FBI Blocks State Officials From Investigating ICE Shooting

Summary

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The Beat with Ari Melber – Episode Summary

Episode: FBI Blocks State Officials From Investigating ICE Shooting
Date: January 9, 2026
Host: Ari Melber

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Overview

This episode of The Beat with Ari Melber focuses on the controversial federal response to the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Macklengood, an unarmed American woman, by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Central to the episode are the Trump administration’s efforts to block Minnesota state officials from participating in the investigation, raising serious concerns over potential federal cover-up, the broader militarization of law enforcement, and the administration's reliance on aggressive propaganda and social media spectacle—even during sensitive national security operations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Breaking News: Federal Cover-up Allegations (01:02–05:22)

• Blocking State Investigation:
  The Trump administration’s DOJ (with FBI’s Kash Patel at the helm) cut Minnesota officials out of the investigation:

  “Yesterday, Minnesota officials say, quote, the FBI informed them they would no longer have access to case materials, scene evidence, or investigative interviews... the feds are cutting them out.” – Ari Melber (01:36)

• Context:
  Compared to prior police shootings, federal blocking of state/local access is “unusual” and seen as part of a broader shift toward autocratic federal action.
• Militarization of ICE:
  Ari ties this escalation to past patterns of police violence, seeing it as a symptom of a “militarized” deportation regime under Trump, distinct from prior civil approaches.

2. Forensic Breakdown and Eyewitness Testimony (04:43–10:00)

• Video Evidence:
  Analysis by video expert and the New York Times shows:
  • The agent shot as the SUV moved away, not toward him.
  • Only one bullet appeared to strike the windshield.
• Conflicting Commands:
  Eyewitnesses reported ICE agents gave contradictory orders—“leave” and “get out of the car”—contributing to the victim’s confusion.
• Eyewitness Quote:

  “They got really aggressive and went over to her driver's side door and tried to open her door. And then she obviously got spooked and started to reverse... then an officer approached her... and shot her point blank in the face.” (09:10)

3. Legal and Policy Standards on Use of Force (09:41–13:21)

• Federal Rules:
  • DHS and DOJ policies strictly prohibit firing at moving vehicles unless there’s no alternative.
  • Video analysis: Officer failed to get out of vehicle’s path or deescalate.
• Government Misrepresentation:
  • Trump officials declared “self-defense” and labeled the victim a “domestic terrorist” without investigation.

  “...this woman now killed by Your government is a domestic terrorist. This is right out of a dystopian George Orwell book...” – Ari Melber (13:05)

4. Human Impact and Community Response (14:29–17:08)

• Victim Profile:
  Renee Nicole Macklengood was a 37-year-old mother of three, with no criminal history aside from traffic tickets.
• Eyewitness and Family:
  Footage showed the victim’s partner distraught at the scene.
• Law Enforcement Reflection:
  Minneapolis Police Chief:

  “Maybe we need to reevaluate, evaluate our tactics. Because as best I could tell, all this was initially about was a middle aged woman in her car blocking the street.” (14:29)

5. Panel: Legal and Operational Analysis (17:08–24:19)

• Prof. Melissa Murray (NYU Law):
  Criticized the Trump administration for blocking state involvement, noting this violates post-9/11 best practices for inter-agency collaboration:

  “...if this is an act of terrorism, as Secretary Noem characterized it, then it would make sense to have Minnesota's involvement because that has been a post-9/11 best practice.” (17:16)

• Eric Ballier (Retired ICE Officer):
  Initially defended standard FBI lead in such cases, but noted troubling tactics:

  “From my training and experience, we were taught to approach the vehicles from the sides... that one agent would take command and give the verbal instructions...” (20:17)

  • Criticized the failure to render aid and the alteration of the crime scene.
• On Crime Scene Management:
  • Modest urgency shown in post-shooting video was “troubling.”
  • Leaving the scene compromised the investigation (22:49).

6. Federalism and Accountability (23:25–24:34)

• Role of State Officials:
  Murray highlighted states’ interest in criminal violations and the need for an independent investigation:

  “Minnesota has its own interests here … [they] have as much of a stake in this investigation going forward as the federal government.” (22:49)

• Transparency:
  Ari Melber and the Minnesota AG (clip) stressed that public trust demands transparency and an investigation not controlled solely by federal agencies.

7. Broader Political Context: Trump Administration’s Use of Propaganda and Social Media (32:02–46:03)

• Venezuela Operation as Spectacle:
  • Trump’s team prioritized media and social media output during a controversial military operation in Venezuela, distracting from the severity of events.
• Desensitization & Propaganda:
  • Government posts compared ICE operations to video game imagery (e.g., “Halo”), further dehumanizing targets.

