, this is going very badly for them. I mean, I hope that, I hope they hope they recognize that the Boston Massacre didn't work out well for the British.

[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah. My understanding, based on what Bovino said, was that the agent that shot Preddy is back in the field.

[Jim Bovard]

Yeah. Back in the field.

[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah. And you're.

[Jim Bovard]

I'm sorry, go ahead.

[Matt Kibbe]

No, go ahead.

[Jim Bovard]

No, I mean, it was an issue in Ruby Ridge on the first day's action when the U.S. marshals ambushed and killed Vicki, killed Sammy Weaver. The big.

Just department report, and it said one.

Of the big flaws was there was no effort to separate the individual marshals after the boy was killed to prevent them from coming up with a common story to, to cover, to cover up their killing. And I think you have the same thing going on with both the, the killings in Minnesota in the last few weeks, partly because the, because the Trump administration, you know, it's, it's a paradox because there are some people in the Trump administration who I think recognize that this is very legally and constitutionally perilous, but they're not the ones calling the shots, but the, but they seem to think that they can get away with anything. Washington Post has got a story out today that says that there were 16, I guess, shootings by DHS, and all of them were quickly announced as justified, even before the investigations into the shootings were finished. So. And we're going to see the same in Minnesota. But these videos are devastating for the Trump administration credibility.

[Matt Kibbe]

So the question I was going to ask you, you've, you've covered a lot of, of stories of potential police abuse, local, state, federal. Isn't it typical in a fatal shooting that the officer involved is put in a penalty box until they investigate what happens to make sure that the shooting was justified? Isn't that more typical?

[Jim Bovard]

More typical. This is a lot of euphemisms here today. Yeah, I mean, this is how it's done. I mean, this is how you do an investigation. But basically, it seemed like what the Trump people done is just, just hand the guy another ammo clip and send them back out to the field someplace else.

[Matt Kibbe]

Well, in fairness, he has apparently 47 days of, of training.

[Jim Bovard]

Yeah, well, maybe he did, maybe we don't, because they haven't told us who he was or what his record is.

This is something that's so basic, but this, this is the attitude and this.

It'S not only on, on domestic law enforcement. The, the, the second trumpet presidency seems to have a lot more sense of divine right than the first one did. And one of the divine right is to govern as he pleases and answer no questions. And, you know, he's made some horrendous policy decisions, and he might be a lot closer to destroying his presidency than he realizes.

[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah. I want to go back to this phrase domestic terrorist and the way that Trump administration officials are throwing this around around, just like Biden administration officials threw that phrase around before that. And as a Tea Party organizer, you may recall the Obama administration's campaign machine putting out a press release calling Tea Partiers who are showing up and peacefully protesting in front of the state Capitol or the national Capitol at all. They actually used the phrase domestic terrorist, and there was an outrage, and they eventually took it down and replaced it with some other mean words. Bill Clinton, at the same time, inferred as much when he was referring to Tea Party protesters. So when you talk about whether or not you have a right to show up, up and engage in civil disobedience and peaceful protest, petitioning your government for a redress of grievances, it's kind of personal with me, because the government tried to play that game with us. And fast forward to the memo that I'm sure you saw as well. Tulsi Gabbard, very early in her tenure as National Security Advisor, released an unredacted memo from the Biden administration revealing their plans to criminalize citizens moms at school board meetings. There was a very broad redefinition of what it meant to be a domestic terrorist. And it was basically anybody that questioned the government. So the fact that the Trump administration is playing that same game to me is outrageous. I don't know what to say strong enough. It's total bullshit that they have no business playing that game because that's what the other side does.

