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The Joy Reid Show
Minneapolis and The Great Replacement Conspiracy Theory | The Joy Reid Show LIVE!
02:01:05
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- [00:05]
A
Okay. Well, well, well. Good evening, everyone. Or good afternoon, depending on what time zone you're in. Welcome to the Joy Reid Show. Thank you so much for tuning in. I've got my. I've got my tea. Feeling a tad under the weather today, so we're drinking it in the Joy Reach show mug. You know, we got to make sure that we stay healthy. I hope everybody's doing well out there. Big ups to everybody in the chat over here on the YouTube side. We can see you guys are already. And also big up to those who are checking us out on Substack. Hello to you. And if you are listening on whatever software podcast, you know, apparatus you use, listen to podcasts. We appreciate our audio listeners as well.
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B
Good evening, everyone. Just wanted to say. Don't want to be rude. Just want to say hello.
- [00:57]
A
Hello, hello, you guys. Later, Jason. I don't know if you saw that the Fulton. The FBI is. Is raided searching the Fulton County, Georgia, election offices claiming they're looking for fraud. Donald Trump's still trying to work out all his demons from losing to Joe Biden. He still can't. He still can't let it go. It's actually only fraud in that office.
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B
Is his phone call to the. What's his name, Rappersberger, whatever his name is. And Brad Raffensberger. Yeah, that's the only fraud that he's going to find.
- [01:25]
A
So he's still mad that he lost the election and then he got beat by old, good old Joe Biden. Old Joe Biden. So that's what's happening now. But we've got plenty of other stuff to get to tonight. We're going to really focus tonight on this confluence which. Well, thank you for the love. Thank you, Boomerang6130. We appreciate you. Love you right back. I see some sorors are in the YouTube chat.
- [01:48]
B
So the Deltas are always up in the house.
- [01:50]
A
DST is always in the house. Always. Good evening, Joy Squad says art by Bun Bun. We love that. Well, thank you all for giving us your lovely greetings. We appreciate each and every one of you. Let me also give some love to our substack folks over here because they're piling in as well. And thanks to all of you guys that are on either one of these two streams. Hello to Joyce Young, who is over on the substack side saying hey, hey as well. So tonight we're going to focus on something that I think people have not asked, which is kind of. We know that Minneapolis is sort of ground zero. Donald Trump still threatening the mayor. They're saying if they don't start to call, cooperate with immigration enforcement, if they don't give in and take the knee and bend the knee to ice, and all sorts of bad things will happen. Thank you to Sheila figueroa for the $10 in the till. We appreciate that. Number one fan, we appreciate you, but we haven't really focused that much on when that protest happened at that church. We know that it happened because one of the lay pastors at that church works for ice, so he's rousting folks in the streets by day and preaching the Jesus gospel on Sundays, I guess, or whatever. But we haven't focused on kind of the bigger picture confluence between what's happening in that church and the reason that church was actually focused on and targeted by protesters, and the bigger picture about what's happening in the country and the people in Washington, between the Tech Bros and the Theo Bros. So we're going to get into that tonight, but I want to start by showing you all just a reminder of what the faces of occupied Minnesota. These have become really kind of the emblematic, sort of iconic faces of what's happening in Minnesota. Obviously, Little Liam, this poor gentleman, Mr. Tao, who was taken out half naked, obviously Alex Preddy and Renee Nicole, that's fine, dude, I'm not Metaphy. I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy. Good. And we know that now, now that there's been some reporting that can get into some of these stories. Little Liam, I did confirm today with the source out of Texas, that Leon Nejo Ramos, who's the little boy in the backpack, who's become really kind of the symbol of what's happened in that state. He's five years old. He and his father, he. He was used as bait to try to lure his parents out of his suburban Minneapolis home. And then he and his father, the mother, refused to come outside. They were trying to draw her out as well. They're denying they used them as bait, but we know that they did. And now Liam and his dad are now being held at a facility in Texas. They were flown across the country to Texas. We know that Chong Lee Scott Tao, who is the Hmong man who. Whose family came to the US along with other Hmong refugees after the Vietnam War, when a lot of the Hmong, which is an ethnic minority inside Vietnam, they helped us in the Vietnam War, our losing effort in Vietnam War, the Hmong people helped us. When I was living in Montbello in Denver, Colorado, one of the, you know, subgroups that was that was living there. There were black Americans, four families that were Caribbean or African, including mine. A lot of white, you know, regular white folks, right? And a lot of Mexican Americans. Not any other kind of Latino, just Mexican Americans. And then the other group that were in our community were Hmong. And Hmong people are here because they helped our side during Vietnam War. This gentleman's family was one of those families. And it turns out that Chong Lee, Scott Tao, who was dragged out of his home half naked because ICE agents claimed that he may have been harboring a criminal alien who they were trying to track down. And well, it turns out the man they were trying to find was already in prison. Jason, I don't know if you've heard this story. The man was already in prison. And not only was he already in prison, but he'd been in prison since 2024.
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B
That's crazy.
- [05:47]
A
So they went and dragged that poor man out of his house half naked for no reason. And the man they were looking for, already jailed, of course, Alex Preddy. There's a video circulating on social media. We're not using it tonight because it's very difficult to verify. The BBC's picked it up, claiming that he dressed in exactly the same clothes, kicked a truck of an ICE vehicle like the day before. But I'm a little dubious about the video because he's wearing exactly the same clothes. That video is out there. But of course, Alex Preddy, 37 year old ICU nurse who worked for the VA. And of course Renee Nicole Good, the 37 year old wife and mom of three, including a six year old. And to that death toll, which of course also includes Keith Porter, the 42 year old man, we have his picture as well, who was shot dead by an off duty ICE agent for no reason other than that he was firing guns in the air like so many Americans do on New Year's Eve. That is also one of the faces of this. He's not Minneapolis, that's why he's not in that montage. But we can now add another death, this one in Dallas, Texas. His name is Wael Tarabishi. He's only 30. Was only 30. And his father, who was his caregiver because he suffers from a chronic illness that makes breathing difficult. His father dedicated his life to becoming his caregiver. But his father was taken by ICE last October, leaving him with no caregiver. Weill died on Friday after two hospitalizations following his father, Maher Tarabishi, who dedicated himself, literally dedicated his life, I guess his whole retirement was about caring for his his son. On October 28th of 2025, he was detained during a scheduled annual check in at the Dallas ICE field office. So he was doing it the right way, checking in with ICE as he was required to by law. They detained him, still have not let him out. And Maher, who arrived in the US from Jordan, which is an ally of the United States, in 1994, was taken into custody, leaving the 30 year old son with no in home caregiver. Just a weeks later, Weill's health declined drastically. He was apparently very devoted to his dad. His family attributed his decline to the extreme stress of the situation. A GoFundMe page was set up for the Tarabishi family. It reads, quote, wael's body could no longer handle the stress. We have said before that Maher's daily presence in Wael's life was not optional. Rather it was essential to his survival and well being. On social media, the family wrote he passed without his beloved father, primary caregiver and constant life companion. Maher.
- [08:22]
B
I don't know what they would do. I don't know what they're going to do. I mean, to me the sad thing about this is that there is no compassion. I mean literally, if the man is taking care of his son, yeah, he dies, you know, because he's lost his father. I mean, and don't forget about this other guy, Gene Wilson brutus. That was a 441 year old Haitian who died in US immigration custody in, what's that, Delaney House in Delaney hall in New Jersey. His family still doesn't know what happened to him. So, you know, this is just crazy.
- [08:52]
A
And Delaney hall of course is where Ras Baraka and three members of Congress, one of whom is now being charged with a crime, where they tried to go and see about people like this gentleman, 200 some odd people in that private prison facility who gave a lot of money to Trump's inauguration, to Trump's election. And so all these private prison companies are getting rich and a lot of innocent people are getting dead.
- [09:19]
B
I have to say one more thing, Joy, please. I'm so angry about this whole thing. If and when the Democrats take over power, if and when they take over power, strong if they better do something about this. If not, I think that should be one of the requirements of a primary. If you're not gonna basically have some compassion and find some justice for these people, don't even bother running.
- [09:42]
A
I think each and every person involved in the Trump regime involved in this should go to prison. They should Go straight to jail. Stj straight to jail. There are now calls, by the way, by at least two Republicans along with the Democratic governors of New York and Illinois for Kristi Noem to resign or be fired as her minion. Her tiny little minion. Greg Bevino, was moves out of Minneapolis and the architect of the child separation policy during Trump regime, one Tom Holman, Mr. 50,000 Bucks in a Bag, promising to give ICE contracts. That guy is moving in. Per NBC News, Senators Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski called for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign on Tuesday, making them the first Republicans in Congress to say she should step down. Ask whether he had confidence in nomenclature, Tillis, who is a Republican of North Carolina, told reporters on Capitol Hill, no, not at all. I think she should go. There's also video of him being told by CNN's reporter that he is being called a loser by Trump and he says, good, that makes me qualified to be the head of the Department of Homeland security. Meanwhile, the two federal agents who opened fire on Alex Preddy, the 37 year old veteran affairs nurse in Minneapolis on Saturday, they've been placed on leave, a US Official has reported. This is per NBC News. The Department of Homeland Security did not say when the two agents, who's a Border Patrol agent and a U.S. customs and Border Protection officer, what the hell were they doing in the streets of Minneapolis. They won't say when they were placed on leave, but said in a statement that the move is standard protocol. A day after the shooting, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said that the involved agents were still in the field but that they were moved out of Minneapolis, sparking outrage, including among some Republicans. Bovino has since been replaced by Minnesota. In Minnesota, of course, as he said by Tom Holman. And according to some reports, he's also been cut off of social media and told he cannot anymore use his official social media accounts because he's been clapping back at people who are criticizing him online. This guy Bovino is, he is unhinged. I mean, Tom Homan ain't great, but Greg Bovino has been walking around in the sort of 1930s, you know, Nazi esque long coat in Minnesota, snapping at people and taking video of people using that app that they can use to identify people and scan the neighborhood. That guy, he's an unhinged character and hopefully he is one of the people who will be prosecuted when we get a real Justice Department again. Meanwhile, the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employees union, which had also represented Alex Preddy and also I think they represent some of these officers, Mike. Could be. They issued a statement on Monday night calling for the resignations of both Christy Noem and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who, let's be clear, is the one in charge. This is Stephen Miller's policy. This is his obsession, and he is the point man, per. Lots of reporting. Michael Wolff reporting on this over the weekend to the Daily Beast. Lots of reporting. This is Stephen Miller's baby. Mass deportation is Stephen Miller's dream. It has been since high school. He is the manic leader of this messy policy. And Kristi Noem is the one executing the policy clearly very poorly. The AFGE president, Everett Kelly, contended that the immigration policy and actions of this regime directly led to Alex Preddy's death. Thank you all. We appreciate it. We are going to keep up the good fight. Now, in a remarkable display of frustration. This is from the New York Times. The chief federal judge in Minnesota ordered the head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to appear in court two days from now on Friday to explain why he should not be held in contempt for violating court orders arising from the Trump administration's aggressive immigration crackdown in the state. In a brief ruling issued late Monday, the judge, whose name is Patrick J. Schlitz of Federal District Court in Minnesota, said he recognized that ordering ice's acting director, Todd Lyons, to personally defend himself in court was an extraordinary step. But Judge Schlitz, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said it was necessary because the extent of ICE's violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary. Judge Schlitz wrote that he had been extremely patient with the agency, even though it had sent thousands of agents to the state as part of Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, but did so without preparing for the legal challenges and lawsuits that were sure to result. He concluded the court's patience is at an end. While Judge Schlitz's irritation with the administration was palpable, he left Mr. Lyons a way out of his court summons. The judge said he could cancel the hearing if I quickly released an immigrant whom he said had been wrongly detained by agents. There's some citizen reporting. There's lots of people who are reporting to these citizens websites that they're telling you some of the stuff that happened. Let me give you one of the most outrageous one. A Nicaraguan refugee who was working at that Hilton, Homewood Suites in St. Louis park, one of the Hiltons where a lot of the ICE goons are staying. This Nicaraguan refugee was arrested by ICE agents who were staying at the hotel as guests. The man had a valid work permit through 2029 and entered the US legally as a refugee in October of 2023. Despite agents being informed of his legal status, they detained him as part of Operation Paris. A federal judge ordered his immediate release on January 25, noting the Orwellian situation created by bureaucratic delays. Again, these people are going to eat in restaurants, wiping their, you know, crumbs off of their little. Off their little mouths, going outside, going in, putting on their. Their. Their gear, coming back in and arresting the waiter.