  “Stories about people or countries in conflict become abstract, buried under a pile of memes and recursive references...” (36:28)

• Mockery and Critique:
  • South Park mocked the administration’s influencer-style approach to warfare.
  • Ari Melber:

    “This operation killed dozens. It put Americans in harm’s way. And yet, rather than using that material during the raid, Trump’s team took space away from those sources and had this odd feed up of X, the social media app...” (32:39)

• Expert Guest: Michael Hirshhorn (Former VH1 Exec/Reality TV Producer):
  • Warned of “obsession with content at any cost,” arguing lives and national security are sacrificed for fleeting online moments.

  “...governments are getting toppled, people are getting killed. So where does that end?” (40:47)

  • Called for “deep, urgent media literacy” as the only potential antidote.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Ari Melber on Federal Obstruction:
  “They are blocking state officials…meaningfully in the investigation of that shooting...In other words, the feds are cutting them out.” (01:36)
• Eyewitness on ICE Shooting:
  “They got really aggressive and went over to her driver's side door… she obviously got spooked and started to reverse… and then an officer…shot her point blank in the face.” (09:10)
• On Policy:
  “An officer may use deadly force only when they have a reasonable belief that the subject… poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.” (11:47)
• On Propaganda:
  “Stories about people or countries in conflict become abstract, buried under a pile of memes and recursive references that exist for little more than this sort of ‘scroll by’ entertainment…” (36:28)
• Michael Hirshhorn:
  “So many smart people have had their brains absolutely rotted by social media and the humanity is gone.” (40:47)
• Ari Melber’s Closing Concern:
  “On the spectrum of how outraged people might want to be, it is clearly worse when American soldiers are being put in harm’s way, sometimes specifically in the pursuit of more clicks for the President and his aides with their self-videoing phones.” (38:24)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Blocking of State Officials / Breaking News: 01:02–05:22
• Forensic Video Analysis: 04:43–05:22
• Eyewitness Testimony: 09:10
• Rules and Policy Review: 09:41–13:21
• Human Impact / Victim Background: 14:29–17:08
• Panel Discussion (Murray, Ballier): 17:08–24:19
• Federalism & Transparency Clip: 23:25–24:34
• Media Obsession & Venezuela Discussion: 32:02–46:03
• Michael Hirshhorn Interview: 40:47–45:43

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Tone and Language

The episode maintains Ari Melber’s incisive, direct style—explicitly critical of governmental opacity and spin; empathetic toward the human impact; and pointedly attuned to the dangers of spectacle replacing substance in governance and public discourse.

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This detailed summary captures the central issues—federal–state tension, misuse of force, erosion of accountability, and governance via online spectacle—underscoring why this episode is a crucial listen for those concerned with democracy, justice, and media in contemporary America.

Transcript

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[News Anchor / Host]

We begin with the breaking news as we've continued to follow a lot of concern, protest, controversy and basically clashing between the federal government and a state government about that horrific ICE agent shooting an American citizen, this woman, to death in Minneapolis. And tonight the Trump administration has doubled down on what many see as a blatant cover up. They're doing some something unusual and we're going to report this out tonight. They are blocking state officials who of course are on the ground and involved and normally would be a key part of gathering information over time, but they're blocking state officials from participating meaningfully in the investigation of that shooting. Yesterday, Minnesota officials say, quote, the FBI informed them they would no longer have access to case materials, scene evidence, or investigative interviews. In other words, the feds are cutting them out. And that means you have a Trump loyalist who's been very controversial. There's been talk about removing him even because Trump aides aren't happy with him. And he's had, as you may have noticed this year, quite a few errors and blunders in the investigative capacity. But Kash Patel at the FBI will basically be the person looking into Kristi Noem's dhs. That is a recipe for a cover up and suspicious that they don't want any local officials looking at facts and evidence. The feds have not sifted through materials yet or said, hey, let's get our arms around this and then let's have a process or any of the normal things you would expect. But this is not a normal time. This is not a normal government and it's our job to level with you about what's happening in more normal times. We cover these type of stories. And if you live in America, you have probably lived through the discussions and coverage locally or nationally of a lot of times where the authorities, be it local police or the feds, have used heavy or lethal force. In fact, just about everyone alive in the United States who's an adult remembers George Floyd and the BLM protests that came out of the use of police authority that was in 2020. This case involves federal authority that is, on the one hand, growing out of or echoing the past problems we've had with the use of force in this country, but also on the other hand, in the unusual response from the Trump administration in the rush to make misstatements about it or lie if they know better. This is also a direct part of the current autocratic effort in the United States where you have a president who is trying to use soldiers and military powers to against the citizenry. I repeat, this is a part of that larger policy. And when I say that, that doesn't mean that we are trying to take a position on when and how presidents can use soldiers and militarized police, because there are many times that they do, and that's how the National Guard system works, et cetera. But we have to accurately report that the militarization of what was once relatively civil, calm deportation policy in the United States, the militarization of ICE to this degree, and the rhetor and aggressive, sometimes violent claims by top officials in the Trump administration are part of this. So that's kind of the problem. Set as for what happened, we showed the video last night. If you're following the news, you've probably seen it one way or the other. And there are more forensic accounts of this. The New York Times has a very detailed shot by shot analysis of that footage and some other materials they've gathered together. It's hard to watch, but here it is.

