Jacob Soboroff and Sarah McBride: Democracy at the Ground Level

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast

Episode: Jacob Soboroff and Sarah McBride: Democracy at the Ground Level
Date: October 10, 2025
Host: Tim Miller
Guests: Jacob Soboroff (MSNBC Correspondent), Sarah McBride (U.S. Congressman, Delaware), Sarah Lama (Co-host and interviewer)

Overview

This episode of The Bulwark Podcast tackles the state of American democracy through recent political developments and ground-level reporting. Tim Miller, joined by Jacob Soboroff and Sarah McBride, covers alarming trends in the federal government’s use of law enforcement, targeted indictments of political foes, the humanitarian impact of recent immigration enforcement, and the politics of coalition-building for democracy and rights. Soboroff provides vivid accounts from the streets of Chicago and LA under federal operations, while McBride offers candid perspectives from inside Congress, particularly on the ongoing government shutdown, Republican disarray, and the interconnected fight for health care and democracy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Nobel Peace Prize & Political Weaponization of Justice [00:00-04:32]

• Nobel Peace Prize: Tim Miller announces Maria Machado as the 2025 winner for her work in Venezuela and contrasts this with Donald Trump’s failed pursuit of the prize.

  • "The way that a five year old wants a medal is how Donald Trump wants the Nobel Peace Prize." – Tim Miller [01:30]

• Tish James’ Indictment: Explains the indictment of NY AG Tish James on allegedly manufactured bank fraud charges, seeing this as weaponization of the justice system under Trump.

  • "The punishment is the indictment in some cases… the punishment is the hassle, the cost, the embarrassment, the chilling effect on other people." – Tim Miller [03:08]
  • Draws a distinction between local vs. federal prosecution, highlighting chilling, unprecedented presidential directives.

2. Chicago & LA Federal Operations: Democracy at Risk [08:13-28:40]

Ground Reporting from Chicago:

• Federal Agents on Streets: Soboroff recounts federal agents rounding up people, often without cause, in Latino neighborhoods:

  • "It was really like deja vu from being in LA ... people mobilized and came out into the streets. Not because they're just dissatisfied, but because they're disgusted by the behavior of these federal agents...” – Jacob Soboroff [08:56]
  • Over 1,000 people detained since September; tactics involve masked agents, unmarked cars, and aggressive force, particularly in working-class Latino areas.

• Legal Pushback: Coverage of a federal judge’s ruling opposing troop deployment in Illinois, viewing it as “adding fuel to the fire.”

• Insurrection Act Fears: Both Miller and Soboroff discuss the threat of Trump invoking the Insurrection Act to justify further militarization.

  • "They don't make much of a secret about any of this stuff ... this all seems like a big pretext to invoking the Insurrection Act." – Jacob Soboroff [11:19]
  • Pritzker's warning: This is laying groundwork for federal troops at the ballots by 2026.

Intentional Provocation:

• Protests & Federal Response: Federal deployment appears intended to provoke unrest, providing pretext for more aggressive actions.
  • "Why would you roll down a residential street in Cicero, 90% Latino ... with a videographer following ... to take a 53 year old mother ... if the intention was not to send a message or provoke or scare the shit out of people?" – Jacob Soboroff [12:57]
  • LA seen as “the petri dish” for federal takeover of local law enforcement.

Framing Immigration as a Democracy Issue:

• Democracy & Human Impact: Emphasizes these operations are not just about immigration, but about undermining democracy and constitutional checks.
  • "Immigration is the side story... really it's about checks and balances on power in the United States. And we're seeing them sort of crumble before our very eyes right now." – Jacob Soboroff [14:27]

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3. Personal Impact Stories from the Ground [17:58-41:45]

Marcella’s Story [17:58-24:42]

• Soboroff shares the story of Marcella, a 53-year-old woman taken by ICE while running errands, and the moment her daughter saw the abduction video:

  • "All my life, I've prepared for this moment... But who the hell would have thought it would happen today?... She was just going to get meat for a stew." – Samantha (daughter, via Soboroff) [21:10]
  • Marcella lived in the U.S. for 30 years with no criminal record besides being undocumented and now faces imminent deportation.

• Soboroff critiques how enforcement emphasizes spectacle and intimidation:

  • "They're literally ... making snuff films out of it ... what are they doing with that stuff?” – Jacob Soboroff [24:35]

Systemic Patterns & Historical Context

• Reviews bipartisan history of punitive immigration policy from Clinton to Biden and Trump, noting the enduring logic of deterrence.
  • "Objectively punishing people and hurting people for being immigrants has never stopped people from coming to this country." – Jacob Soboroff [26:01]

Due Process Abuses:

• Reports that even U.S. citizens are caught up in sweeps; describes random stops, profiling, and perfunctory questions (“Are you a U.S. citizen?”).
  • "As we've seen, they've detained American citizens too, who do that, only to release them later." [25:25]

Protest Movements & Community Response [32:15-33:36]

• Accounts of rapid, large-scale community mobilizations, such as 7,000 people marching in Chicago:
  • _"It was electricity. It was electric. It was amazing." – Jacob Soboroff [32:20]

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4. Profiles in Enforcement’s Human Toll [33:43-42:42]

• Estella & Nori Ramos: LA family, mother and college-age daughter (Nori) deported to Guatemala, mother dies due to lack of medication soon after.
  • “The family back in LA... says the deportation is what killed her, not her underlying medical condition.” – Soboroff [35:19]
• Narciso Barranco: Longtime resident and father of three U.S. Marine sons, beaten and detained by ICE while working in California.
  • "If I would have treated a detainee the way that those guys treated my dad, I'd be tried for a war crime." – Alejandro Barranco (son) [38:20]
• George Reddes: American citizen, wrongfully detained, described solitary confinement and harsh treatment, raising alarms about civil liberties abuses.
  • "This chapter of American history will fall in line after ... slavery and genocide and internment" – Jacob Soboroff [41:45]

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5. Firestorm: The New Age of Disaster [43:06-46:26]

• Soboroff previews his upcoming book about the LA fires, tying disaster response, misinformation, and politicization into a wider pattern of crisis mismanagement.
  • “The thing that I’ve really taken away ... was like the fire of the future ... and the politics of misinformation and disinformation ... did nothing but pour more proverbial fuel on the fire.” – Jacob Soboroff [43:21]

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6. Congress, Shutdown, and Democratic Strategy

[51:04-57:40 | Sarah McBride and Sarah Lama]

Civility and Bullying in Congress

• Candid recounting of avoidance and hostility from Congresswoman Nancy Mace towards McBride, implying a breakdown of basic civility.
  • "Every single time she sees me, she turns around and goes the other way." – Sarah McBride [51:23]

Shutdown Politics: Pressure and Leverage

• McBride on Democratic resolve amid GOP infighting:

  • "I think Republicans are in disarray, and I think Democrats feel like we are in a righteous fight right now." – Sarah McBride [53:14]

• Asserts that the GOP is both obsessed with cutting health care and unwilling to negotiate.

• “Epstein files” and efforts to block Democratic procedural leverage noted.

Connecting Authoritarianism, Tax Cuts, and Healthcare

• Emphasizes that the fight over healthcare is linked to Trump’s consolidation of power, not just standalone policy.
  • “You are also addressing the authoritarian consolidation of power in that moment, too.” – Sarah McBride [56:52]

Democratic Cohesion & Public Opinion

• Democrats must both deliver on tangible issues and wage a battle for public opinion as a lever against Trump’s policies.
  • “The main lever we have at our disposal ... is public opinion.” – Sarah McBride [55:19]

Republican Disarray and Possible Outcome

• McBride sees real possibility of GOP caving on shutdown as troops and voters feel the cost, noting cracks inside the Republican coalition.
  • “I think we could see them cave. And ... we will show that the emperor has no clothes.” – Sarah McBride [58:25]

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7. Coalition-Building and the 'Big Tent' [61:59-66:19]

Big Tent Philosophy

• McBride articulates necessity of including ideological diversity to defeat authoritarianism:

  • "If you can get behind... working people need more help, and... that freedom and democracy are good ... welcome to our cause." – Sarah McBride [62:24]

• Advocates persuading wavering allies and maintaining relationships even with those who partially disagree, to grow a durable pro-democracy coalition.

Trans Rights and Pragmatism

• McBride negotiates the difficult terrain of trans rights as a wedge issue, referencing marriage equality as precedent:
  • "We can defend [trans youth] and meet voters where they are at the same time. I do not believe that those are mutually exclusive..." – Sarah McBride [67:47]
  • Asserts best policy is for athletic associations, not politicians, to set trans sports policy [71:12].

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8. Lighter Moments & Personal Insights [71:12–72:58]

• Banter on regional culture wars (Wawa vs. Sheetz), bathroom etiquette, and past affiliations, showing personal sides of the speakers beyond politics.