- [15:36]
B
Did they tip them? I guarantee you didn't tip them.
- [15:39]
A
They're arresting people at the place that are serving them. So you're helping that you're at the hotel and you're either picking up their bags or checking them in. They say, thank you very much, and then arrest you because you have an accent and because you're brown. Here's another thing that happened last night in Minneapolis. A man has been arrested for attacking Representative Ilhan o Must resign or face impeachment. So what you hear her say next is she's insisting on continuing her town hall.
- [16:22]
C
She.
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A
You hear people around her, her staff saying, we need to get out of here. We need to walk away. Let's not. Let's leave. And she says, nope, we're finishing the town hall because we're not going to let these effing bastards stop what we need to do. Like, that's a bad I. Part of me wishes her staff had just let her get one lick in. Like, he might have needed to get one pop. Just teach him a lesson. We don't know what this liquid was that was thrown at Ilhan Omar. She is fine, but this is where we're at.
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B
It looks like urine if you ask me. I hate to be disgusting, but that's what it looked like, urine.
- [16:52]
A
I mean, it wouldn't shock me. These are people who shat in the Capitol. This is the same ilk of people who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021. It's the same kind of people. It's the same kind of ilk throwing some kind of liquid at her. Ilhan Omar is fine. We've reached out to her. She's, of course, welcome to come back on the show if she wants to talk about it. People were saying whatever he sprayed smelled so bad, says Champagne Hand, who's one of our commenters on YouTube. It probably was urine. We don't know what it was, but.
- [17:20]
B
All we know is eternal stink in his body. That's what it is.
- [17:23]
A
Yeah, whatever it is whatever it was. Hopefully she will file lawsuit. A lawsuit. Somebody think it's apple cider vinegar. She should file press charges for assault, of course. And I do not trust the current Justice Department to prosecute this man for what really, to me, amounts to a terrorist attack on a member of the United States Congress. Joining me now is Deborah Flieshaker, former acting ICE Chief of Staff and Department of Homeland Security Executive Secretary under the Biden administration. She's a consultant on law enforcement, national security, immigration, privacy, civil rights, liberties and operations. Deborah, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show.
- [18:07]
D
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really glad to be here.
- [18:10]
A
Thank you. So let's talk about the way that ICE is moving inside of Minneapolis. They are stopping protesters and accusing them of interference for simply following them and filming them. They're throwing people to the ground. They were attempting to brutalize a woman. There's a woman you see in a backpack that was just maybe observing them or protesting. And that is when Alex Preddy intervened to try to stop them from pepper spraying the woman. They still pepper sprayed her. He puts his hand up to stop her getting pepper sprayed. She falls on the ground and can see him reaching for her to try to help her. And then they throw him on the ground, put him on his knees and kill him. Is that in any way? I mean, this is a rhetorical question. Is that in any way standard procedure?
- [19:00]
D
Nothing about what's happening in Minneapolis is standard. This is unconstrained immigration enforcement that has bled into what appears to be a federal police force that's acting with impunity and trampling on people's First Amendment rights.
- [19:19]
A
Why would that kind of a force that is behaving so erratically and violently in the United States, why would they be able to go to the Winter Olympics? This is a story I found quite alarming that the Trump regime is looking to take this force or members of it to the Winter Olympics in Italy, despite the protests of the city that has said they don't want them there. Why would they be able to go to the Winter Olympics and be a part of the security services there?
- [19:46]
D
So I think this bleeds into the before times and the now times.
- [19:50]
A
Right.
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D
I don't know exactly who from ICE they're trying to send to the Winter Olympics, but HSI has done these sorts of things for years. And under normal circumstances, this wouldn't be something that would get much attention. HSI would go and perform security and investigations around the super bowl or around big events.
- [20:13]
A
Right.
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D
And so There will be US Dignitaries, there will be in at the Winter Olympics. Normally this wouldn't be something that would, I think, even get attention. I think the issue is that the world sees how ICE is being, what ICE is doing, what ICE is being asked to do and what I how ICE is responding to those requests. And they're reacting with horror and fear, which is honestly the appropriate reaction to what people are seeing.
- [20:43]
A
Yeah. It doesn't seem to you there'd be immigration issues at an Olympics in another country. Right. Are they going to try to say that what they afraid Italians might try to come home with Trump? I don't understand what they think is going to happen.
- [20:54]
D
So look, ICE is actually more complicated than most people understand. ICE has a one part of ICE does immigration and immigration enforcement and then homeland Security investigations, does all sorts of serious criminal investigations, child exploitation, transnational crime, fentanyl. And they would normally be the people who would go and do that sort of detail. A lot of HSI has been moved over to do immigration enforcement now. So like many things, like when you look under the, under the hood, it's a little bit more complicated. But the reality is that now there's really no space for nuance. I mean, what they're doing now is so scary and designed to be scary.
- [21:45]
A
Right.
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D
That of course people around the world are going to sort of react with horror at the idea that they might be coming to their country. And no, there aren't any immigration enforcement issues that they should be conduct doing handling at the US Olympic at the Winter.
- [21:59]
A
Can we talk about the, the World Cup? Because there is, there are growing voices in Europe saying that people should boycott the US World cup because there are, some of the games are going to be played in Canada and Mexico, but most of them are going to be played in the US They've made it very clear that they plan for ICE to be there. I mean, why should I, if I'm coming from, you know, Senegal and my team is playing, why would I feel safe in the United States when this is what ICE is doing to anyone with an accent or who's not white?
- [22:32]
D
So I'm having a little bit of connection issues here. I think I understood you to ask why somebody with who has brown skin or has an accent would feel safe walking around in, in the United States right now? And I think that if that was the question, I think the answer is that many of them don't and there's good reason for them not to. I think that, you know, as I said before, what we're Seeing is unconstrained immigration enforcement, and that has been emboldened by things like the Supreme Court with the Kavanaugh stops.
- [23:08]
A
Right.
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D
Like now, racial profiling is an explicit reason to. You can racially profile to.
- [23:15]
C
To.
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D
To find reasonable suspicion, to stop somebody. So, yes, I think there's a lot of reason for people to be scared. I think that you hear stories about people carrying their identification on them when they're U.S. citizens or legal residents. I think you hear a lot about people who are not documented or who have temporary protected status or think they might be picked up. Right. Staying home, missing school, not going to doctor's appointments, not going to their jobs. Right. You know, I think there's an enormous amount of fear, and I think that's been by design, to be honest. I think the Trump administration has won.
- [24:04]
A
We're having a little bit of a connection issue. So we're going to go ahead and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully this connection will.
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B
I'm going to leave her on screen. Just.
- [24:11]
A
Yeah, leave her on screen a little bit. And while we do that, because I did want to ask her, if she were a coach of an international team, would she bring her team here, which I. I know I wouldn't. Hopefully.
- [24:20]
B
I'm just gonna put it backstage for now.
- [24:22]
A
Okay, we're gonna put her backstage for just one. Oh, wait, I see her blinking. I think that means she might be moving again. Let's see, let's see, let's see. Deborah, do we have you? Yeah, we're gonna put her backstage. We're gonna put her backstage, but I'm gonna show you all while we're waiting for Deborah's connection to get better. This is the way that ICE agents, ICE goons, are speaking to people who are peacefully protesting by simply watching and documenting what they're doing. This is a five. Take a look.
- [24:49]
B
Tell you this, brother, what you know. I will tell you this.
- [24:53]
A
You raise your voice, I raise your voice. If I raise my voice, you'll erase.
- [24:58]
B
Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
- [24:59]
E
Are you serious? You said if I raise my voice.
- [25:01]
F
You'Ll erase my voice.
- [25:05]
A
If you raise your voice, I will erase your voice.
- [25:10]
B
You should have started screaming on his ass.
- [25:12]
A
You can hear the accent. There has been some talk that this man might be Cuban American. But what I'm my understanding is that he is Puerto Rican, so he is an American, but, you know, he has heavy accent. He. If he was walking around with that accent and that brown skin, would probably be targeted by ICE if he was off duty, as have many off duty police officers in multiple states including in Maine, where a law enforcement trainee who was going to work in their carceral system was pulled over. She was a black woman and was harassed by ice. Off duty. Had to eventually show a badge in order to make them stop, as has happened within Minnesota. So the joint sheriffs and police came out and did a press conference denouncing the racial profiling of their own police staff, their own sergeants and captains. When they don't have their uniforms on, they're getting harassed. Can we get Deborah back? Do we have her back? Let's see if she's back.