[Video Analyst / Investigator]

The SUV reverses, then turns right, apparently attempting to leave. At the same time, the agent filming crosses toward the left of the vehicle and grabs his gun. He opens fire on the motorist and continues shooting as she drives past. The moment the agent fires, he is standing here to the left of the SUV and the wheels are pointing to the right, away from the agent. This appears to conflict with allegations that the SUV was ramming or about to ram the officer. We can see the agent is not being run over. In fact, his feet are positioned away from the suv.

[News Anchor / Host]

That's an important point because this is about evidence. And when you look at cases like this, and we've covered many. You have two basic things to keep in mind. What happened and what did people think happened? That video, the slowed down video we showed you last night, the materials we have show that what happened was the ICE agent escalating the encounter, using deadly force, shooting an unarmed woman to death while not facing anything approaching the legally required danger of grievous bodily harm or death. That's the requirement. That's what appears to have happened, as I've cautioned, and everybody knows, you can get further information, further angles, you can always adjust. But that's what happened. That's door one. Door number two is what reasonably people think happened. Now, that is still in court, up for debate. If the officer says, well, you have the hindsight of looking at all these videos in the moment, I really felt this way and I reasonably had that apprehension and I acted on it. We've covered cases where it comes down to that. What is not okay and not part of the legal process is to have government officials over in Washington or wherever trying to weigh in on this or lie to the American public about it before we even get all the facts. And so that's important because we've heard Trump administration officials jump in and say things that are not accurate about, as I'm telling you, either what happened, what we can see with evidence, or what that one official, that lice agent thought happened. And if they were investigated or potentially indicted, you would have a whole legal process where they're presumed innocent and they would get their side of the story, too. But the idea that Trump officials have said there was only clearly self defense happening here doesn't wash. And the more we learn about this, the more you'll see here are the three shots that rang out in the video. No, no. Shame, shame. Not just one errant shot, not just one sort of sudden decision. But the car, as you saw there, continues to move away. You have the shot, another and another. Photos of the car only indicate visually one bullet hole in the windshield. Now look, you can see here, you can see most of the windshield, you can see that bullet hole. So forensically, there's going to be an investigation here, although we have at the same time the questions of a federal Trump cover up. But any serious investigation and there are outside parties like journalists looking into this. This is an AP photo that are going to look at whether the second and third shots were not from anywhere to the left or in front of the car, but as you could see potentially coming through the open window, meaning the officer was again, as a geographic factual matter, already out of the car's path with the bullet being fired at the side of the car as it drove away, not into the car from the front. Witnesses also indicate the officers did something that can happen when you have multiple people, but that goes to the culpability of different individuals when they say, oh, maybe this individual, this woman, was trying to run them down or was conflicting with orders, which, by the way, doesn't authorize lethal force, but is a relevant question. But witnesses say the woman was receiving opposite instructions. Quote, ICE gave her orders to leave. At the same time, another ICE person said, get out of the car and reach for the door handle. So according to this eyewitness who spoke to npr, it was difficult for her to leave as she'd been ordered to do.

[Legal Expert / Commentator]

I was screaming at her to move, move, move. And then they got really aggressive and went over to her driver's side door and tried to open her door. And then she obviously got spooked and started to reverse. And then, and then an officer approached her and leaned across, like, got in front of her vehicle and then leaned across her, the hood of her car and shot her point blank in the face.

[News Anchor / Host]

You can hear the witness refer to the driver being, quote, spooked or afraid. It's really striking that we are in a moment where you have several armed officers, including other militarized backup on the street in broad daylight, and the federal government is trying to tell you that the key takeaway here is that they, or at least the one who shot, that one of the ICE agents feared for his life. But what we see on the video, what the eyewitnesses saw and what common sense dictates, even if you want to keep as open a mind as possible, is this woman in her car, who reportedly was told both go and stay while witnessing and facing down multiple armed agents. She got scared and tried to drive off. And she didn't hit anyone, by the way, if we want to include that detail. And she is not a federal employee trained with this. These individuals, even though some have been asked to do work that was different than perhaps when they first signed up for the job under, again, as I mentioned, the Trump escalations. These people are heavily trained. They are supposed to stay cool. They are supposed to pull their gun as a last resort. They are not supposed to pull their gun in broad daylight on unarmed American citizens, on a woman driving her car, as if that's the only way to deal with even a situation that might have spun to some degree out of their control. And they are not allowed under the Rules to shoot people fleeing Now. DHS policy says officers are prohibited from discharging firearms to disable moving vehicles. An officer may use deadly force only when they have a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury. That's the standard I told you about. And that's why it would, if legally investigated, matter what that ICE agent reasonably feared. The DOJ policy for federal law enforcement is very specific. It says firearms may not, may not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist, which includes moving out of the path of the vehicle. So to repeat, you've seen several versions of this video tonight. You might have seen it yesterday. In no way under the training rules does that officer make any visible attempt to get away or pull back or get out of what might have been that potential threat or concern about the nature of the where the woman was driving and instead discharged the weapon three times with only one of those bullets going into the windshield. I'm not telling you that we have a final legal solution or explanation of what happened. We have courts and investigations for that very reason. I am telling you that the federal government is not being accurate about what happened and they are trying to avoid a full accounting, including cutting out the local authorities. No one was pressed on this today. You said Matthew Exciting, the officer was following his training.