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Notable Quotes

“The way that a five year old wants a medal is how Donald Trump wants the Nobel Peace Prize.”
— Tim Miller [01:30]

"This is the President of the United States directing the power of the Justice Department to go after his political foes widely. That is ... a complete category difference."
— Tim Miller [04:35]

"What is happening is large scale, indiscriminate picking up of people off the street because of the way that they look or the way that they sound or the jobs that they have..."
— Jacob Soboroff [08:51]

"Immigration is ... one pillar of a larger story that's about how our democracy functions ... And we're seeing [checks and balances] sort of crumble before our very eyes right now."
— Jacob Soboroff [14:27]

"All my life, I've prepared for this moment ... my mom ... has told me one day this could come, and we have to be prepared. But who the hell would have thought it would happen today?"
— Samantha (Marcella’s daughter, via Soboroff) [21:10]

"They're literally ... making snuff films out of it ... what are they doing with that stuff?”
— Jacob Soboroff [24:35]

"If I would have treated a detainee the way that those guys treated my dad, I'd be tried for a war crime."
— Alejandro Barranco (via Soboroff) [38:20]

"If you can get behind... working people need more help, and... that freedom and democracy are good ... welcome to our cause."
— Sarah McBride [62:24]

“We can defend [trans youth] and meet voters where they are at the same time. I do not believe that those are mutually exclusive ...”
— Sarah McBride [67:47]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00–04:32: Trump, Nobel, and weaponization of justice.
• 08:13–14:59: Chicago/LA operations, democracy concerns, Insurrection Act.
• 17:58–24:42: Marcella’s story, impact of raids.
• 33:43–42:42: Profiles of affected LA families, civil liberties abuses.
• 43:06–46:26: "Firestorm" book and politicization of disaster response.
• 51:04–57:40: McBride on Congressional environment, healthcare vs. authoritarianism.
• 61:59–66:19: Big tent strategy, persuasion, and values-based coalition.
• 67:47–71:12: Trans rights as wedge issue, balancing advocacy and coalition growth.

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Conclusion

This episode of The Bulwark Podcast blends on-the-ground investigative journalism with sharp political analysis. Soboroff’s reporting portrays a nation confronting an existential challenge to its democratic norms, while McBride’s insights reveal a Democratic Party searching for effective responses and broad alliances in the face of rising authoritarianism. The stories told highlight the human cost, the strategic imperatives for pro-democracy forces, and make a compelling case for principled coalition-building.

Transcript

[Tim Miller]

Hey, everybody. We're going deep in the scenes from Chicago with Jacob Soboroff today, who's been on the ground doing amazing reporting. But I wanted to also hit on a couple of news items this morning. The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Maria Machado, noticeably not Donald Trump. She received it for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela, which is in contrast with bombing people from Venezuela and also in contrast with sending people from Venezuela to foreign gulags. So you can maybe see why her resume was a little bit better. So congratulations to Maria Machado. It's a tough break for Mr. Trump who really, really wanted one more trophy. Man wants trophies more than a five year old. I gotta tell you, my daughter, God love her this last year, two years ago. So either age 5 or 6 demanded to do track because she wanted a medal so badly. Did track is fast. Got two medals this year when we asked her if she wanted to do track. Nope, didn't want to. No box was checked. And that is, I feel like that's the depth, the same depth at which Donald Trump wants the Nobel Peace Prize. It's like the way that a five year old wants a medal is how is how Donald Trump wants the Nobel Peace Prize, but he hasn't received it yet. So maybe they'll keep him on good behavior up until 2026. Fingers crossed on that. In I think the more significant news from last night, New York Attorney General Tish James was indicted on charges of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. Was indicted by a federal grand jury in Virginia, which is worth noting. This is about the second mortgage that she had on a home in Norfolk. We've been covering this, this guy, Bill Pulte, who, you know, there's a random apparatchik that in the housing, one of the housing departments has decided to, you know, try to go after all of Trump's foes and dig deep in any resistance figures, mortgage history. And so this is what he came up with. It is worth reminding you, reminding us that, that the U.S. attorney for that district, Eric Siebert, who is a Trump appointee, left his post after deciding that he was not going to succumb to the pressure to indict James and Comey. And he has been replaced by a hack with no prosecution experience. So we'll see how things go forth of this. You know, part of this is, you know, the punishment is the indictment in some cases. And I think Donald Trump really wants to see some of his foes go to jail. For sure. I think he would take a lot of glee out of that. But the punishment is the hassle, the cost, the embarrassment, the chilling effect on other people. Right. Like that is what they're trying to do here. I don't think that anybody suspects there'll be a lengthy prison sentence for someone based on their mortgage paperwork, which I can't even weigh in on the merits of whether or not there's even any there there. But I think that the direct effort by the government to target people personally from the top because they are political foes, and to do so after a public directive, it should have been private directive, but it was, was. It was intended to be a private directive rather, but it was a public directive from the President to the Attorney General that the Department of Justice go after his political foes for ticky tack shit. It is new, it is chilling and alarming, and it is. And it is a place that we really haven't been before. And I think that I saw some discussion on this, I'm sure you guys did, about how maybe this isn't that different. Right. Because Tish James did go after Trump on, I don't think it's fair to say, a relatively ticky tack charge after saying that she was going to go after Trump. I mean, this was something that we talked about a lot here at the Bulwark during that period between 2020 and 2024, that the January 6 charges were very serious against Trump. They the classified documents charges, very serious against Trump. The charges in New York were less so. Right. And, and so, you know, you saw some people, I even saw on CNN last night, some, you know, neutral pundits being like, well, you know, just is what's good for the goose is good for the gander, et cetera. And it's like, well, this is actually, no, a completely different story. This is the President of the United States directing the power of the Justice Department to go after his political foes widely.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

That is different than one local prosecutor deciding to go after someone. It is not to argue that that's okay or that it's appropriate or anything. It's just, it is a complete category difference. It's a complete category difference. This is why we have the system that we have, you know, where there are local prosecutors all over the country, some of them have better judgments than others. People have the opportunity to appeal. You know, you can go up the ladder. There are judges, there are juries. Like, there are a lot of opportunities for people to remediate. And that is not what we're doing now. And that is very different than having the president of the United States and the attorney general of the United States go after foes purposefully based on essentially nothing. Based on essentially nothing. And having show trials in order to intimidate and chill their political opposition. That's a new thing, at least in the modern times, and it is pernicious. And we should all speak out against it, regardless of what anyone's feelings are about what was happening in New York with the Trump trial in New York. Obviously, we'll have much more on that in our show. We're in New York tomorrow night, Saturday night, and that will be out for you guys at some point on the Borg YouTube feed and Borg takes feed, so keep an eye out for that. A couple other scheduling notes. As I mentioned, we got a double header today. I got Jacob Soboroff up first in segment two. I'm going to play for you the interview between Sarah Longwell and Sarah McBride from our live show in DC. It was really great and appreciate so much Sarah McBride coming out to our show. And I think that she has some really insightful things to say about the Democratic Party and also obviously trans issues, which became a big issue for Democrats back in 2024. But much more broadly than that, she is super astute on this stuff. And I think that you'll like the interview very much. I also did an interview last night with George Reddes, which maybe I'll talk about a little bit today on the show, who is the American citizen that was jailed for three days. I actually didn't even realize before I talked to him just how heinous his treatment was. So I'd appreciate if you went and checked out my conversation with him over on the Borg takes feeder over on our YouTube. Appreciate you all very much. Up next, Jacob Soborough, hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome the senior political and national correspondent for msnbc. Might see him on with Nicole Wallace and me sometimes. He's been reporting live from the streets of Chicago. He's also got a forthcoming book, Firestorm, about the devastating LA fires. It's Jacob sober off. What's up, man?

[Jacob Soboroff]

What's up, man? Thank you so much for being here. First time caller, longtime listener, as they say.

[Tim Miller]

I am so pumped to have you. And you know, you have, you've like developed a brand. I've got to tell you, I'm doing this live, so I'm forgetting this person's name. I was at a Knicks game with an Absolutely. Famous actor. It's very handsome from like the Good Wife or something. And he was talking to me and he was like, hey, you're on msnbc, right? Do you ever get to hang out with that Jacob Soboroff guy? I want to go around with Max Greenfield, you know, one of the all time.

[Jacob Soboroff]

One of the all time great humans. Because I think I saw a picture of you guys sitting there because, you know, when there are people courtside, I notice. And I said, tim, courtside.

[Tim Miller]

So Max Greenfield, he wanted, of all the people that he wanted to, you know, chew my ear off about, it was Jacob Sobrov. So there you go.

[Jacob Soboroff]

A wonderful human as is his wife Tess Sanchez, who wrote a very good book, by the way, that people should go check out.

[Tim Miller]

Well, there you go. Look at that little promo. We've got so much to discuss. I want to hear mostly about what you've been reporting on. I mean, some of these stories have just been so tragic and traumatic, but we have kind of a little bit bigger picture news to get to. First last night, U.S. district Court Judge April Perry said that she see no credible evidence that there is a danger of rebellion in the state of Illinois and said that deploying troops anywhere in the state would only add fuel to the fire that the defendants themselves have started as her ruling and blocking the troops. What have you heard since that ruling and what's your sense for what's happening on the ground?

