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Hey, everybody. Welcome back. I'm Mark Halpern, editor in chief of the live interactive video platform 2way and your host here, guide to everything. Next up, Delighted to have you back, all you nexters who tuning in for our second episode of the week and second of the year. Very happy to have you here. We've got some great guests and a great conversation in a busy, busy news week already. Jeff Rowe will be here. He's a Republican strategist, one of the smartest people in politics I know and he doesn't do a lot of media. He's a, he's a semi reclusive figure. So Jeff will be here along with Jaime Moore, Democratic strategist. We'll have a great conversation about everything that's going on in politics. And then after that, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, longtime Republican member of the Congress, who was tapped by President Trump to figure out a new way to balance the economy, how to grow the economy with a clean environment, and talk to the administrator about how he's trying to do those things, which some see as contradictory. But Lee Zeldin thinks they can do them both. So we'll talk about that with those three great guests coming up. But before that, in just a moment, my reported monologue on the national crisis in Minnesota in the wake of a shooting by an ICE officer. We'll talk about what I've learned about that since it occurred. My reported monologue is next up. Look, real New Year's resolutions aren't hashtags. They're about deciding to be sharper, more effective, more in control. Beam is a company proudly founded in America run by people who share our values. 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All right, next up, my reported monologue on Minnesota. I gotten so many messages in the last few days and talked to so many people since the murder, murder occurred. There you go. Since the woman was killed in Minnesota, one text this morning, early pre dawn, from someone I know, very thoughtful person, a Republican, who. This is what they texted. The ICE thug murdered her. That was it. Just a declaration. And then a little later in the morning, Hillary Clinton went on Twitter and tweeted a picture of the memorial service, impromptu memorial service that was held for Renee Goode, the woman who was killed. And she used the N word, too. Last night at the corner where an ICE agent murdered Renee Goode, thousands of Minnesotans gathered in the frigid dark to protest her killing. And I know people on the right are upset that anybody's saying that the officer murdered her or in some cases, said he did anything wrong. Here's my friend Eric Erickson on in his newsletter, which again, a substack I recommend to you. Eric had a much different point of view. Another person like Hillary Clinton, a person of good faith and concern about what happened in Minnesota and, and mourning the loss of life of Renee Goode. Eric wrote this. Ms. Good should not have been attempting to obstruct ICE agents. She should not have used her car as a barricade. She should not ignored the ICE agents. She should not have struck an ICE agent with her vehicle. So my reported monologue today is a little bit different than normal. Normal. I'm talking normally, I'm talking to people at senior levels of government and politics and business to learn what's going on. Right. The best information typically in your reporting is going to come from the people most in the know. And for good or for ill, that's often the most powerful people. My reporter monologue today is a little bit different. I have talked to a lot of people in politics and government and business about the events of Minnesota. But a lot of the, the best reporting I've done, including some coming my way, has come voluntarily from what I would call everyday people, regular Americans, some call them ordinary. I would say the opposite of ordinary about, about their reaction to it. And it's been consistent so far. If you voted for Kamala Harris in the last presidential election, you're more likely to have said to me that this was murder or something like that, that the, that the fault lies with Donald Trump, that the fault lies with the agent who pulled out his gun. And if you voted for Donald Trump, you're more likely to say that the Fault lies with Ms. Good. And while her death is a tragedy, that she shouldn't have done what she did. What Eric Erickson has said, and I've heard from so many people in emails and texts and phone calls and then on two way where we've now done two shows where we've heard from a lot of the members of the two way community. And it just falls very neatly, unfortunately, along red, blue and as often happens in controversial stories where I try to just describe what I see and not take a side. I've taken a lot of criticism already, most of it pretty friendly, not entirely of people on the blue side saying, you know, you're an idiot for not just calling it a murder, of course it's a murder. And for people on the red side who are saying, how could you lay a single piece of the blame at the feet, at the foot, the feet of the, of the officer who did this, the ICE official who pulled the trigger, it's ambiguous. We're going to get more information. So I think sensibly, some people on two way and who have contacted me said it's too soon to say. So for some it's too soon, but for many it's not. Here's another email that I got from someone, a very well meaning person, did not vote for Donald Trump. And so maybe not surprisingly, here's