[Legal Expert / Commentator]

He did follow his training because of.

[News Anchor / Host]

Shots that was point blank into a driver's window is part of the training.

[Congressional Representative]

Is that, how is that self defense?

[Legal Expert / Commentator]

This is an experienced officer who followed his training and we will continue to let the investigation unfold.

[News Anchor / Host]

Body you called her a domestic terrorist.

[Congressional Representative]

Though without an investigation, this was an.

[Legal Expert / Commentator]

Act of domestic terrorism.

[News Anchor / Host]

There has been no investigation into who she was or what she was about.

[Congressional Representative]

And yet now you're saying these policies.

[Legal Expert / Commentator]

And procedures that follow a use of force situation like this are continuing to be put in place.

[News Anchor / Host]

In that brief exchange, she makes two false statements as you've already seen tonight. We showed you the training materials. First, they weren't following the training period and it wouldn't be hard to say, well they did violate that rule. We can all see they shot in the moving vehicle but. And then continue on with whatever argument you want to make. She also doesn't have to get this detailed. She could just say we want to do the full investigation and go from there. As I've told you, that's the normal way. Second, when you look at what she's saying, your government is saying that this woman now killed by Your government is a domestic terrorist. This is right out of a dystopian George Orwell book without, as the questioner mentioned, without investigation, material, documentation, anything, just the person driving is a terrorist. Anyone we kill is a terrorist, and so on. This is dangerous. And this is dangerous for anyone in America who's going to have to deal with ice, which we're told is going to be everywhere. So don't think that you're not part of the group that could be affected. Here's the Minneapolis Chief of Police.

[Law Enforcement Official / Advertiser Voice]

The investigators need to follow all of the facts and all of the evidence to its logical conclusion. It is our obligations as law enforcement, as law enforcement leaders to be the grownups in the room and to look at this and say, hey, maybe we need to reevaluate, evaluate our tactics. Because as best I could tell, all this was initially about was a middle aged woman in her car blocking the street.

[News Anchor / Host]

There you have that. Thousands gathering on the ground. Also to remember the woman who was killed by the ICE agent, Renee Nicole Macklengood was 37 years old. She was the mother of three. She has never been charged with anything involving law enforcement other than say, traffic tickets, which the AP checked. She's been described as a devoted Christian who took part in youth mission trips to Northern Ireland when she was younger. She loved to sing. She participated in a chorus in high school. She studied vocal performance in college. Online, there's footage of a person who was identified as the victim's wife, distraught right after the shooting. Did you call any of your people yet? These are times where people might want to look away or even question which videos we should watch and how many times. It is difficult, it is a tragedy. The AP spoke to Good's ex husband who said she just dropped off her six year old son who was just referenced in that difficult video, dropped him off at school, was driving home with her partner when they encountered this group of ICE agents. This is the human side to this story. And so while it is understandable to look away or take a break from some of what we're living through, a federal government engaged in a cover up, lying to you is also hoping that you, the citizenry might just do that. We don't have that luxury. And we have two special guests to get into what matters here when we come back.

[Legal Expert / Commentator]

I knew after witnessing it that this would be misconstrued into self defense, which it actually, it absolutely is not. This was totally preventable and absolutely unnecessary.

[News Anchor / Host]

We're joined now by Eric Ballier, retired ICE officer and NYU law professor, Melissa Murray. Professor Murray, your thoughts tonight?

[Legal Expert / Commentator]

Well, I think we've all been waiting for something like this to happen. The robustness of the ICE enforcement effort, I think, has made everyone aware of the presence of these agents in our cities. And it was only a matter of time before it ended like this. And you know, this is deeply, deeply unfortunate. A child has been left without a mother. That child already suffered the loss of his father. He's effectively been orphaned. Two other children are without their mother. This is a horrific turn of events. One of the things that is striking, especially striking to me right now, is to hear Secretary Noem characterize this as domestic terrorism, even as this administration takes steps to effectively block Minnesota from participating in the investigation. As we know, in the aftermath of 9 11, one of the best practices that was identified post 911 was the state, local and federal officials working in collaboration to investigate acts of terrorism. So if this is an act of terrorism, as Secretary Noem has characterized it, then it would make sense to have Minnesota's involvement because that has been a post 911 best practice. The fact that they are walling them out of this and that this has become an entirely federal question, federal issue, and there is no jurisdiction for state investigative resources to be applied here is quite unorthodox, I think, at this point.