[Jacob Soboroff]

Well, you know, what a. And I should say in full disclosure, I'm. I'm in New York for the MSNBC live event. I left Chicago on Thursday. But what a surprise to hear from the judge that there is no risk of rebel in Chicago or in Illinois. I think big picture, it was really like deja vu from being in LA almost exactly four months to the day that it all started in la. You know, I found myself on the street literally marching down Michigan Avenue live with Chris Hayes as people mobilized and came out into the streets. Not because they're just dissatisfied, but because they're disgusted by the behavior of these federal agents on the streets of their city. And what is happening is large scale, indiscriminate picking up of people off the street because of the way that they look or the way that they sound or the jobs that they have, not because that they are the worst of the worst or have, you know, criminal records. Forget about being murderers and rapists and drug dealers. You know, these are people going about their quotidian activities in everyday life. And DHS says a thousand people have been taken since the beginning of September in the Chicago operation. And I'm not surprised one bit by the reaction of the people of. Of Chicago who really are outraged. And by the way, it's possible that they're both outraged and don't want to see crime in their city. But I think the majority of people that I have met this week especially think that this is not, certainly not the solution to a crime problem in Chicago.

[Tim Miller]

So the kind of scary overhang to this, I think, is the possibility that if Trump keeps getting rebuffed by the courts, that they invoke the Insurrection Act. There's been a decent amount of public scuttlebutt about this. I was speaking to somebody who has a friend that's been deployed to Chicago that is a pretty senior level that says that that's kind of the scuttlebutt internally that that might be something that is coming. I think this ruling, the judge has made that possibility more acute. Have you heard anything about that? Did you hear any kind of discussion about that when you were in Chicago?

[Jacob Soboroff]

Trump has basically said as much. And Stephen Miller said that thing the other day about plenary authority that the President has before. He kind of like, froze awkwardly. That was such a weird clip. What do you think happened? So weird.

[Tim Miller]

He was on for people who missed it. He was on CNN and he was being asked for this, and he says that I have total plenary authority.

[Jacob Soboroff]

I'm not a legal scholar, but my understanding is basically meaning that the President could do whatever he wants when it comes to defending the homeland. And then he kind of like, totally.

[Tim Miller]

Froze after using that phrase.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Yeah. Yep. And then they cut the break and saying they had technical difficulties. And then I don't. I don't know. Did he come back? I don't even know if he came back after that. But it's. I guess what I would say about it is like, they don't make much of a secret about any of this stuff, and they're sort of saying everything that they want to do out in the open. And so that's what Pritzker said, too. This all seems like a big pretext to invoking the Insurrection Act. When I talked to Pritzker the other day. And what does it do to put federalized, militarized police on the streets of a city like Chicago or la? It pisses people off. And what is the reaction of sort of some of the fringy elements in those places is to have small pockets of clashes with these law enforcement officers or to speak from their side. They feel like they're being provoked by the officers who are shooting pepper balls. Ever seen the video of the priest who got shot in the head? They're being provoked by the federal law enforcement in order to get into a clash. And the worry that I think everybody on the street has, and Pritzker openly, is that Trump will use that as justification for saying that this is an insurrection against the United States of America, which obviously it is not.

[Tim Miller]

What was Pritzker saying about that when you're interviewing him? Because, and that is the sort of obvious thing here that's just worth stating plainly, which is that the federal law enforcement seems to want the clashes. Right. Like generally in this sort of situation, if you're going to send in federal troops because you're concerned about disorder in the streets, what you would want is for the troops to calm things. Right. Like that would ostensibly be the plan, but it seems like they sort of want the opposite so they can excuse themselves to be more aggressive. Yeah. And what, so what did Pritzker say about that? What's the.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Well, and on that, just based on what I saw myself, why would you roll down a residential street in Cicero, 90% Latino with 12 kitted up, masked up armed guys with a videographer following behind you to take a 53 year old mother going to buy ingredients for a stew on the side of the road, if the intention was not to send a message or provoke or scare the shit out of people? You know, it just isn't commensurate with the level of force that they're bringing in, the people that they're taking. And so the obvious reaction is for people to be pissed off or provoked by seeing behavior like that. Pritzker said that he thinks that's the whole point. Karen Bass essentially said the same thing to me four months ago, that LA was the petri dish for wide scale federalized takeover of power from local municipalities and states and local law enforcement agencies, and to be able to take charge over the citizens of the United States with a federalized force on the streets of the country. And Pritzker took it a step further and said he believes Trump's going to have troops at the ballot box in the 2026 midterms if he's not stopped now.

[Tim Miller]

It didn't work.

[Jacob Soboroff]

You said this on tv. Go ahead. Sorry.

[Tim Miller]

No, no, go ahead. I want to hear what I said. That was smart.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Everything you say is smart on television.

[Tim Miller]

Every once in a while.

[Jacob Soboroff]

By the way, I have never been cooler to my mother in law, Gail Carey, than appearing on your podcast. So you're giving me major cred within my own family.

[Tim Miller]

I got Gail Carry, you got Max Greenfield. There we go. It's a mutual.

[Jacob Soboroff]

She's a wonderful human. Now, as soon as I think about my mother in law, I lose, lose track.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, on tv.

[Jacob Soboroff]

What did you say? You said that this is as much about democracy as it is about immigration. I mean, immigration is the side story. It's the main story for everybody who's caught up in this. But it's, it's one pillar of a larger story that's about how our democracy functions in this country. And it's been interesting to see it from on the ground level because it's about the people that are being taken and the lives that are being ruined. But really it's about checks and balances on power in the United States. And we're seeing them sort of crumble before our very eyes right now.

[Tim Miller]

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[Jacob Soboroff]

Troops and, you know, create every undocumented. This is such a good point, Tim. Pick up every undocumented person in la. Well, guess what? There's a million undocumented people in la. And Greg Bevino bounced after a month and they got several thousand. Yeah, it didn't work.

[Tim Miller]

And there wasn't the fires. There wasn't Rodney King either.

[Jacob Soboroff]

That's right.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Like they didn't have that. They didn't get that reaction either. Why do you think that was?

[Jacob Soboroff]

People came out into the streets. It was no Kings Day protest, was I think June 14th, like week two and a half of this thing happening. 20,000 people were out in downtown Los Angeles. I think far more all over the city. And there were lingering effects of that. I think even after that protest, people came out every day with their video cameras and were tracking every one of these operations every time they happened. And my personal belief is they haven't said this. You know, why did they pick up and leave the city with the most undocumented people in the country, the most populous county in the United States of America? I think it's because they were faced with an incredible amount of opposition from Bass Newsome, but most importantly from the citizens who every day were bird dogging these guys, telling them get out of here. You know, the stuff that they were screaming at them. And whether or not it was because they're screaming you're a fascist, or because the human stories were getting through on the news or they felt like they couldn't operate with the support of the local government, whatever it was. Now Greg Pavino is in Chicago.

[Tim Miller]

I want you to tell us more about that story that you'd referenced. It was Maricela. Am I saying that name right? Marcella. Yep. And this is a 53 year old woman that got taken. For listeners who haven't seen that tell that story and that you witnessed firsthand so on.

[Jacob Soboroff]

I think it was Tuesday. I was in the Cicero neighborhood. So let me back up. There's a there in all of these cities, there's a team of, they call themselves rapid responders who are basically community based groups that organize to follow these federal agents the minute they leave. Wherever they're staging from into the communities so that they can alert their fellow community members that people are being taken or about to be taken on the streets. And so, you know, I've Got sources in these rapid response networks and one of them was telling me, cicero today looks like it's going to be hot. And I had never, frankly. My wife's from Chicago, but I've never been to Cicero before. She grew up in the.

[Tim Miller]

Where is that? I don't know.

[Jacob Soboroff]

It's a western suburb of Chicago, but it's probably 20 minute drive from downtown Chicago, 25 minute drive. And Cicero is. I learned about it too, on this trip, is the largest Hispanic population, 90% in all of Illinois. When you drive around there, you see, you know, Mexican supermarket signage in Spanish. It's obviously low hanging fruit for the border patrol, just like when they show up in Highland park, in LA or East LA or whatever, you know, in larger Latino neighborhoods. And so the first place that we responded to was a bakery where these two guys were taken out front as they drank cups of coffee when these agents rolled up in their unmarked cars and with their videographer and snatched them and put them in the car. And so we were reporting on that corner, and as we were reporting on that corner, I heard from the rapid responders that around the corner in Berwyn, which is another town, but literally like a block and a half away, an older lady had been taken. And so I went down that street, I ran into another group of rapid responders who showed me the video. And I just said, hey, can you send me the video so I can have it? Maybe we can connect later.

[Tim Miller]

And. Well, actually, let me just play a little clip from that right now.

[Jacob Soboroff]

For sure, go ahead. We can stop if you want. Give me some numbers.