- [26:09]
B
She's still backstage right now.
- [26:11]
A
Okay, let's see if we can get her to work. It is, it is. It seems to me that saying that should get a man suspended. And in the normal world, that man who said, if you, if you raise your voice, I will silence your voice. That's a threat against a citizen while you are an armed member of an entity that is killing people. Yeah, Boriquas. Yep. He's. But he's not the good kind of boricua. So yes, people heard the accent and thought maybe he was Cuban American. He's apparently Puerto Rican. Let me get your, your reaction, please, if you could, Deborah, to. I don't know if you could hear the sound of the, the ICE agent who said to a person who was observing him, if you raise your voice, I will erase your voice.
- [27:00]
D
Well, that, I mean, I've seen that video. It's incredibly disturbing. I don't think there's any way around that. Right. Like that is an inappropriate behavior by an ICE agent and somebody who was. Who expected there to be consequences generally wouldn't talk like that. I think that part of the issue is that accountability has been minimized, erased. I'm not sure what the right word is, but. And so people are acting as though there are not consequences that they can get away with whatever they want to get away with. And I think we're seeing the result of that in language and action.
- [27:41]
A
Yeah. So one of the things that Department of Homeland Security that Kristi Gnomes outfit has denied is that they use little Liam, the little five year old boy with the cute little boy with the backpack, that they used him as bait to try to get his parents to come out of their home so they could detain them. They have very, very denied it with a lot of sturm and drawing. And they're so offended by the idea that people are claiming that ICE would ever use a child as bait. Well, I want to show you. This is a six Jason if you could roll this, because this is an example of. I think that exactly that this is not in Minnesota. I believe this is in Massachusetts.
- [28:15]
B
I'm sorry, Joe, I just have to track that down.
- [28:17]
A
Oh, no worries. It's a six. So, yeah, whenever you have it, just, just let me know. Because the question about Liam. Maybe you can answer this while we're waiting for that video, Deborah, is whether or not it is legal to take a child who is walking home from preschool, from school. He's walking in the door with his dad and the agents, the ICE agents want to get both parents and so they detain the father, throw him in the car, and then they will not let little Liam go. The five year old is then walked up to the door and told to ring the doorbell to make your mom come out.
- [28:49]
B
I'm ready if you need it.
- [28:50]
A
Okay, before we get to that, is that legal? First of all.
- [28:56]
D
I think the answer is actually, yes, it is legal. I think that that doesn't mean that it's right. And I think that there were a lot of other ways that the ICE agents could have handled this right. They could have agreed to not arrest the mother if she opened the door and let the boy in. There were ways they could handle this. Not holding him as. Not using him as bait and understanding that the boy could go with the other, the custodial parent, and they could handle the arrest of the father on its own without, Without. Without arresting a five year old. In addition, I think that's one of the hardest things that we're seeing, which is that a lot of what the Trump admin. Not everything, but a lot of what the Trump administration is doing is legal. It. But it points to the brokenness of the system and the reality that we need to fix the system from top to bottom.
- [29:54]
A
Let's play this happening in another state again. The Department of Homeland Security vigorously and vehemently denied that they use children as bait in order to capture parents. But now. Here's a six. Take a look. Don't touch it.
- [30:09]
C
She borrowing here.
- [30:10]
A
Don't touch her.
- [30:11]
D
And also she have.
- [30:12]
A
If you touch her, you're gonna have problems. No, look, that's where I am. Hey, I can give it to your daughter. No, I can give it to the dog. You guys use care people. That's what you do.
- [30:27]
C
See how you have the kids over there?
- [30:30]
A
That's. What are you doing with this country? Ah, you put an upside down.
- [30:34]
D
Please, sir.
- [30:35]
A
She have all this spectrum. Please, please.
- [30:38]
F
Yes, bring your id.
- [30:41]
A
We'll check you too.
- [30:42]
C
Okay, I'M gonna give you my ID.
- [30:43]
A
But give me my daughter back. Nope.
- [30:45]
B
You're gonna have to physically come out here.
- [30:47]
A
Okay. That's the. That's the way you treat people.
- [30:50]
E
You're such a real man, you know that?
- [30:51]
C
You're a real man.
- [30:53]
A
I mean, it. It looks like slave catcher behavior to me. This seems incredibly cruel, and it seems that they are using children as bait.
- [31:04]
D
I think there's. I think that's clearly what they're doing, and I think that it points to the fact that the statements that come out of this administration can't be believed. They. They don't think there's any way around that.
- [31:22]
A
If you were working or advising still the Department of Homeland Security, as you did during the Biden administration, would you advise, let's say, a sane president to keep Kristi Noeman her job?
- [31:40]
D
Of course not. Of course not. But I would also say that in some ways, the leadership at dhs, it's interchangeable because the real orders are coming from Stephen Miller in the White House. And so as long as Stephen Miller is running immigration, we're going to get the same outcome.
- [32:00]
A
Very true indeed. What do you think?
- [32:03]
D
I think we're. I think we're fixing the window dressing.
- [32:05]
A
Right? I totally agree with you on that. Yeah. Stephen Miller is the person that does not get enough attention because it is. This is his policy. But the players around him are an interchangeable sort of cast of baddies that are each sort of more comically evil than the last. What do you make of Tom Holman? Tom Holman? Actually, you know, I don't know if you crossed paths with him during. About the Biden era, but he worked for President Obama doing roughly the same job. He was sort of the border czar. He was the architect during the first Trump regime, the child separation policy, that horrifically cruel policy. What do you make of him and the idea that he is the guy who's going to be able to stabilize this stuff?
- [32:45]
D
So, look, I do know Mr. Homan. I was a career government employee in the office, the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, for many years before I became a political appointee. And I did work with him during that time. During the Obama years. He was seen as a reasonable person that you could work with and that sort of understood what the. What the administration wanted and worked to try and implement it. I mean, my goodness, he. He signed a transgender care policy while he was the head of ICE during the Obama years. During Trump 1.0, he either made a political calculation or showed his true colors or both. And I think we saw during the first Trump administration, and I think we've seen through the many, many statements he's made that he's going to follow the will of the White House. And they can claim that they're making a change by having Greg Bevino go and Tom Homan come in. But as long as Stephen Miller is there, it's going to be the same thing. As you pointed out, Tom Homan was one of the architects of family separation. He has a lot of ethical challenges. The $50,000 in a Kapha bag, you know, alleging that he, he was going to give benefits to private prison companies once he was back in the administration. The idea that he is the person who is going to de, escalate this and save us all from, from the horrors that we've been seeing seems comical to me.
- [34:30]
A
Yeah. What about Greg Bovino? Because he strikes me as somebody who is sort of cosplaying a kind of 1930s, you know, sort of members of the German military. It seems like that's what he wants to do. It's what he's trying to portray. I don't know what his other goal would be other than marching around surrounded by much taller stormtroopers in that jacket. What do you make of, of, of him and his games?
- [34:55]
D
I'm glad he is, I'm glad he was removed. I mean, I think agreed that he, he brought a lot of the worst excesses and he's behind a lot of the worst things that we've seen in a number of the cities, not just Minneapolis, but around the Chicago, Louisiana. Right. I mean, he's, he's led the operations in a number of places at this point, and he's been behind many of the real excesses that we've seen and that much of the American public has recoiled from. I, I agree with you that it does appear that he's cosplaying. I don't know him, so I can't speak to, to what's in his heart, but he certainly was seemed interested in, in, in appearing as physically evil as he could, and he seems to back it up with his behavior.
- [35:52]
A
My exit question to you, Deborah, as somebody who is an expert in this and who worked in this field and who you're student enough of history to know that we haven't always had an ice. Do we need ice? Is there a reason why ICE should exist at all at this point?
- [36:09]
D
Look, I believe that immigration enforcement is going to continue, right? Like there is a role for targeted, careful immigration enforcement. There are Some people who commit serious crimes who don't have status to be in this country and probably should be removed, whether that's called ICE or whether that's reorganized and retrained to be something better than what we have now now is sort of the secondary question to me. The real question to me is what does immigration enforcement look like moving forward? And there is so much room for improvement. We can do so much better than what we're doing.
- [36:52]
A
I think we can agree on that. I'll just ask it one more way. If I cease to exist tomorrow, isn't it the case that we would still be able to have immigration enforcement because some other agency would pick that up? Ice, we really don't need it. Right. We've only had it since 2001, and we seem to exist for nearly 250 years without it. Two hundred and forty, Sure.
- [37:13]
D
I mean, I think ICE used to be part of Immigration and Naturalization Services. They could put immigration enforcement in some other. They could put it in Customs and Border Protection. They could put it in uscis, which tends to handle benefits. Right. They could create one unified immigration agency which might. Which could make a lot more sense in terms of putting all immigration under one roof and having one person be responsible for it. Again, sort of. You can call that ice or you can call that, you know, ice cream. But like, some of those functions are going to happen. The question is how you do them. And right now, what's happening is not the way we should be doing it.
- [37:55]
A
Agreed. Deborah Fleischecker, thank you very much. We appreciate you. Please come back. Thanks.
- [37:59]
D
Thanks.
- [38:00]
A
Thank you. And tonight's show, we got to pay for this. Because, listen, the way that we keep independent media going is that we are very thankful to have great sponsors that kick in to help us to make sure that we can keep the train on the tracks. And one of those great sponsors, and one of my favorites actually is Zbiotics.
- [38:16]
D
Celebrations don't start with the clinking of glasses.