[Jim Bovard]

And you thought that the Trump people would be more honest or more, more would deal straight with the American people. And there were, you know, I've written a lot over the last 20 years on how the definition of terrorists has been stretched both here and abroad. I'm thinking there was some da. There was a DHS bulletin or at least one of the DHS funded fusion centers was saying that the Ron Paul supporters should be kind of looked at like maybe they're terrorist supporters orders. And it's like, you know, Ron Paul was good. So. But this, this is a good example. I mean, you're kind of getting almost back to an old style European type of governance where any, where any disobedience or distrust is viewed as sedition or, or a violation of the majesty's rights. And I've, I've, I've dealt with that professionally, you know, off and on over the decades, because there are some people who felt like I went way too far exposing government lies or government killings or just kind of that, you know, that I had a bad attitude because I was, because I listened to a speech and then I list all the lies. But if Americans lose their bullshit radars for politicians and government action, there's no way we're going to preserve our freedom.

[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah, I tweeted out that I hope for living in an America where the people rise up in defense of the First, Second and Fourth Amendments, even when it's their guy trampling the Bill of Rights. Because there seems to be this almost comical, cyclical thing that when Democrats are in power and they're trampling our rights and they don't care about the First Amendment, they don't care about the Second Amendment, they don't care about the Fourth Amendment. We now have to add the fifth and the Tenth. God help us if we have to add the Third Amendment to the list of tramplings. But then Republicans take power and many Democrats rediscover their civil rights libertarian roots and start complaining about fascism and what's going on in Minneapolis. Where is the Remnant that always applies those rules to government officials? Are you the last guy standing?

[Jim Bovard]

I'm not the last guy standing because you're also on the same side of the barricades I mean, there's folks out there, there's a few good people. I started to say there was a few good people left in Congress. Okay, so Congress, Congressman Massie is still there. Trump hasn't knocked him out yet. You know, there's other good people left.

[Matt Kibbe]

Rand Paul has been very loud about this stuff.

[Jim Bovard]

Rand Paul's been very, very good and very principled and very courageous. So he's been a bellwether. Mike Lee's been very good on some issues. So it's, it's frustrating to see that, that the, that the conservative support for the rule of law has been almost completely preempted by enthusiasm for the role of Trump. And you look at something like the law that Trump signed for the disclosure of the Epstein files, well, that was, I guess there's what, a 30 day deadline on that. And that was, you know, we're far, far past that. And, you know, it's, it's almost like the Justice Department is pretending that no longer, that that law is null and void, that they don't even genuflect anymore to obeying that law. So you have to ask, are there any laws that they are obeying that would limit their power at this point?

[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah, there does seem to be a wildly disappointing shift away from the Tea Party days when we all talked about constitutionally limited government. We all talked about individual liberty, fiscal responsibility. These concepts have kind of left the vocabulary of the conservative right today, with some of the exceptions that you've already pointed out. And I guess the assumption is that the Trump wing of the Republican Party will never, ever lose power, that another Democrat will never get elected to the presidency, another Democrat will never get a chance to use these expanded executive powers and weaponize this new national military force against conservatives. But it seems to me that I've taken this radical, predictive position that someday a Democrat's going to control that stuff again.

[Jim Bovard]

Well, that's a safe bet. I'd certainly be willing to put my mortgage money on it.

So.

It'S frustrating to see the historical illiteracy of a lot of the Trump supporters who want to give unlimited power to the president and unlimited deference to any legal claim that he makes. I mean, if you look, you were talking about the Fourth Amendment. It's great to mention that it's wildly, it should have far more recognition and appreciation. But to see what the Trump's DHS said saying that the agents don't need a warrant to go door to door to search for illegal immigrants, it's like, well, you know, there Was, you know, there was a paper signed by administrative law judge, just like the general warrant that the British had in the 1760s to search every house for stuff that did not pay tariffs, customs on. So. But. But it seems as if there is such an absolute lack of intellectual shame among a lot of the Trump advocates and the Trump policymakers. Sometimes I wonder, is it ignorance or is it just lack of shame? Or are they. Or are they assuming that their followers or listeners are so utterly dumb that they will swallow any hokum?