[Sarah Lama]

Okay, guys, look at the splashes right here.

[Jacob Soboroff]

That's hurt.

[Sarah McBride]

It's her.

[Jacob Soboroff]

So sorry to be the one to show you this picture of your mother. What's it like for you to see her there with her ponytail and her backpack and her pink sweatpants, talking to these guys with guns and masks and their bulletproof vests. I mean, based off her facial expression, she looks ready to cry.

[Sarah McBride]

And that saddens me because.

[Jacob Soboroff]

She just.

[Tim Miller]

Wanted to go to the store.

[Jacob Soboroff]

She was gonna make some albomnigas, which.

[Sarah Lama]

Is basically a meatball stew.

[Jacob Soboroff]

So that video I basically had in my pocket all day as I went back and I did live shots on msnbc. And after I cleared a live shot, I was actually on, on with you and Nicole, I think. And after I cleared that live shot, around the corner walks a young woman who says, who looks distraught or sad, is walking with her boyfriend and says, excuse me, can you guys help me? And I said, what can we help you with? And she said, I'm looking for my mom, and I fear that she was taken by ice nearby here. And, I mean, immediately I just thought of what I had seen, you know, an hour before, and I said, well, I have a video. Can I show you? Maybe this is her. And sure as hell it was her. Honestly, in. In my 10 years working at MSNBC, I don't think I've had an experience like the one that I had in that moment where, as she watched, I don't even think we were filming initially. The security guys with us were crying. The camera guy was crying. She, of course, most importantly, was bawling because she's seeing her mother taken into custody for the first time by these guys. And she said to me after that, Samantha, 21 years old. All my life, I've prepared for this moment. All my life, my mom, 53 years old, who was just going to get meat for a stew, has told me one day this could come, and we have to be prepared. But who the hell would have thought it would happen today? And it was just gutting. It was awful.

[Tim Miller]

And what else did you learn about her from her daughter?

[Jacob Soboroff]

That night she was taken to the detention center, Broadview, where that's been the site of all those clashes where the priest got shot in the head. And since then, she's been transferred to Springfield and she'll have a hearing on the 21st. But all indications are that she's gonna get deported to Mexico unless she can put up some kind of legal defense. And even if she does, who knows if they won't send her the other two guys that were taken on that same day, one of them's already in Georgia on his way to being deported. I mean, they're doing this stuff so fast.

[Tim Miller]

Do you know how long she'd been here? Or, like, did Samantha tell you about her story at all?

[Jacob Soboroff]

30 years. She came in 1995, and she has an entire family here. Exactly right. It's like, you can't make this up. You can't make this up. She has been here for 30 years, has an entire family here. And what was her crime she committed? Walking down the street to get food for dinner. I understand the comments that will come in. People will say, no, the crime is that she's illegal. Well, first of all, no human is illegal. She's undocumented. And she came here all those years ago looking for a better life for her family. That's a civil offense, not a criminal offense. And as far as I know, she doesn't have a criminal record. She's lived here and been an upstanding citizen for all of those 30 years and raised a wonderful family. People have seen her daughter Samantha on the air and they take her off the streets. Is that the worst of the worst? You know, they go around, they send out these press releases. I'm sure you get them too, saying, here's all the horrible people that we took off the street. Why don't they send a press release out about everybody else? Because I guarantee you it's much longer than the one about the, about the violent criminals that they're grabbing.

[Tim Miller]

The other thing is there are other remediations for various crimes. Right. It's like, it's just, you know, if somebody steals a loaf of bread now, we're not cutting off their hand still, you know what I mean? Like, and there are plenty of things that, that, you know, if you, even if you're somebody, a strong law and order person and feels like there should be, you know, somebody like that that, you know, could. There could be a fine or a public service or warning, like, you know, you could say, I would not be for this, but at least it would be humane to say, hey, you have a deportation order now. You have six months to get your affairs in order. Right. Like, and, you know, we'll have, we'll send, we'll send somebody by, right.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Instead, let, let us snatch you off the street while we wear masks and have all these, you know, big long rifles on us and all this stuff. Throw you into a unmarked minivan, take you to the detention center and kick you out of the country within, potentially within days, weeks, you know, a month or whatever.

[Tim Miller]

Then maybe make a snuff film out of it.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

So people can laugh and point it.

[Jacob Soboroff]

But that's what they're doing. I'm so glad you pointed that out. They literally, by the way, the same videographer that filmed the dudes in the, in the bakery was on the street filming the arrest of Marcella. What are they doing with that stuff? And in fact, as a reporter, maybe I shouldn't say this openly on the pod, but somebody's got a foia, all these videos to see what the, what all those cameras have on them because they have to have captured violations of people's rights in some way, and they're the ones documenting it and putting out 10, 15, 20 second social media clips that look, you know, like a, like a Michael Bay film. But that's not what it looks like in real life. I can assure you that.

[Tim Miller]

I guess that's the other thing. So they're going to the street, they're picking up people at random, like they're just harassing you, asking them for papers or like how, what was like the actual process? I mean obviously they're, as you mentioned, they're masks, they're unmarked cars.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Have you ever driven through like a checkpoint down south, like where they'll say, they'll say, are you a US Citizen? And then they'll let you go. That's what they do to people on the street. And they walk up to them and they say, are you a US Citizen? And at any they call a probable cause. But Trisha McLaughlin from DHS outlined this yesterday. But if they do anything that seems suspicious to them, this is what they're saying. Grip a steering wheel funny, walk away, look nervous, they'll detain them. And as we've seen, they've detained American citizens too, who do that, only to release them later. In LA and in Chicago you mentioned, like, what's a more humane way to do this? You know, I've said this before, but I think it's important to repeat. The American immigration system for the better part of our lifetimes has been based on a deterrence based, punitive based system punishing people and criminalizing people for being immigrants and coming to the country. The modern history of it is Bill Clinton built the first wave of border walls and people died trying to come around them. And they knew that it was a strategy called prevention through deterrence. George w. Bush after 9 11, you know, supersized the Border Patrol because they created DHS, deported a lot of people through Operation Streamline. At the same time, Barack Obama deported more people than anybody in the history of the United States as a president. And Trump is still trying to catch up to that. Obviously, Donald Trump instituted the family separation policy and he was able to do it like that because the system was set up that way. Biden kept in place a lot of the same policies. Now here's Trump with an even more super sized version of what he wanted to do. The last time anybody tried anything different was Ronald Reagan, who did what he gave amnesty to people who were here legally and met certain criteria and were contributing to American society. I'm not saying that that's the solution, but what I am saying is objectively punishing people and hurting people for being immigrants has never stopped people from coming to this country. And so there's got to be another way. And the Trump administration is doing the opposite of another way. They're going back to the tried and true stuff, and only making it worse than ever before.

[Tim Miller]

The other thing you said that was interesting, you mentioned that the Border Patrol is there in Chicago.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

Because they've rationalized this by saying that Lake Michigan is. I guess Lake Michigan is Canada. Trump was saying that he's gonna annex Canada, but Canada's kind of annexed us a little bit. Turns out.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Well, Pritzker's the one that Pritzker said this to Rachel the other night on Monday night on the air, and it kind of like, my ears perked up. And then I think I mentioned it on the air the next day, and people were messaging me being like, hey, dude, Lake Michigan. So the rule is the Border Patrol can operate anywhere within 100 miles of a border, land or sea border. And what Pritzker had said was, well, they're using Lake Michigan because of its connection to Canada or because on the other side is Canada as their justification. They're saying the coast of Lake Michigan is the border. But people are messaging me being like, dude, Lake Michigan doesn't touch Canada. It's the only great lake that doesn't touch Canada.

[Tim Miller]

We should be mentioning the governor of Illinois, maybe fact checking. J.B. pritzker. Right.

[Jacob Soboroff]

I said it to him when I saw him the next day. And I said, are you considering suing the Border Patrol based on that justification? Because it didn't occur to me when you said it, but people have said to me since. And he said, you know, we're going to look at everything. But, yeah, I wonder if it actually occurred to him or not, because it didn't to me. And then people pointed it out.