- [38:19]
A
They start with Zbiotics Pre alcohol, a probiotic you take before your first drink so you can enjoy the night and wake up ready. Zebiotics Free alcohol. The science behind your next great morning. Now, this year I am trying to focus on little small shifts that can make a huge difference. Meaning, like effortless presence. Right. And it may sound a little counterintuitive, but for me, that means planning ahead so that I can truly live in the moment, especially when enjoying a few drinks when I'm not having, you know, my tea. And I'm going to have Something a little bit stronger. I want to make sure that, that I prepare in advance so that I can have a great morning the next morning. So one small shift that I have made is to introduce Zbiotics. It's called Pre alcohol support. And the way it works is that there are all these grimy enzymes in your gut, right? And they are the things that actually make you not feel well after you enjoy a night out. And so what you can do in order to prevent those little gremlins inside of you from making you not feel well is that you can try pre alcohol probiotics. So Zebiotics is a pre alcohol probiotic drink and it is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic drink. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle those rough mornings after drinking. So here's how it works. So when you drink, right, that little byproduct in your gut, it's a toxic byproduct, it's a buildup of that byproduct. It's really not dehydration that makes you not feel well. So pre alcohol produces this enzyme that breaks this byproduct down. So if you just remember to make pre alcohol your first drink of the night, then drink responsibly, you will feel your best in the morning. I can tell you this is the way that we have been making it work on New Year's. This is the way that we've been making it work after we have our post show cocktail. So I first have my little pre alcohol, my Zebiotics do that, then I have my drink and then when I wake up next morning, voila, feeling fabulous. So if you're ready to try it as well, go to zebiotics.com joy right now you'll get a 15% off discount on your first order when you use Joy at checkout. Plus it is backed by 100% money back guarantee, so there's no risk. Subscriptions are also available for maximum consistency. Just remember to head to zebiotics.com joy and use the code joy at checkout for 15% off.
- [40:34]
B
Somebody in that chat just asks, how does it taste? I've tasted it already, guys. It doesn't really taste like anything.
- [40:39]
A
It doesn't have a taste.
- [40:40]
B
It doesn't have a taste. It just tastes like, you know, water. So you just drink it. It's a little vial. You drink it and then literally just, you know, drink responsibly afterwards, obviously, but you feel fine in the morning. I have tried it.
- [40:52]
A
Yeah, it's. I literally give it to friends now because I mean, I'm telling you, if you. The worst feeling in the world is that, you know, that feeling of not feeling great after. And so it is fantastic. And it doesn't have a taste because, you know, I'm not going to drink something that tastes bad. I just can't do it. I don't have the willpower, even if it would help me. But so it doesn't really have a taste at all. It's kind of a neutral sounding, a sort of a neutral taste. So you can get it down quick. It's a tiny little vial of it. You pop it in and then you can even do it like an hour before you go out. It's like really great.
- [41:20]
B
I mean, a good thing is like you don't have to drink 10,000 drinks.
- [41:23]
A
And you don't have to do that either.
- [41:25]
B
Drink responsible.
- [41:26]
A
You also could not drink 10,000.
- [41:27]
B
No, you couldn't do that.
- [41:28]
A
You be dead. That might, that might be. Yeah.
- [41:31]
B
But anyway, just drink responsibly.
- [41:32]
A
I want you to listen to Monroe Lotus right now and smash that, like, button with all those caps. All those caps. And also the exclamation points. Yes, we appreciate the likes. We also want to say leftist. Prof. A leftist prompt over on Substack says notice none of the businesses that hire undocumented workers are ever punished. I will note leftist lefty. Prof. Sorry on Substack, that they are claiming inside of the Trump regime that they are doing lots of workforce workplace actions as well. But the only workplace actions we've seen to your point is that they go into a workplace, including one where they just ate and arrested or detain and kidnap, you know, the waiter or the dishwasher or the cook. You're right. They're not detaining the owners of these restaurants. They're just leaving the owners with no workers, which is hurting the owners too. But yeah, you're right, they're not doing that. So I want you guys to check out this video. Some folks in the chat over on the YouTube side have noticed, have talked about it. We're going to show it now. This is B1. This is ICE agents apparently trying to enter the Ecuadorian consulate in Minneapolis. This is wild. You.
- [42:42]
B
This is the trouble.
- [42:44]
A
Relax, relax. Okay, Relax.
- [42:50]
B
If you touch me, I will grab you.
- [42:54]
E
Okay.
- [43:22]
A
That is wild. So they just, what heard brown people were around.
- [43:25]
B
And it's one thing is they want to start an international incident because that is literally their sovereign.
- [43:32]
A
The government of Ecuador, by the way, has condemned what it described as an attempt by US Federal immigration agents. To enter the Ecuadorian consulate in Minneapolis. The agent was prevented from gaining access to consular officials for the BBC who acted to guarantee the protection of the Ecuadorians who were inside the consulate at the time. A statement from Ecuador's Foreign Ministry said, Ecuador, their president is an ally of Trump, yet he has filed an official complaint. And the incident comes obviously as they are targeting and attacking and using these Kavanaugh stops on anybody. BROWN Joining me now is Kika Matos, president of the National Immigration Law center and the NILC Immigrant Justice Fund. Kika, just real quick question, simple question, is that even legal?
- [44:17]
C
No, it is not legal. It's a violation of international law, specifically the Vienna Convention that prohibits law enforcement from entering any consular premises. But this speaks to the lawlessness of ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. They seem to believe that they do not need to follow the law. That is why the Ecuadorian government filed a complaint with the US Embassy, because these agents violated international law.
- [44:50]
A
And I mean, what could, I mean, it seems to me that they are, you know, they're filling Stephen Miller's quota. We know that Stephen Miller has given a 3,500person a day quota. They want to remove 2 million some odd immigrants from the country. They would love to remove 10 million if they could. Everybody. BROWN but there can't be a pretext because somebody has an accent, as you said, if they are on the sovereign territory of that other country, it seems to me that these agents are either not getting trained or, or they're just dog whistling at anybody.
- [45:19]
C
BROWN I suspect it's a combination of both because recall that last year, as a result of Trump's what he called one big beautiful bill or whatever it was, hundreds of billions of dollars were given to the Department of Homeland Security. I believe it was 175 billion and 70 billion to ICE. And part of the $70 billion was meant to hire 10,000 new. So in essence, Trump is building his own police force to carry out ostensibly immigration enforcement. But I also think it is a way to establish authoritarianism in this country. He can deploy them anywhere, they can, crack heads, beat up black and brown people and do things like what happened in this video. So the, the issue with the Department of Homeland Security is that they have lowered their standards in order to ramp up the number of ICE officers that they have hired. They're desperate for the 10,000. There was a reporter who wrote a very funny article about going through the process and how very little process there actually is. A lot of the officers are not trained. Some of them. There was a Video of an ICE officer that had SS insignia on his neck. Some of them are white supremacists, but there's very little accountability when it comes to either hiring them, training them, accountability or oversight.
- [46:53]
A
Yeah. And to your point, you know, there are. There's tape of these right wing, you know, video pastors telling people to strap on a gun and in the name of the Lord, hunt down immigrants to please God. That's webbing. Joel Webbin, who said that. So they're being told that this is a Christian nationalist mission and the kind of people attracted to that. Yeah, not a surprise. There would be some white nationalists in that group.
- [47:21]
C
There was a video that I watched, and I don't remember where it was, where an officer deployed a gun and off to the side there was an agent in a mask who started clapping. And I just thought, what has this nation become?
- [47:40]
A
There's a story here out of. This is actually from the New York Times that some local prosecutors are now progressive prosecutors. They're now joining forces because they have decided enough is enough. These federal goons. And, you know, they get mad when you say it's the Gestapo, but that kind of is what the Gestapo was. Right. These sort of militarized federal gangs that could go through town and grab anyone they want out of any home. I mean, that is what they're claiming to do as well. You now have some of these progressive prosecutors, specifically Larry Krasner out of Philadelphia. But nine progressive prosecutors from cities around the country are launching a coalition to assist in prosecuting federal law enforcement officers who violate state laws. Larry Krasner is kind of one of the leaders, and it's called the Project for the Fight Against Federal Overreach. It also includes Mary Moriarty, the elected prosecutor in Minneapolis. And that federal fight against federal overreach, of course, when you shorten that to initials, it's fafo. What do you make of this effort?
- [48:47]
C
It's necessary. One of the things that this administration has been saying repeatedly, and they are wrong, and we know that they have a tendency to just straight up lie about things. Stephen Miller has kept saying that ICE officers who carry out these violent tactics and shoot at innocent bystanders have absolute immunity. In other words, they can't be prosecuted. That is not true. The hurdle is high and it's very difficult, but you can move forward and prosecute an immigration officer. The problem that we are seeing right now, and we saw happening in Minnesota most recently, is that what the federal agencies are doing is prohibiting local law enforcement from investigating. In other words, they want to immediately take control of the scene and not allow local officials access. That's part of what's happening now in the fighting Congress over new funding for dhs. And that's one of the demands that many of us are making, which is that there should be real accountability and DHS should cooperate with state and local law enforcement when they investigate what we see clearly as lawlessness, murders carried out by untrained agents.
- [50:12]
A
I'm going to come back because I want to talk about what some of the adjudication could be on some of these murders that we have seen, as you said in Minneapolis. But I want to go back to little Liam. He's become, as we started the show talking about tonight, one of really the faces of the horrors of what ICE is doing in Minneapolis. He is now detained in Texas. What's to stop, even though a judge has ordered them not to. What's to stop the regime from deporting him and his dad and leaving his mom on her own in the US without her husband and baby?
- [50:44]
C
Honestly, public pressure. It's really up to we the people to keep the pressure up. Because recall that a year ago they were ordered to turn around planes of people that were being taken to El Salvador, that terrible maximum security prison. They ignored the courts. What we are seeing and we saw in Minnesota after the murder of Pretty and Good and this beautiful little boy, Liam, is that when we the people speak out and make demands that that is when the administration backs off. And so I think it's up to all of us to make sure that we keep the pressure up.
- [51:26]
A
Yeah, I think that is why Trump has talked about de escalation. But then he turned right around and went back to attacking the mayor and attacking the governor. He can't help himself. What about civil penalties? Could Liam's family have a suit? But really more on the wrongful death side, Chong Li, Scott Tao for violation of his civil rights, he was dragged out into the cold. He could have been sick, he could have been made ill. The man they were looking for is already in prison. So it was a complete wrongful. They went into his home. That seems like a pretty straightforward civil rights violation. Obviously. Alex Preddy for wrongful death. Renee Nicole Good for wrongful death. And this other case that we mentioned tonight, well, Keith Porter obviously for wrongful death as well. And this other young man, wild tarabishi, 30 year old man whose father was taken by ICE, leaving him with no caregiver. He died at 30 years old without his caregiver. Can these families seek civil penalties?
- [52:29]
C
They can and they should. Right. In the absence of DHS cooperation with these crimes that are taking place at the local level and in their efforts to protect their own officers, My own advice and what I think, everybody who has been deeply impacted adversely by ICE is to seek any and every remedy they possibly can, including civil remedies, but also to make sure that they continue to advocate very loudly and very publicly and seek also support from their state and local officials. And so my answer to folks who have been deeply hurt, injured, killed by this administration is to talk to lawyers to find out what legal remedies you have and to pursue them very aggressively.