[News Anchor / Host]

Eric.

[Retired ICE Officer / Law Enforcement Expert]

Thank you for having me. I think a couple things on the FBI's engagement with the investigation. Number one, in my experience, that has been a fairly standard operating procedure for the FBI to take lead, especially of her regard if it's in relation to federal law enforcement shootings. That being said, I also think from an evidentiary stance, evidence collection, consistency of policies, personnel and process, consistency with lab work, forensics, ballistics, all of those things. I do think that this makes sense. I would expect, and I have the utmost confidence in the rank and file FBI agents to get this done. Do it right, be thorough, objective and fair.

[News Anchor / Host]

You're saying it makes sense to not use the local authorities. Why?

[Retired ICE Officer / Law Enforcement Expert]

So I think at some point they will be brought in. I think this is the first phase of the investigation where they are doing forensics on the weapon that was used. They're doing ballistics, they're interviewing people, they're pulling body cams from any federal officers that were wearing them at the scene. So I think this is a fairly standard routine. It doesn't give me a whole lot of concern at this point. Okay.

[News Anchor / Host]

I mean, I think. I think I hear you. I think the reason why there's concern is that you have federal officials who've been misleading about the material. So they're not necessarily entitled any rational deference when they've misstated the material and then are taking that step. But turning to the operational part, what did you think, given your background of the way the interaction went?

[Retired ICE Officer / Law Enforcement Expert]

It's tough to watch. From my training and experience, we were taught to approach the vehicles from the sides. Vehicles do not move laterally. They move forward and in reverse. The other thing I think, and you touched on this in your opening, is that we were trained that one agent would take command and give the verbal instructions to the occupants or the driver so that there is no confusion or misunderstanding of what the intent is of the officers on the scene. Anybody else that is there on scene should be in a support role looking for threats, looking for weapons, and is there to support the direction and commands that that officer gives. For example, get out of the car, person gets out of the car. The agent that gave those commands would not then approach the person. It would be another support officer.

[News Anchor / Host]

Let me show a little more because I mentioned the times accounting of the video, since we're talking about those, those tactics. Take a look.

[Video Analyst / Investigator]

The SUV crashes into a white car parked down the road. What the. A bystander runs toward the collision. The federal agents on scene do not appear to rush to provide emergency medical care. Eventually, the agent who shot the motorist approaches the vehicle. Seconds later he turns back around and tells his colleagues to call 911. Several agents, including the agent who opened fire, get in their vehicles and drive off, apparently altering the active crime scene.

[News Anchor / Host]

Your views of that immediate AfterMath and what Ice has been asked to do here. Because while of course, they do engage sometimes with armed individuals or individuals of a higher threat matrix. This seems to be a daytime interaction with unarmed individuals. In this case an American citizen that but for their presence wouldn't. Wouldn't have involved any death.

[Retired ICE Officer / Law Enforcement Expert]

Agree with you in that regard. I will say one thing that is troubling is we were also taught that when there is a critical incident, especially a shooting, everybody is to render immediate first aid. There's to be no. That is a sense of urgency. That is something that has not. Once that threat is no longer the immediate turn is to rendering first aid. Life saving, CPR tourniquets, whatever it takes to provide. Everybody's trained in those basic first aid. And I think the lack of urgency that is shown in that video is troubling, Professor.

[Legal Expert / Commentator]

Not only the failure to render aid, but leaving the scene which fundamentally alters the nature of the crime scene and compromises the nature of any ensuing investigation. So there's that. To go back to what Mr. Biale said with regard to the federal government taking the lead in the investigation, I think it's fine for the FBI and federal law enforcement to take the lead, but that doesn't necessarily mean the state or local officials having no investigative role to play as well. Minnesota has its own interests here. It has its own criminal law that may have been violated here. They don't know. They have as much of a stake in this investigation going forward as the federal government.

[News Anchor / Host]

Well, and on that point, we actually had the attorney general of Minnesota on just last night. This was before the news broke about this change. But I was asking him because there was this question basically of the potential tension between these parts of our federalist government. Take a listen. What does it say that you feel we need to have a local investigation of the feds here and the kind of reverse federalism problems that you may be facing if Trump says, well, hey, you can't, you can't look under the hood, well, we've got to have a transparent, we've got to have transparency. We've got to have meaningful accountability.

[Law Enforcement Official / Advertiser Voice]

And so we need, we need an independent investigation that does not involve only.

[News Anchor / Host]

The feds investigating the feds. If this investigation is going to have any credibility at all.