[Tim Miller]

This episode is sponsored by better help. October 10th. Today, Friday, is World Mental Health Day. And this year we're saying, thank you, therapists. You're working overdrive in 2025. This might be. Need hazard pay for therapists in 2025. Things are getting dicey out there. You know, I mentioned this before, but therapy. I went through a period where therapy was really so important for me. I was doing a lot of time in the fetal position in the bed. Just kind of needed to work through some of my issues with somebody. I never really thought I'd be a therapy person. For young Republicans, I think therapy is weak. That's fucking stupid. Young Republicans can be weak and stupid. It's something that I've learned as I've grown, you know, as I've gone to therapy. Growth is important. That's something you learn in therapy as well. And I got to tell you, it kind of comes when you don't expect it. Right. You never know when you might need a little bit of extra help. That's why you got BetterHelp out there. With therapists available and 12 years of experience and matching people to the right therapist, BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences. If you aren't happy with your match, you can switch to a different therapist at any time from the tailored RECs that BetterHelp provides. So this World Mental Health Day, we're celebrating the therapists who've helped millions of people take a step forward. If you're ready to find the right therapist for BetterHelp can help you start that journey. Our listeners get 10% off their first [e-mail] thebullwork that's betterhelp.com thebullwerk what about the troops side of it? I mean, like, we've been talking about these kind of ICE agents that you've seen, like the National Guard guys on the streets. Some rare free time away from my child. I got to see a movie last night. I went to see one battle after another. It's my first time in a movie theater in like a year. It's amazing. And I was walking out of the movie theater and gallery place, you know, and D.C. still has, you know, there's a couple, four National Guard guys, like standing outside the Metro, a gallery place, just kind of hanging out, talking to a. Yep. Talking to a couple drunk guys. We're just chatting, just chatting them up. And I just like, I mean, this is so weird, like that they're just standing here doing nothing.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Next time you pass by them, ask them how they feel or if they want to be there. Like in la, I talked to people who were inside the Guard. I'd sources literally on the inside. I want to disclose much more, but they were not happy to be there. When you talk to Marines, a lot of these Marines are coming from places and from communities that are now policing or standing in between the people who are being taken by ICE and the protesters. It's, I don't say many ones that I have talked to, especially formers who put on the air feel extremely disrespected by being used in this way. You don't sign up for the Marines or for the National Guard to go terrorize your neighbors, literally your neighbors, you know, and I guess these Texas guys are coming into another state, but I'd be curious how they feel as well.

[Tim Miller]

Or forget the terrorizing Part you also don't sign up to stand outside the metro and do selfies because like, that's like what half of their job is. I mean, they're like Disney World characters. You know, it's like they got to get the picture taken.

[Jacob Soboroff]

I think that the consensus is, from the people that I've talked to is that it's. It's a level of disrespect for members of the service that they have not felt before for people putting them in that position and humiliating, I think, to a lot of them to have to be there. And in the case of California, literally see neighbors or peers screaming in your face because you are put in between the thing that these people are protesting, the deployment of the federal immigration agents and the community members that want to stop it.

[Tim Miller]

You were at the protest last night. Can you give us any color? Like, how big are they? What are you seeing?

[Jacob Soboroff]

It was electricity. It was electric. It was amazing. The organizers said it was about 7,000 people. And I say it was amazing because it wasn't a long planned protest. It came together really spontaneously. In the morning they called for an emergency protest and by 5:30 everybody's out on Michigan Avenue at Ida B. Wells and marched up Michigan Avenue all the way to the Trump Building and turned around and came all the way back down. And to me it's such. In such stark contrast to what happened on Michigan Avenue earlier in this deployment, which was those troops marching up and down one of the big commercial districts in the United States of America. It's not a hotbed for Ms. 13 or trend or whatever. It's a place where tourists go to go to the Apple store. And so I think that these protesters really felt like they were taking back the streets. The other thing that was cool was it was the night of a huge Cubbies game. And if anybody knows anybody from Chicago, I feel like a lot of those people, including somebody, this woman Bre that I interviewed live on the air wearing her Cubs gear, would have rather been sitting watching the game. But. But they came out and expressed their anger. Is. Is not even a strong enough word about what's going on there.

[Tim Miller]

60 win for the Cubs last night. So they didn't miss much.

[Jacob Soboroff]

They're looking good. You know that. I'm a Dodger fan.

[Tim Miller]

Is that. Is that where we're headed? Cubs, Dodgers?

[Jacob Soboroff]

I hope so. I hope so.

[Tim Miller]

I want to just talk about a couple of your other stories really quick from la, from your time there. There's the one of Estello Ramos and Nori Ramos. And this is just a tragic story, but for folks that missed it, I just thought I'd be interested to hear you kind of rehash it.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Yeah, again, like, I think it's so important to focus on these particular individual stories because this is, this is who gets caught up in all of this. And Nori Santay Ramos is an 18 year old who is an honor student and star athlete on the track team at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex Public high school in LA. And around the 4th of July, her mom, Nori, came here with her mom. When she was little, her mom, Estella, went for an immigration check in. And they had asked Estella, who had done this many times before, to bring Nori with her. And when they did, they detained them and ultimately deported them and Nori to Guatemala, where Nori hadn't been. And they fled when Nori, I think, was 6 or 7 because of threats from local gangs to literally kill her mother.

[Tim Miller]

This is a very common story at that time in Guatemala. We had a lot of asylees around that, around that era. And I was living in Oakland for a while and there's a big Guatemalan community and people that had been fleeing gangs and.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Exactly.

[Tim Miller]

And yeah, I talked to, there were a bunch of, I had a little tutoring thing I was doing with a bunch of a couple of Guatemalan kids who were in the same boat as Nori, probably would have been five or six when they came. Like you go back to Guatemala for what you don't know anybody, you were.

[Jacob Soboroff]

A baby, knows nothing. So she's back there and we go visit her, I think a month maybe after she was deported or later in the summer.

[Tim Miller]

What city do you remember?

[Jacob Soboroff]

Quetzaltenango, the second biggest city in Guatemala. And two weeks after we went there and filmed an interview with her and her mother, her mother died suddenly. And so Nori, 18 years old, 17 when she arrived in Guatemala, turned 18 when she got there, was in a country that she didn't know without the family that she grew up with, with basically no place to go or nothing to do. And she says that Estella died because of a lack of her medication that she needed for blood pressure issues that she had. And she said that they took them away when she was in ICE detention and she was too scared to go out of the house that they were staying in in order to go track down and find the medication. And so she was stressed. And the family back in LA too, says the deportation is what killed her, not her underlying medical condition. And, and so, you know, how many of those stories are there? There are countless Noris. I met some of them in Chicago, and there are probably more Estellas as well, people who have died because of this. Tom Holman said to me at the beginning of all this, in la, people are going to die because of this. And I don't think that he meant people are going to die like Estella died. But we have seen people shot by border agents. We have seen people fall off roofs in California, running away from people on freeways, running from a raid at a Home Depot. He was right. People are dying. And by the way, I should say there have been awful incidents of people targeting federal law enforcement and the shooting that happened in Texas. And, I mean, that stuff is heinous. He was right, I guess, is my point, that people are dying. It's just not the people that he said would be dying. It's. It's people who are being targeted by these operations.

[Tim Miller]

Have you heard from Nori? That's just.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Yeah, we've been talking, and I'm very happy to say that based on sort of the outpouring of support that we have gotten since the story aired, you know, she's raised quite a bit of money for a legal defense, but. And I know, you know Lindsey Tislowski from Immigrant Defenders Law center, like, everybody offered to help, and I just don't know if she has a chance of getting back in. But what I do know is she's got a lot of good people in her corner now finding on her behalf.

[Tim Miller]

Thank God, the other story that you did, and we're all watching this because it's just. It's on video. What was that story of Narquiso Barranco? Who's this crazy, right?

[Jacob Soboroff]

Narciso Barranco, the landscaper?

[Tim Miller]

Yes. He's doing landscaping outside an ihop. Is that where he was at an ihop? I'm going from memory, something like that. I was doing landscape outside of a restaurant. And he's got three sons that were all Marines. All Marines. All in the Marines serving the country. And he gets menaced and, like, these guys in masks jump out and harass them and. And beat him up.

[Jacob Soboroff]

I think. They beat him. Yeah, they basically beat him up. He was literally cutting bushes at an ihop. And these dudes roll up in Santa Ana, California, chase him. They say he tried to attack them with his weed whacker. The footage, to me, looks like he's retreating with the weed whacker, scared of.

[Tim Miller]

Masked agents are running at him when he. All he was doing was his job outside an ihop.

[Jacob Soboroff]

That's what Alejandro told me.

[Tim Miller]

His.

[Jacob Soboroff]

His son Alejandro said that if he, when he was in the Marines, would have treated and he was in Afghanistan. He said, if I would have treated a detainee the way that those guys treated my dad, I'd be tried for a war crime. The way they beat him when they threw him into that car. And he is lucky he got out before they stopped bonding people out who were detained. But he still faces deportation. Yeah, I got the opportunity to go to his house for Nicole's podcast, actually, and sit down with him and talk to him. And it just is truly sickening to speak to somebody who raised three boys to go into the Marines because of how much he loved and believed in this country, only to be treated like that by guys who, in the words of his own son, clearly don't even have the operational training that his boys do and that they got going into the U.S. marines.

[Tim Miller]

So what is the latest with that story? Do you know?

[Jacob Soboroff]

He just has an immigration process that's unfolding now, and he's lucky enough to be on the outside of an ICE detention center. He was sent to Adelanto, one of the most notorious ICE prisons in. In the United States that I've been inside. I went inside during family separation in the high desert outside of LA, and the conditions there are awful. And, you know, Mr. Barranco said to me when I met with him at his house that he wanted to use the opportunity to speak out, to talk about the other people that he met inside the facility and how much of an impact that those people meant too, because the things that stuck out to him were the guy that was a father and had a little daughter who had a disability. I mean, these are all real people with real stories. And we. The humanity is just totally extracted from all of this when it's talked about out of Washington and sometimes out of New York or LA or, you know, our own new studios. And so I just feel blessed to get to spend time around a lot of these guys.