[Matt Kibbe]

There is a disturbing trend, I guess we call them the national right or national conservatives, who have come up with this novel idea that if we just elect our guys better guys and give them unlimited power, or this is the only path forward, as if we've erased the entire American experiment and now we're just going to try authority.

[Jim Bovard]

Well, I mean, and part of being able to achieve that is not to listen to the boomers who might recall the last century, who might recall the Gingrich revolution, its successes and its many failures, or the Clinton administration, or going back even to Reagan's failures and successes. If folks are just hell bent on pretending that history doesn't matter, you know, this is not going to have a happy ending, especially when you don't have a perpetual lock on power. But. But the fact that they would even, you know, aspire to that is like, okay, so are there any parts of the Constitution that. That you think we should, you know, keep around? Or is it. Or is everything. Is everything nullified because, you know, Trump is God's chosen.

[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah. So let's. You had another piece recently that actually put a smile on my face instead of.

[Jim Bovard]

It doesn't happen often, but go ahead.

[Matt Kibbe]

The look of pain. Apparently the Trump administration has done some sort of executive action that will get rid of traffic cameras in the District. Is that what's going on there?

[Jim Bovard]

Yeah. So the Transportation Department has proposed to ban the red light and speed cameras in the District of Columbia, and they would also ban the hidden cameras at stop signs. And this is something which I've hated for a long time. My ass has been bit by those cameras. But so there was a. If you flashback 2014, Mayor of Bowser, Muriel Bowser announced Vision Zero. She had all these new penalties, all these new, you know, traffic penalty cameras and lower speed limits to achieve Vision Zero, zero traffic fatalities. You flash forward 10 years, you've got double the number of fatalities. But the programs work well because the government revenue increased ninefold from the traffic cameras.

[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah, I think it's hard for Some people to appreciate the unintended consequences of this sort of traffic camera authoritarianism. And I had a guy on my show years ago, Matt Logan, what was his name? He wrote a book called why we Drive. Matthew Crawford.

[Jim Bovard]

It wasn't Eric Peters.

[Matt Kibbe]

No, it was Matthew Crawford.

[Jim Bovard]

Okay.

[Matt Kibbe]

And one of his points about red lights, as opposed to, let's say the traffic circle in the center of the Mumbai, India, is that in a lot of ways, unintentionally, fewer top down laws allow for people to use their tacit knowledge and instincts and natural inclination not to get into a traffic accident. And in a lot of ways, chaos, the anarchy of Mumbai is safer than it is when we create all these traffic stops. One of a million reasons why that's true is the inclination of people to speed up at yellow lights. And you should check that out. But it is interesting that I remember this because I live in the city. For all of her expanded authoritarianism, it just had the opposite of, of the intended effect.

[Jim Bovard]

Yeah. And it's, I mean, so what happens with the red light cameras? These are installed and in order to boost revenue, what they do is shorten the period of the yellow light. And that is the, that's the most important variable for the number of accidents at intersections. But what a lot of places have done is make it less than three seconds so they can double or triple the number of fines. Another thing that they've done in the District and here in Montgomery County, Maryland as well is is basically treat bicyclists like sacred cows and have all these separate lanes and encourage the bikes, bicyclists to be out there in the middle of rush hour. So you got all these old guys out there doing six miles an hour and on a three lane road where the other lanes are doing 45. And it's. And, but you know, and the government acts like having their mandates as a guardian angel over every bicyclist. You've had a huge increase in number of, of bicyclists who've gotten killed and bicyclists. I was living in D.C. for almost five, six years. I was, I didn't have a car at that point. I was biking every. Everywhere I went. I was lucky I didn't get hit while I lived there on the streets. But to see how bicyclists ride these days in D.C. is mortifying because it's almost like a third of them look like they're kamikaze pilots.

[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, don't get me started on the sense of entitlement amongst DC bike riders. These Days.

[Jim Bovard]

I agree. Yeah. It's sad. I'm sorry.