[Legal Expert / Commentator]

I think that's the bottom line. For the public to feel like this was done in good faith, they have to believe that this was done legitimately. And right now, the fact that one group is being walled out of this entirely, I think, does not give credence to the idea that this is going to be legitimate or fair.

[News Anchor / Host]

I'm Melissa Murray and Eric Bollier on a difficult story and a lot of details. I think both of you for joining us later tonight. We turn to the Venezuela Internet obsession by Donald Trump and some of his aides. People are calling it a clicktatorship as they used X during the mission. We'll explain. But first, an update on the Epstein files. More pressure on the DOJ breaking the new Epstein law. It says there are 2 million documents they still want to review, which means 99% are still being hidden now illegally. Lawmakers are pushing for any number of ways to address this. They can sue, but they're also asking for a federal judge in New York in the famously independent Southern District of New York to appoint what's called a special master who would actually put more of an audit and more teeth behind the requirement that the DOJ comply with the law. Now we have a member of Congress at the center of that, Robert Garcia, top Democrat on the Oversight Committee. And I want to begin with some news. We have this exclusive, a letter that you're going to send to the Oversight Chairman Comer demanding a hearing to examine the DOJ inaction thus far on the Epstein law with the failures I just mentioned, as well as subpoenaing Pam Bondi to testify. What can you tell us about this news tonight?

[Congressional Representative]

Look, I think first it's very clear that the DOJ and Pam Bondi are leading this White House cover up. It has been past time for her to come testify in front of the Oversight Committee. Ever since this earlier summer when we passed the initial subpoena for the documents, the DOJ continuously has broken the law. Once Congress passes the Transparency act that of course Khanna and Massey fought so hard for, they continue to break the law and they are defying now both the House and the Senate and not getting all these documents. And we've learned just recently from reporting and our own analysis that only about 1%, 1% of the total documents in the possession of the DOJ we have now actually seen in our and then we have in our possession. And what's more outrageous is that within that 1% there have been over redactions, they've displayed names of survivors and not protected them and they continue to hide mentions of President Trump. And quite frankly, it all looks incredibly suspicious. So Pam Bonding needs to appear in front of us. James, James Comer has said that he's interested in doing so in the past. So we expect him to actually follow our demand to bring him in. And finally, let me just say this, the actions right now in trying to get the special master appointed, which of course our oversight member Khanna is doing, we proudly support and is an important effort in this whole investigation.

[News Anchor / Host]

At what point do you also formally sue for them breaking the law and try to get the courts to put on a heat or pressure that apparently the DOJ is not feeling yet.

[Congressional Representative]

So that is something, of course, that we are, we've been working on with a bunch of different, different outside groups that are working on this and we're talking also within the Congress, of course, in the minority. We don't have the ability to sue directly on behalf of the House. But there are other efforts that are happening. I think you're beginning to see that roll out with this letter to the federal judge in New York.

[News Anchor / Host]

Yeah, it's very important. I know you've been working on it and we've talked to both you, your colleagues. So that's a story we're staying on the headline being you're making news here on this demand to put the heat on Bondi. While I have you on the Obamacare front, the House Republicans have taken, interestingly, another step here to do what I think you and others have advocated, which is to have health care funding right now, the House passing this bill to extend the subsidies for three years. Tell us what's going on here.

[Congressional Representative]

Look, this is a huge win for the American public and certainly for Leader Jeffries and House Democrats. We've been fighting to extend the ACA subsidies essentially to ensure that these premiums stop spiking. We have people across the country that are seeing their healthcare costs go up every single day. Now, the Senate, if they act on what we have done, we can actually stop that spiking of costs. And it's crazy that while we're fighting to actually support health care for the average American and working family, Donald Trump wants to spend billions and billions of dollars to build infrastructure in Venezuela so he can take all of the oil. This is. This is what's crazy. Right now, at this moment, we're fighting for health care. Donald Trump's invading foreign countries and trying to build oil infrastructure with our taxpaying dollars. That should go to working families. And so that's the difference right now. I'm really glad this passed the House with some Republicans as well.

[News Anchor / Host]

Yeah. And it's striking because there's a lot going on. You're aware of it, we've been covering it. And yet this is an issue that does affect people's access to health care. Millions of people. And it appears, as you said, there's some progress there. So we definitely wanted to get your view from inside Congress. Thank you very much for joining us. Appreciate it. We're going to fit in a break, but up next, we look at Donald Trump's media obsessions, how south park has roasted him and why this war and these war powers being used in Venezuela and beyond all trace back to Donald Trump's reality show obsessions. We have a really interesting guest. It's actually an important story with a little bit of south park mockery of the president. You're going to see it next.