[Tim Miller]

I appreciate you, man. I'm slightly jealous. I mean, it's horrifying and traumatizing. It's also a little soul nourishing to actually meet people and be out there. I kind of miss doing the sort of circus versus, like being in my hole, you know.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Dude, come with me any. Come with me anytime. I will say. And, you know, being part of MSNBC family, the resources that my bosses put towards this, I think are pretty unparalleled. And I feel really lucky that you know, this is what they want to be showing on the air. I think it's so important to put this in context because there's nothing like the facts on the ground and you can't argue with what you're seeing with your own eyes.

[Tim Miller]

Just one other story on this. Have you had a chance to talk to George Reddes yet? You know, then the security guard, I interviewed him last night and that's going to be on our. On our YouTube page today. Folks could check out.

[Jacob Soboroff]

I can't wait to see that.

[Tim Miller]

I was bl. I did not have any idea. And I knew the story was crazy. He's an American citizen and gets detained. Right. And he's going to his job as a security agent outside that weed farm where they were raiding the weed farm. And obviously his ratio.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Ventura county, right? In California.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jacob Soboroff]

That's where the guy died falling off the roof. Exactly.

[Tim Miller]

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So George is racially profiled. They've taken to. To, you know, lock up. I forget where he said they took him. And he's there for one day and then they. No lawyer, no phone call. They have him meet a nurse for a wellness check. The nurse says that he's on suicide. She should be on suicide watch. They put him in a hole for 48 hours, 24 7, lights on, naked. He's a US citizen. He didn't do anything.

[Jacob Soboroff]

It's depraved. That is depraved to hear that. I mean, when I wrote Separated, the book about family separation, the reason I wanted to. The subtitle is Inside An American Tragedy is sadly, this is in line with how our country has treated. I mean, this is a US Citizen. But the way they're treating undocumented people is in line with the. This chapter of American history will fall in line after these other ignoble chapters like slavery and genocide and internment, Japanese American internment, turning the St. Louis back and sending Jews back to the Holocaust. I mean, you name it. Our country has long treated people who are seeking a better life here or a new life or obviously, in the case of slavery, not coming by any choice of their own abhorrently. And now they're doing it to US Citizens as well. And I think that I'm really glad you interviewed him because I think that that is an undertold part of all this, that there are so many US Citizens getting caught up in this now, too.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it was true in Chicago, right? Like that that apartment building that the helicopter was over and the people rappelled in, and it's like there were some undocumented people in that building, but there were obviously UN citizens in that building, in that apartment building and they had their doors knocked, you know, kids kicked in. Yeah, they're. They're zip tied crazy. I want to ask before I lose you, about the fire in your book that's coming up. There's actually a news item on this I guess was yesterday.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

That the Palisades fire was arson. I think they've basically decided it was an Uber driver, I guess. And so I'm just, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on that and whether that puts any different context on the book and what else you've been working on.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Yeah, so the book comes out in January and it's as you said, it's called Firestorm, the Great Los Angeles Fires and America's New Age of Disaster and Shameless Plug that people can go pre order it now. The reason I wanted to write it just like with separated and family separation was to experience something so massive, you know, so up close it's hard to understand what happens in real time. And in the case of these fires in la, this was my, not just my city, but literally my town that incinerated before my very eyes my childhood home, burned down the house my brother was living in, burned down houses of friends, of just people I love very dearly. And on the other side of town in Altadena, where I spend a lot of time now living closer to there, you know, it has long been suspected the prevailing theory was that this was sort of a rekindling in the Palisades of a fire that burned seven days earlier, the Lockman fire. And it was like directly behind the house my brother was living in. And the federal government, the federal prosecutors are now saying, alleging that a young man intentionally set that fire and it wasn't fully contained or extinguished. And that anamber became what's called a fire brand. And that firebrand lit a root system of some vegetation on fire and the roots burned under the ground for six or seven days. And when those insanely ferocious Santa Ana's kicked up, it unearthed the burning roots. And I didn't know anything about the science of all this. I learned a lot in reporting out the book that set all this chaparral on fire and that became the Palisades fire. And so they're charging this guy with arson for starting what became ultimately the Palisades fire. And you know, I'll talk more about this when the book comes out. But the thing that I've really taken Away from this is it really was like the fire of the future. And I think we'll only see more fires like this, not just because of climate change and infrastructure problems and changes in the way we live, you know, electric car batteries exploding, but the politics of misinformation and disinformation, the stuff that Trump and Elon Musk and all these guys were saying as the fires were burning did nothing but pour more proverbial fuel on the fire. And I think that that's sort of the environment we live in now with natural disasters, is that the conversations that we have around them are as political as anything else. And it makes everything all that much worse.

[Tim Miller]

So did you read. Did you read the Deluge by chance with Stephen Martin?

[Jacob Soboroff]

No, I haven't read as good as.

[Tim Miller]

People other said it. No, I know it's like that's a bunch of people were posting it. It's fiction, but it was kind of about an LA fire of the future. And it's like one of those creepy things shout out to Stephen Markley.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Well, Octavia Butler as well, people say, predicted the Eaton fire in Altadena. And if you read Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear, City of Courts, he maybe is the foremost scholar that sort of dove deep before he died into the Los Angeles wildland urban interface, how it intersects with politics and our fissures in society and how something like this could one day happen. And sure as hell did.

[Tim Miller]

Book is Firestorm. Man, I appreciate you out there in these streets working. We're noticing the grays, you know, but.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Dude, look at that. Because they're right. They're right there, right there in the sun today.

[Tim Miller]

But we need you out there. And thanks for coming on the pod. I really appreciate it.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Appreciate you, Tim.

[Sarah McBride]

Thanks, man.

[Tim Miller]

Your folks want to see you. We're taping this on Friday. Tomorrow, Saturday, you're doing an MSNBC Live event with a bunch of our other MSNBC friends.

[Jacob Soboroff]

It's going to be great. Hammerstein Ballroom. Yeah, Here in New York City. That's why I came to New York after being in Chicago. MSNBC Live 25, where all of us are going to be there in person. It's going to be really awesome. I didn't get to do it last year. I have major FOMO about missing it, but I think something like 4,000 of our closest friends will all gather together and talk about the stuff that we see happening and get to know each other and it's going to be awesome. So I think there's still some tickets left. People should grab them if they.

[Tim Miller]

If they haven't yet. Yeah, we have Bulwark Live, which is sold out, you know, but that's at night.

[Jacob Soboroff]

I don't.

[Tim Miller]

It was. I don't know who to blame about the fact that's the same day, but you could do both. You could do a double header, like a baseball double header. MSNBC stuff's during the day, so it's possible.

[Jacob Soboroff]

I'll text you. I might dip in.

[Tim Miller]

Okay. All right, brother, good to see you again. Appreciate it very much.

[Jacob Soboroff]

Thanks, man.

[Tim Miller]

All right, thanks so much to Jacob Soboroff. Before we get to the Sarahs, wanted to touch on one more melancholy topic here at the podcast and in my family. My husband's grandmother, his mama died earlier this week. She had her funeral yesterday in Beckley, West Virginia. And given my travel schedule, I was disappointed to not be able to make it to it. And I was thinking about her a lot yesterday, and I received this unbelievable note that I'd like to share with you all, if it's okay. It's from one of you. Actually, it's from one of our listeners who was reading an obituary for an old teacher of theirs in West Virginia. And they're reading the obituary and saw me and Tyler and Toulouse's name in there and realized that it was my family that Nancy was part of. And so she sent me this note about Nancy Jamison, which I'd like to read for you. Mrs. Jamison, as I knew her then, was one of the kindest and most caring people I had the pleasure of interfacing with in high school as a scared kid with multiple then undiagnosed varieties of neurodivergence. I'll personally never forget her sitting with me on the kindergarten bus to help keep me calm and always take the time to check on me individually when she could read fear or frustration on my face. And my gosh, could she ever make me laugh. As I've spoken with a few other schoolmates this morning about her passing, the one common thread was something along the lines of, I don't even recall any other teacher's aide from all the school. But I will never, ever forget how funny and nice Mrs. Jamison was. She made an impact on so many students. Peace to you and your family during this difficult time. I appreciate that note so much. I appreciate that you all reach out to me stories. I've received a bunch this week about personal stories around the shutdown, et cetera. Obviously, this one touched me in a special way. And you know Nancy, she was just an amazing in law. I mean, you can imagine as a gay going to whatever we want to call Beckley. Small town West Virginia, rural West Virginia, I guess we'll call it, small town West Virginia to meet the in laws, meet the grandma and the grandfather. You know, you don't know what to expect. You don't know what to expect. And, and I think that there are certainly some families where the welcome would not have been as loving and easy and exciting and engaging as it was for me. I just, I love chatting with her. And she was a great, great grandmother to Toulouse and obviously just a deeply good person who was engaging and interesting and wanted to grow late in life. And she was just a little dynamo. She came down to our wedding at whatever age, 85, 80, 90, at a gay wedding in New Orleans, had her walker and was out there partying as much as the 28 and 29 year olds. So she'll be missed. I appreciate very much this note for Amber that allowed me to kind of connect and reflect on, on Nancy while I was away from the funeral yesterday. So much love to all of you. Up next, Sarah McBride and Sarah Lama.