- [53:23]
A
What should someone do if ICE bangs on their door, demanding to be let in because they want to do a Kavanaugh stop inside your house and search for brown or black people?
- [53:33]
C
You ask for a warrant, you do not open the door. Now, the other thing that they might do is knock on your door and say, can we come in? We just saw some activity on your street and we're really worried about you. Like, they will lie to try to get you to open the door. Do not, under any circumstances, open the door, number one. Number two, you ask for a warrant and you look at the warrant. Because there are two types of warrants. There is a warrant issued by a judge, which is called the judicial warrant, and it should have your name on it and the name of the judge. And there is something called an administrative warrant that ICE issues I.e. signed off by internal officers, and it does not give them the permission to enter your house. What ICE will do sometimes when people ask for warrant is that they will hold up a piece of paper and say, here's the warrant. And you will believe maybe that. Well, I don't know the difference. I don't know that there's such a thing as an administrative or a judicial warrant. But you have to look at it closely. If it's not signed by a judge and it's not a judicial warrant, you tell them, until you have a judicial warrant, I will not open this door. That is straight up Fourth Amendment constitutional protections. ICE officers do not, absent very limited circumstances, they do not have the right to enter your home unless they have a judicial warrant. Now, going back to the issue of the lawlessness of DHS and this administration, there was a memo that was leaked where DHS was quietly showing some of their senior leaderships a memo saying, just ignore the Fourth Amendment. Your officers should feel free to break down people's doors and go into their homes without a warrant. That is unconstitutional.
- [55:26]
A
I've seen. I'm trying to look at it really quickly and I'm not finding it very quickly. There is a video I've seen. It's actually chilling. It's about a 23 minute video that a young woman made on TikTok Rest in Peace TikTok, that she calls 911 because these ICE agents are pointing guns at her and they're outside of her door already pointing guns at her. She's terrified. She's actually an indigenous woman. She tries to tell them that they don't care and they're demanding that she release the doordasher into her house and ran inside of her home because she was terrified. They were chasing this doordasher, so she's obviously working, trying to make a living. And the doordasher flees into the home and is hiding in the basement. And this woman doesn't know what to do. She does not want to send this woman out there.
- [56:15]
C
She's.
- [56:16]
A
I'm getting sort of chills thinking about it. She. She at first is thinking maybe she should give her over because she doesn't know what to do. And she has her baby there and her husband, and she doesn't want them to bust down the door and kill them all. She calls 911 and the person at the other end of 911 tells her she should open the door and go outside because she doesn't want. They don't want the door to get busted in. Why are 911 officers telling someone in that situation, the way it ended, if you all haven't seen the video, is that she goes and opens the door and then something in her indigenous spirit. It's like her spirits jump inside of her and speaking in her indigenous language. And baby, when I tell you she cursed them out in a language they surely didn't understand, but the spirits understood and made them back down. And her neighbors all come out, start screaming. And one neighbor is a lawyer and says, you do not have to hand that lady over. And it becomes this huge thing where her neighbors are advising her and her spirit is advising her, and they're still demanding the woman. What do you do in that situation?
- [57:12]
C
That is the. That is the worst case scenario that many Americans today are dreading. Who would have thought that in 2026 people would be afraid of a lawless roving police force who can violate your constitutional rights, break into your home, beat you up, drag you away in the middle of winter or whatever, and then the government, instead of engaging in accountability, actually supports this lawlessness. I think this is, you know, I Keep saying to people, authoritarianism is taking root and we have to do everything we can to protect our democracy. But my own advice to every single American is to really memorize your rights. NILC has a bunch of Know youw rights materials. Nilc.org is our website. Www. And we. We write things very simply. We're not interested in sounding like smart lawyers. We're interested in making sure people have access to our information and can understand it in multiple languages. You need to remember what your rights are. I loved how she had a video the whole time.
- [58:25]
A
Yes.
- [58:26]
C
And she was able to record the entire thing. And then the activism of people on the streets made a difference because they were blowing whistles.
- [58:34]
A
Yeah.
- [58:34]
C
They were giving her advice, saying, oh, no, you know, you don't need to turn this person over. Because far too many of us will have a similar encounter like that. And inevitably what happens is you feel like she felt at the beginning, which is fear and anxiety and you're paralyzed and you don't know what to do, and you want to protect your families. But like you said, I loved how she became so fearless and such an advocate. That video actually brought a tear to my eye. I, too, got that chills, and I was. So I rooted her on everyone. No one is safe. Nobody is safe any longer. So all of us need to remember. And also memorize the name of a lawyer and then the phone number so that it happens. If you get detained, you remember, you insist on making a phone call and you reach out to your lawyer straight away.
- [59:29]
A
I will note that I DM'd back when I was still actively using Tick. And I haven't decided what to do about TikTok, but I DM'd her. So if you are that woman, you know who you are. Your video went very, very viral. I DM'd you because we would love to have you on the show. I would love to license the ability to play that video back. I didn't want to play it without her permission because it's very long and it is her content. So if you know that, let that lady. You guys know exactly what I'm talking about. We would love to have you on the Joy Reed show because it was epic. That was spiritual, that. That video. It gave me chills, as it did you, Kika. But she gave me hope. She was. She was a bad girl, man. She said, I'll find whatever tribe she was with. They jumped right inside.
- [60:10]
C
It was so inspirational. So inspirational. And a reminder, right. Of us never forgetting about who our ancestors are. Resilience.
- [60:22]
A
And whose this country is, y' all might have wiped them out, but they're still here in the soil, they're in the air, they're in the atmosphere. Y' all think you wipe them out. Their spirits are still active and working in this realm. Kika Matos, thank you. We're going to make sure we put the link so people can get the great advice from your organization to try to stay safe. Thank you very much.
- [60:42]
C
Thank you for having me.
- [60:43]
A
Thank you very much. Listen, y', all, if you've not seen this video, you must see it. You must see it. Somebody said the United States is playing out like the movie get out, except they're trying to tell the immigrants to get out. And about the video.
- [60:56]
B
I haven't seen that video yet. I have to go.
- [60:57]
A
Oh, I. I downloaded the video. As I'm awaiting her getting back to me. I'm hoping that she does get back to me. People don't always look at their DMs on tick tock, but I did DM her. Yeah. And I was like, I would love to play this video on the show and I would love to interview her because when I tell you she and her husband and she's. She's there with an infant and she's. And this poor woman is. Is wailing and crying behind her in the basement and terrified. And at one point, she leads her out of the basement and is standing there with the door, and she's thinking, I got to let her go. Because the silly 911 person is telling them, let the lady go. And so she doesn't know what to do because the authority is telling her the wrong advice.
- [61:36]
B
I hate to say this, but does the Castle Doctrine have anything to do with this? I mean, could you imagine sleeping in your bed and somebody. I know this is a Breonna Taylor type thing, but seriously, you're in your bed, in your home, and you're an American citizen. Somebody's knocking on your door about no warrant and kicks in your door. Does an American citizen have the right to start blasting whoever walks in the door? I'm not advocating violence.
- [62:01]
A
Let me see if we can get Kika to come back on. I'm going to. Actually, I'm going to ask if we can get Kika to log back on. Let's get Kika to log back on for one more question. Hold on. We're going to check here. We have one more question. Because I. Yeah, if we can get her to come back on. Because this is the challenge. This is a country where lots of people are armed. And I will. Oh, you're out. Your mic's not on.
- [62:25]
B
I'm just. Sorry. When does your second amendment kick in? I'm not saying that you should shoot and kill people, but if you do not have a warrant and you enter my home and I'm telling you not to, you don't make any announcement, you just start kicking in my door. Do I have a right to. To fire my weapon? This is all I have to say.
- [62:45]
A
This is. We're going to see if we can get Kika to come back on. But this came up in the Breonna Taylor case because Breonna Taylor and her boyfriend were asleep in the middle of the night, it's close to midnight, and someone bangs on her door. Exactly this. And you would think, particularly in a southern state like Kentucky, where he is an armed, illegal firearm owner. He shot at what he thought was an intruder. He was still charged with a crime. The boyfriend of Breonna Taylor. I will also note that in the case of Mr. Preddy, Alex Preddy was a legal. A lawful firearm holder. He had it safely holstered in his holster behind his back. He never drew his weapon, but he had that absolutely legally, and he was executed. There's now some talk that it might have been a mistake because one of the idiot. The circle of idiots surrounding him screamed, he's got a gun. When. Who had the gun? Was one of them. They had already removed the gun from the holster he was on. You can see in the video that he has one free hand clutched in a fist and he has his phone clutched in his hand, and the other hand has nothing in it because he literally just had a phone and his other hand had nothing. He never reached. He wouldn't even have the chance to. He was on his knees and they shot him in the back. And so this is a great question. If we can get Kika back on. We're checking to see if our producers can grab her back. I let her go a little bit too soon. I didn't realize we had one more question for her. But that is. It is. It is a legitimate question. So if we get Kika back on, we'll bring her back in. But while we're doing that, let's move on to our next topic because we have a few videos I want to play here. Because while Alex Preddy, as we just discussed, was being gunned down, shot in the back in Minneapolis, Donald Trump was holding his Melania appeasement movie screening in Washington, D.C. featuring a bow tied. Tim Cook. Tim Cook who was photographed with multiply accused sex pest Brett Ratner, who's director. He's the director of the thing. He's denied, of course, a bunch of allegations of sexual harassment, abuse, or even assault. Of course, Trump's kind of guy. That's who directed this $75 million film that included a $40 million direct bribe to Melania and $35 million in cost to produce the film and market it. The screening will take place on tomorrow. On Thursday. The screening in the White House could not take place in the absolutely gorgeous White House theater because Donald Trump demolished that theater without whole part of the East Wing to make his ballroom. Apple employees especially are upset, and they're especially upset because of the large number of immigrants who work at Apple. Other tech CEOs who were at that screening included Andy Jassy of Amazon, Eric Yuan of Zoom, and Lisa Su of AMD. They were among the about 70 guests at the screening. They got custom popcorn and all sorts of other stuff as well. While that was happening, there was also a bash. This is all while Alex Preddy is bleeding out in the streets of Minneapolis. This is what they're doing in Washington. They're having a party from Melania with a big private screening, and they're having a big party at Mar a Lago. Guests unknown. We don't know how many members of the Trump regime were actually there, but they did have a woman in a glass. She's like in a glass bubble. So that's what's happening and what they're doing. There's this hedonistic, tone deaf life that they are living while people are suffering and dying. That's what's happening. It's a textbook case of white Christian nationalism on the march. If you remember, we did the Handmaid's Tale, right? And we talked about the fact that in the Handmaid's Tale, the the commanders live a hedonistic rich man life while everyone else suffers. That is what Christian national doesn't require the men who rule the country and rule the world to have any morals. And I want to. I want to. I want to play you.