[Matt Kibbe]

Okay. No, so I want to dig deep here. We just spent a good 45 minutes mostly bashing the Trump administration. Are there elements of what has happened in this past year that, that you're optimistic about?

[Jim Bovard]

Optimistic is not the term I would use. There have been. I mean, I've written a number of pieces in which I like some of the things that Trump folks were doing. I mean, the Trump changing guidance on the gender, pulling the rug on the transgender, you know, steamroller. His stuff on dei, his stuff on climate policy. I was, I had hopes that Doge. The Department of Government Efficiency would, Would destroy a lot more federal agencies. And, and I was, you know, I was praising quite a bit of what they did. I thought it was great. They were slashing the, The National Endowment for Democracy. I guess Congress voted not to abolish that, thanks to a lot of Republicans who joined the Democrats. But. And the slashing of foreign aid. I've written about foreign aid boondoggles for decades. And, yeah, I mean, this is something that, that needs to be axed. So. And, you know, laying off or getting, terminating hundreds of thousands of federal employees, that was a step in the right direction. But it's, it's funny, if you look at the, look at the broader picture of the increase in federal spending, then all of a sudden, Trump's saying he wants to spend $500 billion a year more in defense. And for a lot, it's kind of like, well, it's important to have a bigger defense budget, a bigger war budget, I guess now. And it's like, there, there is, there is, there is no recognition that the, this endless deficit spending is going to wreck our economy. If you look at how the value of gold has soared since Trump became president, you know, I'm, I'm old enough here. This is a geezer alert. But in the late 1970s, Jimmy Carter was president and the price of gold was soaring. And that was recognized as a international verdict of lack of faith in the US Government and in the Clinton administration specifically. I'm puzzled why there's not been a similar verdict on Trump's financial and recklessness and incompetence with the soaring value of the dollar, of the gold in US.

[Matt Kibbe]

Dollars, recognized or not, you. You actually don't get to browbeat the principles of economics. And unfortunately, there's, you know, something is going to happen. I think politically, President Trump thinks that you can talk people into believing that the economy and their economic situation is better than it is, that inflation's not as bad as they think it is that their purchasing power has not been eroded as badly as it has in large part because rich guys with huge stock portfolios are doing just fine. As James Carville said, it's the economy, stupid. And I don't see a path at the moment for Republicans to have a successful midterm election. I think they're going to get hammered.

[Jim Bovard]

I think you're right. And Trump was fretting that he's going to be impeached once that happens and if Trump does things that he deserves to be impeached for, then. And that's fair play.

[Matt Kibbe]

Yeah, final question. I meant to get to this earlier. It does seem that President Trump himself has recognized that what's happening in Minneapolis is potentially a PR disaster for his administration. He called up Governor Waltz as the story is being told and they've agreed to de escalate the situation.

[Jim Bovard]

Okay, that's the same thing which I've heard. I mean, it's funny. It's funny as hell to, you know, to see this, the news story that Trump and Waltz have decided to play nice now. So Trump, Trump has realized that the excessive use of deadly force is a fiasco in, in Minneapolis. I hope he recognizes it. It's a fiasco elsewhere in the US and abroad because if he pulls us into a major war, it doesn't matter what the stock market is in the following week, his support will collapse. His support is already fallen greatly since he took office and he might do things that make that fall snowball.

[Matt Kibbe]

So I'm looking forward to reading the comments on this episode to see how many libertarians versus conservatives are in my audience. But for those who haven't stopped watching this angrily because of the crazy stuff that you're saying, where can they find more crazy?

[Jim Bovard]

Jimbovard.com that's my website. I've got my blog there. I cross post from there. I do quite a bit for New York Post, do stuff for various Macy's Institute, Libertarian Institute, Future Freedom foundation, various magazines and, you know, just still trying to have fun, raising hell.

[Matt Kibbe]

Okay. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

[Jim Bovard]

Thanks.

[Matt Kibbe]

Thanks for watching.

[Kibbe on Liberty Announcer]

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