[Sarah Lama]

So I do have a surprise. Sarah McBride is not our only congressional guest tonight. We do have another one. Please welcome to the stage Nancy Mace.

[Sarah McBride]

You know how.

[Sarah Lama]

I'm just kidding. Calm down. You need to calm down.

[Sarah McBride]

You know how I know that would never happen is that Nancy Mace would never knowingly walk on a stage with me. Because when we are at the Capitol, every single time she sees me, she turns around and goes the other way.

[Sarah Lama]

It's so funny because she's so tough on Twitter.

[Sarah McBride]

She is very vocal on Twitter. But when we're in the garage and we're walking in, she'll see me, she'll stop, she'll start rummaging through her purse and wait for me to go. I'm on an elevator, the door opens, she's there. She will just turn right around.

[Sarah Lama]

You know, that level of cowardice doesn't surprise me at all. Does it surprise you, though? I guess this is a new feature of our politics where just like normal human civility seems to have gone away. Like it didn't used to be like that in Congress. I know you're new ish, but do other people come up to you like other Republicans, and they're like, we're really sorry about Nancy. She sucks.

[Sarah McBride]

They don't say her name, but yes, they do. There are a number of Republican colleagues who have come up to me and said, I am so sorry with the way that they are treating you. And, you know, right now, I would love to take on some bullying just to have my Republican colleagues back so that they would actually do their job during the shutdown.

[Sarah Lama]

So very charitable. Yeah, let's talk about them not doing their job. We're a week into this shutdown. As I just laid out for everybody, it's been a big week. How would you. How do you think Democrats are like? Because right now we talk about the shutdown like it's a. Who's winning the shutdown? And there's actually, for the first time, I don't know, the Democrats are showing some signs of life. They seem to have found talking points they're comfortable with on how to. Like, how do you think Democrats are doing in the context of the shutdown politics?

[Sarah McBride]

I think Republicans are in disarray, and I think Democrats feel like we are in a righteous fight right now. We. Look, we have been ready from August onward, as this deadline approached, to work with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to fix the health care crisis and to keep the government open. But Republicans have consistently refused to engage with us. And, you know, I think, one, it's because they are committed to cutting health care, but two, they cannot. They cannot grapple with the fact that they have to engage with anyone but themselves and Donald Trump in this moment. My guess is that when Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer met with Donald Trump in the Oval Office last week ahead of the shutdown, it was probably the first time in nine months that someone said no to Donald Trump's face. And they cannot handle that, but they're gonna have to deal with it.

[Sarah Lama]

That's nice. Good clap. I do. I'm curious, do Democrats ever think about saying, like, I get why they've chosen healthcare as the place to stand. Sure. Righteous cause. But also, what about just like, hey, man, we're not gonna fund your totally corrupt government that's sending troops into the streets. And, like, let's say there's a deal on healthcare. Like, if they came and they were like, yeah, it's unpopular to raise everybody's premiums or whatever, would you give them that? Or do you ever wanna be like, all right, look, guys, yeah, we'll reopen the government, release the Epstein files, pull the troops back.

[Sarah McBride]

Well, first of all, one of the reasons why they're keeping the House shut down is because they don't want to swear in Representative Elect Adelita Grijalva, because she would be the 218th signature on the Epstein discharge petition. And when there is a vote. There could be an overwhelming vote that makes it an unstoppable force in the Senate and ultimately gets it to President Trump's desk. And he would have to choose whether he would veto legislation.

[Sarah Lama]

What do you think he'll do?

[Sarah McBride]

Yeah, big surprise, big surprise. But look, I think I know in this room right now, it's understandable and easy for all of us in this space to be consumed with the authoritarian power grab. And it is that there is no question. But when I go back to Delaware and I talk to my constituents who don't have the luxury of spending their evening in a space like this, they need their health care. They don't have the luxury of us holding out for the moon in this moment. They need us to deliver tangible results that would result in them being able to get life saving care. And we have, in this moment a responsibility to not only deliver for them something that they urgently need, but we also need to show that we can fight and we can win. That is important as we continue to have the energy and the momentum necessary to push back against this president. It is necessary to continue to shift public opinion, because the reality is, in this moment, the main lever we have at our disposal to throw sand in the gears of his authoritarian machine is public opinion. And we know on this fight we have the public with us. But the final thing is we can't separate the Republican effort to raid people's health care and cut people's health care. We cannot separate that from the authoritarian power grab, because the reality is they are inextricably linked. Donald Trump made an unholy alliance in the last elections, in the last election with tech oligarch and billionaire donors. He said, you fund my campaign and facilitate my consolidation of power, and I will pay you off with massive tax breaks. And when they passed the big ugly bill in July, it was to pay them off. And they just partially paid for that by raiding people's health care. And so when you cut off Donald Trump's capacity to raid people's health care to fund tax breaks for billionaires to pay them off for them, facilitating his consolidation of power, you are also addressing the authoritarian consolidation of power in that moment, too.

[Sarah Lama]

That's one of the better explanations I've heard from a Democrat about how they're connected. I gotta say, I think one of the reasons you guys are sort of, it feels like you're winning is that there are kind of cracks in the Republican coalition. You say they're in disarray. Marjorie Taylor Greene appears to be maybe on your side. Which is that uncomfortable. How do you like.

[Sarah McBride]

Listen, I've long talked about welcoming in perfect allies.

[Sarah Lama]

And that big tent's gotta be big, guys. Gotta be big. It's gotta. Hey, all the Jewish space lasers have to fit under there and all that stuff. Tell me, how do you think it ends? Well, I think not, Marjorie Taylor Greene, but the shutdown.

[Sarah McBride]

Look, I think Republicans are really feeling the heat in this moment, and we are about to get to a point where troops aren't going to get paid. And Mike Johnson has made clear he's not going to bring the House back to pay our troops. I think there is going to be, as these letters that will show skyrocketing premiums for millions of Americans arrive in people's mailboxes. I think there's going to be increased pressure from that. We're already starting to see cracks, Marjorie being one. But there are other cracks that are showing in the Republican caucuses. Sorry, that sounds really weird. True on so many levels. I believe that they. I actually believe now in a way that I wasn't sure a week ago. I think we could see them cave. I think we could see them cave. And I think. I think if they do, not only will some people's lives be saved, but I think we will show that the emperor has no clothes. That so much of this president's power is. Is rooted in the perception of his invincibility. And when that stops, when there is a crack in that, a lot of his power falls away. Not a lot, not all, but some.

[Sarah Lama]

Listen, I think the idea of just getting a win on the table for Democratic voters who feel like you are doing something to stand up and fight, because, you know, when I listen to voters and the focus groups that I do all the time, it doesn't matter if they are Democrats who want the party to be more progressive or they want it to be more moderate. They all agree. They want to see Democrats fight this guy and feel like it's not happening. And this is really. The shutdown is the first time I've seen that spine in a way that I think is starting to make people feel like, hey, we might get somewhere.

[Sarah McBride]

I just drank someone else's coffee. That was disgusting.

[Sarah Lama]

It was my coffee. So that's fine.

[Sarah McBride]

Okay. That's fine. Some l. On the stage.

[Sarah Lama]

Yeah, yeah, that's. You know, we're very clean lesbians, unlike Tim, who doesn't even wash his hands. I promise you, it's true. You know, I want.

[Sarah McBride]

I've been in men's bathrooms. That is very true. Yeah.

[Sarah Lama]

Oh, I mean, you. Oh, he's back there.

[Sarah McBride]

Yeah. My staffer in the back is like, oh, my God.

[Sarah Lama]

You know, speaking of bathrooms. No, I'm just kidding. I want to ask you something. I have been a great admirer of the way that you message. So, like, when I was coming up in the. It was like, 2005, I'm coming out of the closet. Like, that's when all the. That was when the marriage equality passed in Massachusetts. It was the first time. So, like, it's interesting when you and your identity is, like, in the crosshairs politically, which is just, like, what your life is right now. But you have been very vocal about the need for a big tent for people who don't necessarily agree on all of those issues. And so I've listened to you talk about this a bunch, but for people who haven't, maybe you could explain just what your theory of the big tent is. I mean, does it include Marjorie Taylor Greene? Does it include people who are hostile and, like. It's not just about the big tent. It's also about what do you. To build a big tent? Purity test. Kind of can't dominate everything. So how do you think about that?