- [66:36]
B
I'm sorry, Drew, I got one more thing.
- [66:37]
A
Please.
- [66:38]
B
I just see in the comments that what's his name? Mike Tyson was there.
- [66:43]
A
Mike Tyson was there.
- [66:44]
B
Should we ban him? No. I mean, why Mike Tyson? What could Mike Tyson do? I mean, should we? I don't think so.
- [66:51]
A
Mike Tyson was there. There was some self help gurus, gurus, et cetera. I mean, I don't care who's at the party.
- [66:57]
B
I don't care.
- [66:57]
A
But, but I, the one I do care about and that I think it's legitimate to, to talk about is really Tim Cook and the other tech bro. Because what's happening is, you know, Mike Tyson is just Mike Tyson. He's, he's there for his own purposes. Tim Cook runs a company that is donating to that ballroom that is bending the knee and potentially on surveillance, we all have these devices. What is he agreeing to in exchange for being Donald Trump's friend? We all have these devices in a highly surveillance forward economy where he and these other tech bros are participating in the outburst, the outburst of white Christian nationalism, which is a mix, a blend of tech bro feudalism, techno feudalism, which is where these tech CEOs want to rule the country, and this theobro feudalism, where these theobros want to have a white Christian nationalist country. Russell Vogt, all of these other white Christian nationalists, the Heritage foundation people, the Project 2025 people. So these things are combined, people asking how the Melania thing is entertaining. Apparently it's not. It's gotten poor reviews and no one's, no one's buying any theater tickets. But to bring it back to why these things matter, why we even care that the Apple CEO was at a Melania screening? Like, right, who cares? Right? Well, remember the church that was targeted in Minneapolis by all of the protesters who came out and they protested at the church? Don Lemon was there. There's a big call to arrest Don Lemon. Where did those calls come from? They came from a specific claque of Christian nationalist, highly online people who are connected to a guy named Joe Rigney. I want you guys to listen to Joe Rigney talking about that protest on the Tucker Carlson podcasting cause.
- [68:42]
G
Is that one of the lay pastors at the church works for ICE? He's a law enforcement officer, has been for 20 something years. He's a good man. He's a close friend of mine. I'm not even going to say his name because I don't want any more harassment for him and his family. But they had doxed him, discovered who he was, where he went to church and decided to make an example. And so that was the presenting cause. But I think there's also an element of, as you said, testing the boundaries. How far can we go? How far can we escalate these things in order to intimidate silence people into doing what we want? And so it's not enough now to harass law enforcement officers while they carry out their duties. We're now going to Follow them to their homes. We're going to follow them to their churches, we're going to intimidate their friends, we're going to frighten their children until I guess they think the effect of that would be that the administration will cease trying to enforce its immigration laws or maybe people will stop working for ice. I don't know what the end game is.
- [69:49]
A
Okay, so who is Joe Rigney? Well, he is the Doug Wilson acolyte who brought City's church, the church where that protest took place, to Minneapolis, where he reportedly lived for 18 years. He's also the author of a book entitled the Sin of Empathy, which we've talked about some on this show. Now here he is talking about how dangerous and evil empathy is called to do is.
- [70:16]
G
We're called to grieve with others, but we cannot lose ourself in the grief of others. You're putting someone else in your emotional driver's seat. You're that you're giving them the keys to your emotional car and saying, you can take this wherever you want, but they're the one who actually hurt it. Empathy is the parasitic version of sympathy. So it's a knockoff. It's what sympathy looks like when it goes bad. You may not be interested in the culture war. The culture war is interested in you. City's church is just a normal evangelical Baptist church. It's not political. We want to worship Jesus. We want to love our neighbors. We want to share the gospel. It's that kind of normal church. If you allow it, if you don't have the fortitude and the courage to go, you know what? This is unacceptable, and it needs to be checked to call for that, to demand that on behalf of your elected officials to vote accordingly. When elections come up, then it is a tipping point. There's a reason that this sort of lawlessness is occurring in places like Minnesota, California and Illinois because it's in the places where the left gets power. They encourage and foster this kind of environment. ICE is carrying out deportations in Texas and Florida and places like that. And you're not seeing this sort of action. Why? Because local law enforcement assists them. It helps them. Local law enforcement knows how to do that job, arrest people. And then they can hand off the violent, criminal legal aliens to ICE and they can be deported. But the governor of Minnesota and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul are refusing to cooperate. And so it gets tense and the passions get raging. And now we're in the middle of mobs and riots. And this is the environment. The left wants it's what they're aiming for. It's part of their strategy and their tactics. Christians really need to own that. Like to be clear eyed about it and not to shrink back from the moment, but to lean in and to preach the word with boldness and be willing to take action. I know for a fact that if you look back over the last 10 or 15 years, the two places that wokeness most prominently entered into the church was either through the women's ministry or the counseling ministry. Those were the two places. That's how it got in, because you had people who were primed to not draw clear boundaries and instead lead and be overwhelmed by their compassion and their empathy.
- [72:28]
A
That guy calls himself a pastor.
- [72:30]
B
Yeah, whatever. Whatever God he serves. Whatever God he serves, he can keep it.
- [72:34]
A
He says. So you saw him there on the podcast of Pastor Doug Wilson. You saw him there in the middle of that little mashup where they had the cocktails. I hope they had their zebiotics before they had their cocktails. So of course they're living their hedonistic life. But, you know, we can't have any immigrants. We can't have these women's ministries. Posh, the women's ministries. Right. So you'll notice him. Right. Doug Wilson, also, you'll recall, is the guy who said that women are the kind of people that babies come out of and nothing else, and that the 19th amendment allowing women to vote was an abomination because it brought about all the bad 20th century things like legal birth control and abortion and civil rights and gay rights and expanded immigration. Well, there's more. Tucker isn't just friendly with these guys. He is their ideological fellow traveler. Here he is in his podcast where he interviewed Joe Rigney. He interviewed him later in the show, and he set it up by calling the protesters against ICE in Minneapolis and I quote, armed enforcers of the Great Replacement swarm ICE officers in Minneapolis. Armed enforcers of the Great Replacement Replacement. Now, have you ever wondered how to square Tucker's apparent sanity about Gaza and the Israeli occupation with his kooky beliefs about the Great Replacement? I want you to listen to a little bit of him talking about both. With apologies, you're gonna have to hear a little Tucker Carlson right now. Sorry, you have to do it. Scaring and scaring. Now he starts off. I listen to. It's like 90 minutes long. I'm only making you listen to like two minutes. Okay. He starts off explaining what the Great Replacement theory is and how it's been unfairly maligned and only Nazis believe In it. And the people in DESP encouragingly described. Right. And says that, oh well, you know, if you can read demographics, you believe in it, but everyone is saying it's so bad and it's so racist and blah blah, blah. And then he goes on to describe what he claims. Okay, is the best year, the best single year in American history. Art.
- [74:25]
H
Because it's a easy and obvious place to start. The beginning of the post war era. Peak America, 1950, the first post war census. I think everyone would agree, whether they're right or wrong, that this is a period remembered as the best time in America. 1950. United States is an industrial power. It's the leader of the west, if.
- [74:41]
A
Not really the world.
- [74:42]
H
And America domestically is pretty harmonious, thriving. Happy.
- [74:49]
A
Duck Ems Duckums. I thought you were gone sane. Tuckham said that 1950 is an area that was. We were, we were at peace. That's true. We were leading the world. That's true. We emerged from Europe from World War II as the leader of the free world because every other country, Europe was devastated by the bombing of the Allies. The Axis was completely devastated. Japan, we had bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So yeah, the US was the big dog in town. But you said that everyone was happy, everybody got along, everything was peaceful. It was peaceful internally. Seriously, 1950. So before Brown v. Board, just unpack again what he's saying. He's saying in 1950 it was the ideal America before Brown versus the board of Education and that mean old school desegregation and the Civil Rights act of 64 and the Voting Rights act of 65. Per Tuckum's, America was prosperous, powerful, peaceful and happy. Everybody loved it. Everybody loved it. Until the 1965 Immigration act, which Tucker actually took took effect in 1968, not 1965. Until that immigration act which opened the doors to the brown immigrants, messed up the demographics. Now here's the next part of his open which actually it directly follows that there's a little bit more in between it. But his team thought that what he said next was so good they turned it into a promo.
- [76:14]
H
In the United States is a wholesale change of who lives here. New York City in 1950 was 90% white. Chicago in 1950 was 86% white. Philadelphia, over 80%. Los Angeles, 94% white. Detroit, Michigan, 84% white. Baltimore, 76% white. That was 1950. Here are the numbers today. Baltimore, 27% white. Detroit, about 10% white. Los Angeles, about 37% white. Now Philadelphia, 36%. Chicago, less than 30%. And New York City is now a real around 30% white. The great replacement is not only real, it's the realest thing there is.
- [76:52]
A
It's the realest thing. Remember last week when we showed you guys the January sixer who doll these protests where he has a cross on his on over his shoulder and he goes to burn Qurans and he had to get saved by a black man in Minnesota because he came to Minneapolis to try to protest. He got doused by super soakers. Remember that guy? Remember how he said almost the exact same things about how white Detroit used to be and now it's not white anymore? You see where I'm going, Tucker Carlson? His great replacement theory is that the de whitening of these cities is how America has gone to hell. And just so you put it all together, all these guys who were tied into the aforementioned, they're all tied to the aforementioned Doug Wilson, who's kind of like their leader. He's like their spiritual leader, right? And he is one of the connections to the other set of weird, masculinity challenged, yet masculinity fixated men who are trying to turn this country into a tech bro theocracy. Now here is that guy, Doug Wilson, who connects all these guys together defending the supposed intellectual inspiration of the tech bro theocratic movement, Curtis Yarvin, who we've also discussed on this show and his outre views about slavery.