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[News Anchor / Host]

President Trump's Venezuela policy has many problems. The risk of invading a country and extracting its foreign leader, which is an act of war, claiming to use war powers for oil, something that US Presidents of both parties have denied over a series of wars. Because at the end of the day, we may be a divided country, but most Americans agree that we don't want to risk American lives just for cheaper oil. There's also the total failure to plan for the long term after taking Maduro out of the country. So there's a lot of that stuff. We've covered some of it. Tonight we're going to turn to another different and specific problem. How Trump and his team often seem more focused on the PR and sort of online hyping of this operation than the actual war powers and bombing that they're conducting. The White House has released pictures for promotion on Trump's social media and other sites. We of course saw this photo. Ms. Now hasn't independently verified it, but it's been widely seen as the real photo from the president showing off his capture. We've also seen the touting by Trump's War team in its makeshift situation room. They put these photos out very quickly as part of their narrative of look how they're doing. And this operation killed dozens. It put Americans in harm's way. And remember, the US oversees 17 intelligence agencies with all sorts of info and intel. And yet, rather than using that material during the raid, Trump's team took space away from those sources and had this odd feed up of X, the social media app formerly Twitter. During this activity, you can see the emoji there. You can see someone typed in Venezuela in the search bar. We don't know if they had anyone on hand to, you know, translate Spanish of what people might have been tweeting, whether it was true or not. Another angle shows X right behind the CIA director. This unusual use of cherished space on the big screen in that security setting has drawn all kinds of mockery and concern. Trump's overall glee reflects an interest in the ongoing spectacle and his own personal power over the substance and the stakes. A writer, Don Moynihan, likens all of this to a new clicktatorship. Trump aides not just using social media to shape a narrative, but many of its members seem to be, quote, deeply addicted to it. The images coming from Homeland Security under Nome, for example, the way Pete Hegseth, who is a. Was a big sort of media guy before all this. TV and social media have already drawn mockery long before Venezuela, because it has been very noticeable how interested these people with very serious jobs seem to be daily, on a daily basis, obsessed with priority and social media, and they got this brutal south park mockery.

[Retired ICE Officer / Law Enforcement Expert]

Yeah, yeah.

[News Anchor / Host]

Hey, what's up, guys? It's Pete Hexth, the Department of War. We're here to infiltrate this police station and extract a poi. Cause that's what we do.

[Retired ICE Officer / Law Enforcement Expert]

That.

[News Anchor / Host]

That's what Homeland Security does. Be sure to like and subscribe, guys. We've got.

[Congressional Representative]

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

[News Anchor / Host]

This is not your content. Everyone like and subscribe to the Department of War. Acting like a tough guy, posting it around the world, making lots of content, like a little teenage girl. You can see that's a parody. We had to bleep out some part, but this is how they're actually conducting war. Prominent DOJ official under Trump at civil rights says, what kind of content do my folks want to see more of? To like and share, like and subscribe, as they said in the mockery version. DOJ's leader, Pam Bondi, brought notes to a Senate hearing that seemed completely focused on getting social media zingers. Which senators noticed. Having you respond with completely irrelevant far.

[Law Enforcement Official / Advertiser Voice]

Right Internet talking points really is not very helpful here.

[News Anchor / Host]

His tendency has been on display. The White House uses kind of misleading tech slop and very offensive attacks to put out ridiculous material. These are on taxpayer funded accounts. This is not some concern about campaign tactics. You can say what you want, but this is your tax dollars being used for these kind of ridiculous and on the lower right racist imagery. The propaganda also of course is designed to shock and thus help it go viral. Here's a DHS post where they compared immigrant enforcement to the Halo video game. Except that's not of course about human beings. It's about players who fight or round up actual parasitic non human aliens. The process is nihilistic. All of this has a dehumanizing effect. Notes in Atlantic article Stories about people or countries in conflict become abstract, buried under a pile of memes and recursive references that exist for little more than this sort of quote scroll by Entertainment like so many Trump offenses, he's not hiding it. The longtime reality show figure likens again a life and death operation which could have cost American lives. They certainly were in danger. They killed dozens of people on the ground in Venezuela. He likens it all naturally to a fictional TV show. If you would have seen what happened. I mean I watched it literally like I was watching a television show. But it's not a TV show even if it's on tv. And it is not a harmless, entertaining exchange of supposedly clever quips online, even though nowadays everything we can see and share does also exist online. There's a bigger problem here. It is corrosive. And on the spectrum of how outraged people might want to be, it is clearly worse when American soldiers are being put in harm's way, sometimes specifically in the pursuit of more clicks for the President and his aides with their self videoing phones. Our guest on this topic is a longtime reality TV pioneer and democracy activist and advocate. He joins me next.

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[News Anchor / Host]

Is this about national security or about more Internet content? That's one of the questions we raised tonight. And we're joined by Michael Hirshhorn, really kind of a perfect guest for this interesting, weird topic. He's a reality TV pioneer, former head of programming at VH1. Even helped create Flavor of Love and I love the 80s. Wish that was what we were talking about tonight. He contributes to New York Times and is a democracy activist. And so you've come at this in so many different ways. I just walked through it. The obsession with content, even amid the RAID X on the screen in the background. We'll put that photo up again. Walk us through this.