[Sarah McBride]

Sure. Well, as I mentioned, the main lever that we have at our disposal in this moment is public opinion. And if we are going to win the next election and win the election after that and hopefully win with margins that allow us to govern and deliver, we are going to have to build a mass movement of diverse, ideologically diverse Americans who, I believe, unite around essentially two fundamental principles. One, that working people need more help, and two, that freedom and democracy are good. And if you can get behind that, then welcome to our cause. Welcome to our coalition. If everything is truly on the line, which I believe it is, then we have to engage in this moment with the ruthless survival skills of an LGBTQ kid in Florida or in North Dakota who does not have the luxury of prioritizing purity and perfection over goodwill and good intentions. We have to. We have to recognize that a big tent, which is what we need to win, too. Yes. It means welcoming in people who are maybe to the right of some of us. Maybe not as far as Marjorie Taylor Greene, but to the right of us. You know what?

[Sarah Lama]

I think that's fair. Everybody's got to have limits.

[Sarah McBride]

But. Yeah, but it also means a big tent goes both ways. And it also means that we have to be welcoming to folks who might be to the left of us. And I think if we can do that, if we can be the most welcoming the most joyful, the most inclusive tent. I believe that that's a coalition that people will want to be a part of. Politics is fundamentally the art of addition. And I think voters ask two questions when they're considering who to support. The first question is, what does this candidate? What does this party think of me? Do they like me? Do they respect me? And the second question is, what does this party think? If you can't answer that first question to a voter satisfaction, they will never get to the second question. And I think that we can disagree, we can have very different views on a whole host of issues, but in this moment, in this moment, we need all of the help that we can get. And I think part of the challenge that we have found ourselves in on our side of the aisle, in our coalition is that for the last decade or so, we have started to treat relationships as a tool to reward or punish people who hold positions that we view harmful or hurtful. Right. One of the most common ways that we see people perform allyship is when someone says something that they believe is offensive, they cut them off as a form of punishment. And I get the instinct, but one that's just performative allyship. If I want, I want people to stay in relationship. You don't have to be the best friends with the person. You don't have to validate everything about them. But I want people to stay in conversation and remain proactive to people who hold positions that not only we disagree with, but that we might find offensive, so that someone can be there to educate them and even to hold them accountable. But because we've started to treat relationships as a tool to reward or punish people based on their positions, we've then conditioned ourselves into thinking that being in relationship or being in coalition with. With people means that we are condoning everything they believe. And that is counterproductive. It's unfair. And it treats those relationships as a transaction rather than the starting point for a conversation to actually open hearts and change minds as we build that mass movement.

[Sarah Lama]

I like that answer. That's a good answer. But I'm gonna push just a little harder on this because I want to put a finer point on it, which is, look, there was a point at which, like, gay people were the wedge issue, and now trans people are the wedge issue.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Sarah Lama]

And so you get a lot of people. I hear it in focus groups all the time. They're like, man, I really hate the way that Donald Trump is, like, approaching immigration. He's not doing anything on the economy, but I like what he's doing with not letting those trans kids change their genders. And so when you've got, like, I guess, how do you see your role in trying to get the Democratic Party to understand, like, if you've got an 80, 20 issue, this is like, a hard question. It's a hard question. It's a hard conversation. But I feel like people need to have it. I think we understood back in the day, it was like, okay, Barack Obama was not for gay marriage in 2008, and there was an activist community that understood you couldn't make politicians walk the plank on an issue that the public wasn't there on. And so you had to have sort of an activist class that was slowly bringing people along. But I feel like right now, people on the trans issue, they don't want to throw trans people under the bus. They want to be good allies. They want to be good people. They learned a lot from the gay marriage fight, where they're like, this is how we are good allies. And so they don't want to give comfort to people, or they don't want to say, I'm not going to say trans people can't play in sports. But when it's a wedge issue like that, how do you approach it? Like, what's your advice to Democrats who will take your answer more credibly than they will anybody else's?

[Sarah McBride]

So, first of all, I think that we can maintain our values, stay true to our values, and defend vulnerable communities, including vulnerable young people who are being fear mongered and scapegoated around by Donald Trump and Republicans. We can defend them and meet voters where they are at the same time. I do not believe that those are mutually exclusive in this moment. I think the marriage equality example is such a good and profound example. In 2005, the LGBTQ community found itself in a position where many people thought that rights for members of our community had lost Democrats the last election. States had just overwhelmingly passed marriage bans, red states and blue states alike, by overwhelming margins. And our community had a choice in that moment. Do we turn inward? Do we write off the Americans who had just overwhelmingly voted against our rights? Or do we engage in the art of persuasion? Do we invite people in for a conversation? Do we extend? Great. And I think Democrats, in that moment, they didn't throw gay people under the bus. You saw Democrats united in opposing, for instance, the federal marriage amendment that would have banned marriage equality under the Constitution. But you had a range of positions on whether they supported marriage equality or supported civil unions. And I think whether you are someone in our coalition who believes that every single student needs and deserves an affirmative right to extracurricular programs consistent with who they are in every grade. Or you're someone who has concerns or questions about trans young people participating in sports consistent with their gender identity across all sports and all ages, regardless of where you are.

[Sarah Lama]

Because, you know, lesbians, we care a lot about sports.

[Sarah McBride]

You do care a lot about sports. And I always say, if you want to prove that trans people don't have a competitive advantage in sports, throw me in, put me into the game, Coach, because we will lose instantly. But I think regardless of where you are there, regardless.

[Sarah Lama]

So you're not good at basketball or anything?

[Tim Miller]

No.

[Sarah McBride]

Oh, God, no. Like, I can't drivel. I can't do anything. I can barely play T ball. Like, I. But regardless of where you are on the specifics of that question, I think we can get most people in a place where. Where they are willing and ready to defend trans people while meeting voters where they are. Because at the end of the day, whether you have concerns or not, I think most people can agree that the best people to decide how to balance respect and fairness in sports are not politicians in Washington who know nothing about school sports and even less about trans people. And it's individual athletic associations that are best capable of making those rules themselves, free of politics.

[Sarah Lama]

Okay, last question. Did you guys know that Delaware only has one congressional seat?

[Jacob Soboroff]

Did you.

[Sarah Lama]

Did you really know that I represent.

[Sarah McBride]

More people in the House than any other member of the House who votes? Do you know it's the one time Delaware's the biggest at something.

[Sarah Lama]

It's funny. I lived in Delaware for a few years, but I. I'm from Pennsylvania.

[Sarah McBride]

The worst years of your life.

[Sarah Lama]

They were the worst years of my life. Do you know that I work well?

[Sarah McBride]

I'm about to leave right now.

[Sarah Lama]

I had to work on Rick Santorum's book tour while I was living in Delaware. There's a conservative think tank there it's not worth getting into.

[Sarah McBride]

Yeah, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

[Sarah Lama]

That's right. That's where I worked out of college.

[Sarah McBride]

My best friend in high school lived across the street, and we used to have great high school parties at his place.

[Tim Miller]

Wow.

[Sarah McBride]

Yeah. So I know that Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

[Sarah Lama]

Well, okay. Well, I worked there and. Yeah, it was cool. It was cool. It was a great place to work.

[Sarah McBride]

You worked there?

[Sarah Lama]

Yeah, for three years.

[Sarah McBride]

Wow. You really are a Republican. Jesus Christ.

[Sarah Lama]

It was a little different back then, you know? Like, now JD Vance rolls up to be like, we're Gonna wage civil war over manufacturing. Like, he has all these weird theories. Like, that's not what we were just reading, you know? Road to Serfdom by Hayek. It was just nerve. Now it's, like, really weird out there.

[Sarah McBride]

Thoughts?

[Sarah Lama]

But anyway, my point is, I'm from Pennsylvania, so I'm a Sheets person. You're a Wawa person. You, like, make this whole big deal out of it. I get it. Whatever. Do you, like, ever talk to John Fetterman about this?

[Sarah McBride]

We have, actually. Never. We've met once, very briefly, and we did not talk about Wawa and Sheets.

[Sarah Lama]

Is it because you were like, john, what the fuck, man? No, that's not what you said.

[Sarah McBride]

It was a very brief conversation.

[Sarah Lama]

Okay, guys. Sarah McBride, who is awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, Sarah, here we go again. I can't get past the pain why don't save you? Too old now learn how to let you in. So I run away just like I always do she said if there's something I should know Then tell me now or I go give my heart away so I can get on with my life. You can go on with your stride Wish you'd speak the word those eyes are trying to see Sometime this life feels like big old dream. I'm floating around on a cloud inside. When my cloud starts coming apart at the seams of Sarah that's when I slide. Well, there's gonna be times that I gotta go away. But don't worry, baby, I'll come home out on the road where I'm gonna find my way. But I'll always find the time when I'm alone. So forgive me if sometimes I seem a little crazy. But God damn, sometimes crazy's how I feel. And my brain's starting to swirl down the drainless overworld. And there's only one thing, girl I know's real. It's the love that I feel when you're around. Yes, the glow you wear around you like a charm. It's the tender in your eyes Keeps me saving warm at night. Pray on this night. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.