- [78:07]
I
Slavery time was a wonderful, wonderful time for slaves and whites both. If it's all sung of the south, then of course that's a misrepresentation. In the slave narratives that I read, there were stories and narratives and tales that were every bit as bad as the most virulent abolitionist could conjure up. In other words, there were true tales of abuse. There were also numerous slaves pining for slavery time, saying that they really had it good back then and they didn't have it good right now. Now what Yarvin is saying, Yarvin is not denying the atrocity stories. He's just saying there's the presence of this other perspective. In other words, it's not a one size fits all. The interviewer is trying to say it's not one size fits all. But then he wants one size to fit all. He's the one contradicting himself.
- [79:10]
G
And I say this and I see.
- [79:11]
F
How does that justify anyone's life more pleasant, difficult to argue that anyone that.
- [79:19]
A
Including freed slaves, children longer sold out from under said anyone.
- [79:24]
G
Okay, first of all, when I said anyone, I was talking about pop, a population group rather than individuals.
- [79:30]
F
But Are you seriously arguing that. That the era of slavery was somehow.
- [79:35]
A
Better than the era.
- [79:37]
G
The era of 1865-1875 was? Absolutely.
- [79:44]
A
And the war itself wasn't good either.
- [79:46]
E
But if you look at the living.
- [79:47]
G
Conditions for an African American in the south, they are absolutely at their nadir between 1865 and 1875.
- [79:55]
A
They are very, very bad.
- [79:57]
G
Because basically this economic system has been.
- [80:00]
F
But abolition was a necessary step to get through that period towards so.
- [80:04]
I
To make people necessary step, huh?
- [80:08]
A
What he's describing, the period that he says was the deer for African Americans, who, I'm sure Curtis Yarvin, who, by the way, I'm not starting to be mean, but he kind of looks like he smells like pee.
- [80:20]
B
I don't know how many black people asked that question.
- [80:23]
A
He doesn't care about black people.
- [80:24]
B
I know, but the point is, at least have somebody on there to talk about it. This is a white man telling us black folk what we should be feeling.
- [80:30]
A
Okay. And he was describing the Reconstruction era, which is when the supposedly living horribly black people were electing black legislatures to their state, local and federal offices. So they were electing blacks, or blacks were getting placed in, you know, statewide positions or. I mean, but yeah, okay, so he's saying Reconstruction was hell. This is the old post war narrative, right? That Reconstruction was hell. Slavery was nice because they were taken care of. And they think that this is an idyllic thing. Right? They don't think black people shouldn't be here. They just think they need to be here in their place and that things were so much better, per Tucker, before 1950. 1950 and earlier. The Public Religion Research Institute asked this question. Robbie Jones has told you their key question to determine which side of the white Christian nationalist line you fall on is was America Better before 1950 or after?
- [81:24]
B
I don't know about us. For them, maybe.
- [81:25]
A
For them, Right? So. Well, even for most of them, no, because most of them were poor. And Yarvin. Curtis Yarvin is, of course, who inspires J.D. vance, who worked for Peter Thiel, who has also expressed doubt that women should vote, and who was one of two Bay Area California delegates to the 2016 Republican convention. Who was the other Bay Area delegate? Why? It was current Department of Justice Civil Rights Division leader Harmeet Dillon, who's out here threatening still to prosecute Don lemon. This is C9. If we can throw it up there. She is still doing that on social media. And she's also someone who has defended and been a legal counsel to Doug Wilson, defending his churches when they refused to shut down during the COVID pandemic. And guess who, Guess who is a parishioner of Christ Church. Spinoff of his church is called Christ Church. It's in Idaho. Doug Wilson. Right. That's his original church. His underling is who spun off the church in Minneapolis and created that. He then creates a second version of his Christ Church in D.C. and guess who walked in first day member or at least attends it. Pete Exit, Defense secretary and doubter that women ought to vote or women ought to serve. Sorry. He's raised questions about women should serve in the military. Do you see where I'm going here? They're all connected. Joining me now is John Pavlovitz. He's a writer, pastor, activist, and storyteller from Wake Forest, North Carolina. His best selling thought provoking substack newsletter, which I read pretty much every day, the Beautiful Mess speaks into the intersection of politics and religion. A 30 year veteran in the trenches of local church ministry, John is committed to equality, diversity and justice, both inside and outside faith communities. I'm a fan. It is so great to virtually meet you. Welcome, John.
- [83:14]
E
Joy. Thank you so much. This is long overdue. It's really good to be with you.
- [83:18]
A
I mean, really, it's funny because you're somebody that I've been reading for a really long time, but I've just, somehow I've never been able to figure out how to get to you and book you. But we tracked you down and you're such a great voice in terms of speaking very bluntly about what's happening inside the Christian faith. And it is ugly. But I, I wonder what you make of the fact that it seems like they're a bit of a cabal that is very determined to whiten these cities.
- [83:49]
E
Yeah. I mean, coming from, I've been a local church pastor. I began 30 years ago and this was always the plan. And at certain times it looked like that plan was going to be quite possible. And then it, and then later on it looked like, hey, we were doing okay. But what Trump has done is given this dying dinosaur legitimacy and power and organization that it hasn't had before. And now everything is aligning. And my job every day is to try to make people understand, especially white people who are professed Christians, to know that this is our mess and we need to clean this up. It's not, you know, it's not upon people of color or immigrants to fix this. This is a homegrown, homemade disaster and that we're culpable for it.
- [84:33]
A
You know, what's what to me, I find so ironic about the great replacement theory that Tucker Carlson is quite obsessed with. He talked about it a lot when he was at Fox. He's still going in on it. He does a thing in this 90 minute podcast episode where he then goes into the Israel of it. And so this is where he lines up where he is in Terms of Palestinians vs European Jewish people that are settlers. Right. So now we're saying, aha. That's where he's getting to. This is. But in that case, the people who live in Palestine are Arabs. And he's making the case, I guess, that Arabs need to be where Arabs are. Right. The Middle East. And so therefore that's why he's siding with them. It's not because he cares about them or has any empathy or sympathy for them. It's because they're Arab people. And so they're in an Arab land. And so he sees their side. But when he applies that here, the problem he's got with his argument about great replacement is that there was a great replacement. Jason, can you pull up C11? We had a great replacement in this country. It's this, it's the indigenous who had 100% of this land and who now are 1.7% of the population.
- [85:42]
E
It's staggering the cognitive dissonance that they're able to handle here because they have been about colonization and genocide since this country was born. And they've always had power, they've always had control, and yet their constant narrative is oppression. You know, I'm glad Tucker talked about the good old days, because I was born in the late 60s and I didn't realize I could have had it really good. I've been suffering all this time as a cisgender heterosexual white guy. And I think that's the, the, the sickness of this. And, and as a Christian, these guys are professing to be people of faith who follow J Fact is that Jesus, with his physicality, if he showed up right now, he would be the most in danger from the very people who are proselytizing about God. And it's just, it's a sickening thing.
- [86:32]
A
Oh, he would 100% be deported. I mean, first of all, he's woke brown. Yeah. I mean, but the, the thing that I've, and I, I've sort of gone into a bit of a wormhole of their belief system. They have reorganized their brains to believe that Jesus was a blonde white person somehow living in the Middle east. Right? They, they don't, you know, they they can accept that Ashkenazi Jews should not be in the Middle east, but they think that Jesus looked like what? So they're like. But they. So they. They can't.
- [87:01]
C
They.
- [87:01]
A
I don't know how that works, how that tracks. But if they really do believe that Europeans need to be in Europe, Arab people need to be in the Arab lands, Africans need to be in Africa, et cetera, doesn't that mean that by their own belief system they ought to all leave and go back to Europe?
- [87:20]
E
Yeah, we should dismantle the whole thing if we're going to follow this through to its logical conclusion. And of course, that's not what they want. That doesn't help them build a theocracy, which is the whole plan here. And so anytime you interrupt their plan with logic, with empathy, with clear thinking, they. They don't want to hear that. They have a. You know, you talked about the connections with all these guys. If you go back to far enough, you're going to find it's just one big network of good old boys who believe that God was a white, cisgender heterosexual man who was born in America, raised Christian and votes Republican, and that is their religion. And here's the scary thing, Joy. The churches these people are part of, they have weaned people for so long in this theology of hatred and fear and exclusion is that they don't understand it any longer, that that's unnatural. And so it feels completely righteous to them. And that's one of the saddest things as a pastor to see.
- [88:14]
A
What do you make of this? The sin of empathy? Because this has become a mantra for them, that empathy is the problem, that the reason women shouldn't vote is they're too empathetic, that they also cancel out their husband's votes if they don't just vote, have their husbands vote. But that, that is their core issue, is that women are too empathetic. So they're going to vote for welfare and they're going to vote for. Right. More immigration and, you know, and for gays to have rights. And so we can't.
- [88:39]
E
Women and loving your neighbor and all that, you know, difficult stuff. You know, Joy, they have a. What I call a Jesus less Christianity. It's not burdened by the actual teachings of their namesake. You know, the Gospel of Matthew says Jesus saw the crowds and he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. That is the primary impulse of the Jesus of the scriptures. And so when you take out empathy from Christianity, there is literally nothing Left, right.
- [89:07]
A
And so I wonder what they think it is. Interesting. I was watching. I didn't have time to cut it, but I'm going to try to cut it for Monday. Russ Vogt gave a speech about a year ago in which he's explaining his own Christian nationalist beliefs and he's trying to explain why even the Book of Matthew, which is my favorite book in the Bible, it's, it's one of the best in there. But why it really isn't teaching empathy, that it's actually teaching touching the opposite. He's trying to sort of explain why people should not feel that they have to be kind to their neighbor. That what that really means is you take care of your own immediate family and then if you are a pastor, you take care of your church, but that, that does not require you, at least according to his reading of it, to take care of anybody else.
- [89:48]
E
Yeah. And they obviously don't read things like the Good Samaritan, where the explicit command is a stranger is in need and you will not pass by them without their pain changing your course. And so they have to disregard the fundamental teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. And so when you, when you take out, you know, you've got loving your neighbor, you've got caring for the sick, you've got feeding the poor, you know, all of these things literally, you begin to see that there's nothing else there. So I don't know how they form a Christianity around that. It's theological gymnastics that can really. And break your back.
- [90:24]
A
Can you in your mind reconcile being a pastor and also an ICE agent?