his point of view. He emailed me, I tried a lot of homicide cases. This is back when he was a practicing attorney. What happened in Minneapolis was at least voluntary manslaughter, slaughter or second degree murder. The latter harder to prove, especially because the shooter is a cop. ICE has to cool it, start hiring selectively, not anyone who wants to be a cop. And this email again, another person expressing the notion that the person who's criminally at fault is the shooter goes to the broader issue, which is this debate about the policy the Trump administration has about ice. And I've heard from a lot of people on that too, who are divided again, red versus blue, and that's with elites and that's everyday people. What I'm asking everybody to do, you know, a day into this crisis here as we speak this morning, is take a deep breath. Take a deep breath. Then take four more and let's wait to see what we learn. What do we learn about what happened in the run up to the shooting? What was that woman doing in that neighborhood? Was she engaging with ICE officials at all before they approached her vehicle. And what were they doing? What was the mission they were on that had them be in that neighborhood? And then what happened after. I remain very concerned about this. What seems to be a failure to get her the best medical care as quickly as possible in the aftermath of the shooting. We don't know that yet, but there's some video evidence that suggests that. So got to get more facts about before and after and of course, during. People can watch the videos and make, and make their own judgment. Unfortunately, sophisticated people of good faith so far have watched the same videos and they've come away as far apart as an igloo in a volcano. Just, just diametrically opposed about what it is that you can see in those videos. And it's troubling to me because this should be fact based. You know, it shouldn't be red versus blue on this. But what's driv driving this is not just red versus blue reflexive. It's not just red versus blue as they, as they experience the video of the shooting. It's for red America, the arrival of ice in these blue cities, these blue states, which we see now in other places, but in force in Minneapolis. Ice for them is like a sheriff arriving in town after a long delay. A frontier town that's been overrun by outlaws and they're there there to fix the problem. So red America looks at ICE's presence in Minneapolis and says, great, thank you. This is what we need because there are people in the state, in the city illegally, and ICE is there to figure out how to get those who should be gone, gone. That is different than the way Blue America sees this. Blue America sees something quite different. They see an occupying force marching in with the subtlety of a drum line and steel boots of a group of people who don't belong there, who've been sent by Donald Trump to disrupt the community. And you saw that in the videos. If you, if you watch more than just the shooting, you saw the pain of a lot of people in that community because they don't want, they don't want ICE there. They certainly don't want Donald Trump's ICE there. And you saw it in the pain. The statement made by the mayor of Minneapolis, I was not a big fan of what he said. I thought, I thought demanding ICE depart at that moment, given that they're not going to depart, was, was too confrontational. I applauded his saying people, if they want to protest, should do it peacefully. But as always, I ask people to see both sides, even if you don't agree with the other side. See both sides red America. You gotta see that people in Minneapolis don't agree with this policy. Now, President Trump won the election, right? And for many people, that is, pardon the word play, that is the trump card. Trump won the election. No one who listened to Donald Trump for the last decade should be just surprised that he sent ICE into these communities. And let's find out what this woman did potentially to interfere with what they were doing. In the end, we'll see what other information comes out. It's going to be hard to imagine that this woman put herself in a position that she did not listen to law enforcement. Horrible that she's dead, but they seem to be asking her to get out of her car. They seem to have made it clear that her parking her car in the road to block them apparently was not something she should have done. And you can oppose ice, and this was said to me by a Republican member of Congress who's heartbroken over what happened. You can oppose ICE and the mission, but you cannot say that I'm going to express myself in my opposition to law enforcement activity by trying to impede what they're doing. And certainly you can't threaten them physically. Certainly you can't do that. So this is a, this is a, a moment where we need to be coming together as a nation, not, not being apart. I just want to say a few more things about, about what I've heard from folks. Most Americans are not dogmatic. If you watch certain cable news channels or go on certain social media feeds, you're going to see a very strong red opinion. The officer was in the right when Secretary Noem called the woman who was killed a domestic terrorist. You're going to see a lot of people nodding their heads on, on red America, in media, in blue America, you're going to see a lot of people agreeing with Hillary Clinton and saying this is murder, including aoc. Here's what she said. So this is now turned into what our greatest fear is and has been.