[Law Enforcement Official / Advertiser Voice]

Well, I think it's the obsession with content at any cost. And now the cost of this obsession is getting higher and higher and higher. Governments are getting toppled, people are getting killed. So where does that end? And that inversion and the kind of, you know, the brain pickling. There's so many smart people have had their brains absolutely rotted by social media and the humanity is gone. The common sense is gone. And, you know, we're, we're in a bit of an absurdist nightmare.

[News Anchor / Host]

Now, you mentioned cost. War and national security operations have the highest secrecy.

[Law Enforcement Official / Advertiser Voice]

Right.

[News Anchor / Host]

For many obvious reasons. I don't need to re explain the rush during an operation and right after to be sharing without much review. We know there's not a lot of review. If you post something within 30 minutes of it happening, we know there was very little thoughtful layers of review. And that puts things at risk because our adversaries might learn something from who was in or out of the room and how far they had to travel. There's something called Mosaic theory where if you get random different bits of information about an adversary, you can start piecing it together, to say nothing of what you can do with tech. Now, should we take seriously the risk that the rush by the top people all the way up to the president to get this material out could sooner or later endanger our people in the field.

[Law Enforcement Official / Advertiser Voice]

Well, I think the whole thing is careening off a cliff. And I think it's, you know, as a few people have pointed out and you've slightly hinted at, it's not obvious that there's a plan behind any of these moments. Like we're being fed a series of moments that are themselves disconnected, moments that have no follow up. And I'm putting the mind of this raid that happened in the fall in Chicago. When they came down on the south side of Chicago, a helicopter landed on the roof of this apartment complex. They announced that they were arresting all these trende Aragua gang members. Half naked kids were pulled out and zip tied and left out in the cold. The net consequence of that was nothing. Nobody was indicted. Two people, I believe were, you know, had. Had some kind of immigration violation and were sent back to Venezuela. I mean, the whole thing is a horror. Like people's lives were completely destroyed just for a social media moment.

[News Anchor / Host]

Is there an antidote to that dynamic where spectacle literally seems to supplant reality?

[Law Enforcement Official / Advertiser Voice]

It's hard to figure out what it is. I would say deep, urgent media literacy, like understanding, especially if you're older and you didn't grow up in social media, understanding how to take in provocative pieces of information and understand how seriously to take them or not to take them. The problem is you can't completely ignore them because people are getting shot in the face as a result of this. Right. The point of the Minneapolis escalation was to have maybe not this precise moment, but a moment like this that could provoke conflict.

[News Anchor / Host]

And do you think Trump seems to be the same or getting worse? Because when he starts posting 50, 100, 150 times you talked about being pickled. That's more extreme than he even used to be.

[Law Enforcement Official / Advertiser Voice]

Well, I think the problem is that in order to keep people engaged, both, both outraging them and exciting them, the stakes have to increase.

[News Anchor / Host]

Right.

[Law Enforcement Official / Advertiser Voice]

And so the question is, what happens next? What's what's now good enough beyond, you know, shooting a mother of three in the face, frog marching a foreign leader off in a Nike tracksuit. Like what's the next thing you have to do?

[News Anchor / Host]

And that goes to the sort of addicted, mediated environment we're in, which Marshall McLuhan or anyone would say is it is different from a slower thing, you know, long form, watching an hour is very different from that. Let's end on a lighter note. We all need it. What's your favorite reality show?

[Law Enforcement Official / Advertiser Voice]

Favorite? I think the Traders right now. I think is has the kind of light touch we could all use in this moment.

[News Anchor / Host]

You know what I like and it's. It's maybe embarrassing to say here on tv.

[Law Enforcement Official / Advertiser Voice]

Yes.

[News Anchor / Host]

I used to really like Million Dollar Listing.

[Law Enforcement Official / Advertiser Voice]

It's a fine show because it had closure.

[News Anchor / Host]

Every episode they either got the property or they didn't. So I felt like, oh, okay, right.

[Law Enforcement Official / Advertiser Voice]

And is it. Is it a love to hate or a love to love or like, is it a fantasy projection?

[News Anchor / Host]

Definitely love to hate.

[Law Enforcement Official / Advertiser Voice]

Okay.

[News Anchor / Host]

Yeah. Because it's a shallowness and the silliness, but for some, if you're dealing with news all day. We're all dealing with life all day. Right.

[Law Enforcement Official / Advertiser Voice]

We need to find thing. We need something.

[News Anchor / Host]

You gotta work, we gotta get it, you know, 3% downer. We're not going to get the deal. And I'd be like, are they going to get the deal? And then in the back of my head I'd be like, you know, this is not real exactly, but this is real. This is real. Michael Hirschhorn, thank you. We'll be right back. Thanks for watching the beat. Take care.

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