- [90:31]
E
I can't reconcile being a Christian or a pastor and voting Republican at this point. So it's, it's when you begin to allow, you know, when, when Trump was elected, when people had to make that first choice. These, these white Christians, they're morally confused. There's no way to get out of that. So they have to ride this all the way to the end. And that's why you see people who are unable to make even the slightest deviation, so they can't even see an execution in the street and say, maybe that's too far. So it's an all in thing. And that's what these guys teach in these churches, that it's, it's you, us or them, it's the saved or the damned, you know, it's the righteous of the wicked.
- [91:10]
A
Yeah. Jason, if you could find C2 again, because I, I find it, you know, and this is the thing that I guess I kind of get it because they are into this sort of manosphere Christianity, or they've sort of remade Jesus as this manosphere figure. He's like a right wing podcaster with a beard. But Donald Trump is such a vile human being. He's, you know, slovenly. He's mean. He does. And look at this kind of grotesque, glittery overindulgence. You would think that Christians would at least recoil from that, that they don't recall from him and how gross he is and calling women piggy. And they don't mind that. They don't mind. Grab them by the P word. They don't mind 23 or 24 different sexual abuse accusers or Brett Ratner being the one to do Melania's movie with all the accusations against him. Why is that? Why doesn't that bother them?
- [92:08]
E
I think when you get to a place, the self preservation takes over, when the entire narrative that you've got grown up on is you're in danger, people are coming for you. See, this Christianity that we're talking about, it requires an encroaching enemy. It needs an adversary, and it needs someone to go to battle against. And so people are in that place. I always say no one is at their best when they're terrified. And so many of the people in these churches feel so endangered. And look at what Tucker said. You know, white people are being replaced, so you're going to go along with just about anything to make sure that you're going to be taken care of. And so that's the state that these churches have these people in.
- [92:47]
A
And do you think it's partly because of the segregation of churches that it. That it's gone down like this? Because the white Southern Baptist Church, you know, as Robbie Jones explains to us often on the show, and it was formed really to defend slavery and to defend Jim Crow. And so it formed itself as a white Christian nationalist religion, very explicitly excluding black people people. And so we're not in the same churches. And so they're learning a completely different theology.
- [93:11]
E
Yeah. And their whole lives are structured so that they never actually interact with people who are different than they are. And so it's easy to live a stereotype, to believe the caricature that these churches create for people. They never get out into the world and actually experience other human beings. And. And that's just a sad existence. You know, they say that most bigots don't have passports and they just. And they usually don't even have, you know, out of state travel.
- [93:38]
A
Yeah. Or they go to Mexico and then come Back and deride Mexican there is that, yes. You know, it's where, it's where most of them go if they leave the country at all. Do you see hope in Adam Serwa wrote a beautiful piece. I, I would, I would advise you all, if you're not a subscriber to the Atlantic, subscribe just to read Adam Sirwart, to be honest with you, a beautiful piece where he talks about the fact he went to Minneapolis and he talked about the fact that it is the protesters who've actually shown, you know, the future of America in a bet in the best way and Christianity really in the best way because they're the ones who are coming together or protesting together or feeding each other, who are making sure each other have warm coats and a hot meal. I mean, they're doing things that are actually pretty extraordinary that are, that are kind of hopeful. Do you feel hopeful when you see what's happening in Minneapolis or do you feel dread?
- [94:24]
E
No, I feel hopeful because this is a minority rule and we know that. And so once the majority begins to assert itself and, you know, combine their collective power and organize, we will overcome this threat. And right now you're seeing the best of what community can look like that is intergenerational. That's cross religion, that's independent of politics. This is a movement of human beings going against something that is terribly inhumane, sadly coming in the name of Jesus. So the real spirit of the gospels and the loving of the neighbor is being lived out. And that's inspiring.
- [95:04]
A
I think it also, you know, for me, you know, I, I feel like this is the best case that could possibly be made as bad as this year plus has been for separating church and state. Like if you didn't believe in separation church and state before, you better believe in it now because you, you know, it sounds good to you until it's a religion that's absolutely out of its mind and that's what is controlling our country right now.
- [95:29]
E
Yeah. And, and what's true joy is that even the people who think they support a church and state combined, sooner or later it's going to affect them. And that's what we're seeing now. You know, now everyone is going to know someone who knows someone who is affected by ice, for example, pretty soon everyone's going to know someone who is affected by ice. And sadly, these Christians are not going to change because they're going to discover empathy. It's going to be self preservation, but at least they're going to get there. And when they do, we have to be ready to figure out how to bring them into the movement of justice and mercy and love.
- [96:02]
A
Well, or we're going to have to prepare for Christian militias. I mean, I think they've gotten to the point point now where they see the only if they can't win with Donald Trump in office, Stephen Miller running policy, Russ Vote running the government and the Supreme Court signing off on anything they want to do, basically, and the House and the Senate in their hands. I foresee desperation. If they want this will end. I mean, the Nazis seemed pretty powerful until they were gone. Right. Holders done. The Jim Crow people defeated. And now they won't even admit who they are. Some of them are still grampies running around acting like they weren't bad. Right. But so they're gonna. They're gonna end. This is gonna end as well. What. What should be the just response? Because to me, it was a huge mistake not to. I hate to be. You know, you're a good Christian man. They should. They should have hung some of these confederates pretty public. And had they. Had they, you know, had they actually dealt with them and not let them fade back into the. Into the population and get back into public office and become normal citizens again, they would have sent a message that you actually can't try to overthrow the government. And now we're looking at a group of people who are getting more militant, more. Don't they have to go to jail? Like, shouldn't there be people who go to jail?
- [97:15]
E
Yeah. My prayer is that I live long enough to see the tribunals that need to happen for Noam, for Miller and really for all the foot soldiers. But, yeah, I think we have to normalize, at the very least, making these people into pariahs. They cannot be ICE agents, cannot be welcome where good people gather, and we just simply have to reassert the value of human life and, and democracy and all those other things.
- [97:42]
A
Yeah, I mean, I'm not, you know, I'm not. We don't love. We don't like the idea of segregation. Segregation is bad. But if I had a hotel, they wouldn't. They wouldn't be allowed to stay there. If I had a restaurant, eat there, like, I mean, in this point, I mean, there is some sort of righteous indignation that I think is required. Right. I mean, as a. You're a good Christian person. I have to feed these people. Right?
- [97:59]
E
No. And I. I write a lot, Joy, about the fact that it's time to cut some of these people out of our lives even, because at some point we are enabling this just terrible blight upon our nation. And it's not enough to say, hey, I don't support that. You know, I was talking to a Trump supporter and I mentioned ice and he said, well, I'm not to going crazy about that. And I said, you're not crazy about that. That's not a stance when there is ethnic cleansing happening and there is, you know, autocracy happening. And I said, you, your vote was loud, and so your response now has to be equally loud to overcome what you've caused.
- [98:35]
A
Absolutely. And, and you know, Jason, I were having this conversation the other day about when somebody, if they say, you know, I voted for Trump three times or actually, I'm sorry, it was, it was, it was not Jason, who said it was. Actually, Jackie, you read. And I were having the conversation. Somebody triple trumped, they voted for Trump three times. They say, ah, now I see the light, now I see the problem. What should be the response to that?
- [98:55]
E
Well, that's a tough one. But I think if they're willing to then get into the game and make themselves heard and bring the turbulence in their circle that this will cause, then, then we would, we should bring them into that. We should at least expect them to do that. We don't come alongside them. But if, you know, I've got some friends who realized maybe in the second term, the second time they voted, they said, I made a mistake. But they've gone to the, they now attend events and they contribute financially and they're on the ground doing undoing the work that they've caused. So regret is not enough, and it's not enough to simply feel some sort of remorse. There has to be, that has to be exercised.
- [99:36]
A
I saw a pastor, it was a really, actually pretty moving video of a pastor who, who said that he spent most of his young life as a pastor railing against gay people and fighting against women's rights and all sorts of stuff. He was part of it. He's like, I built a lot of this. And so he's out there in Minneapolis protesting is behind off because he's like, it's not enough to just change my mind. He feels he has to try to change the country back from what he helped create.
- [100:03]
E
And I think that's the reckoning. See, that's the hard part. Even just recognize as a white guy, recognizing my privilege. You know, years ago, it was sort of that defense mechanism that is first there to say, well, I'm not this or I'm not that. And when people have to realize what they've caused the human toll of what these last 10 years and what this administration is doing. There is a responsibility not just to feel that deeply, to grieve that, but then to say, I need to alter the way I live my life now. And a lot of people. People don't want to do that. And that's the hard work of recognizing, you know, your culpability.
- [100:37]
A
Yeah. All right. Let you go. You write, you know, a lot of the pathos. I think that I feel like a lot of the times you're writing my. You're writing my, my, my, my stress. But do you. I mean, as you're doing that, who is your audience? Who. Who in your mind are you talking to?
- [100:55]
E
Well, a lot of times I'm. I'm talking to who used to be my people, the tribe of the white Christian church that I was a part of. Because I. I know they're still listening because I'm a white guy. So they'll still listen to me, and I have an audience with them and a responsibility to keep using the words of the gospel like a mirror to them. But I'm really writing to exasperated people, people who are human beings who lead with empathy and who are exhausted by the world and just letting them know they're not alone. I'm reiterating their sorrow, I'm reflecting their anger, and I'm trying to let them know that, hey, stopping is not an option here. I mean, we are on the case, and that is our job, is to show up at this place in time in the history of the planet and make the world more empathetic than when we found it.
- [101:38]
A
My exit question to you, John, is what kind of country? Because I think it's very clear that we cannot go back to what we had before. Like, one of the things that's very clear is that whatever we had before wasn't good enough because it wasn't making enough people feel seen and heard, and that they're participating in the economy, et cetera. And it is not economics. Some of it is just straight up demographic panic. And people are panicking because their neighborhood has more people speaking Spanish or more brown people or more immigrants. And people are panicking about it, right? And there's not much you can do about that other than to say, grow up. Yeah, the indigenous, you know, we're staring at you in indigenous genocide, okay? Like, grow up. Get over it. But other than that, you know, people, their panic is real. And so how do we even build one country after this? Because some. So many of these people have shown Us their backside. And a lot of us are like, I'm not sure we want to be in a country with you anymore. So how would we even. How do we even build a country that makes sense when this is all done?
- [102:38]
E
Well, I have this. This belief in what I call the community of the convinced. And that's people of all orientations and genders and political affiliations and religious beliefs and that people who get it and as they begin to live together, we're going to reshape what that looks like. And for people who are caught in racism or misogyny or homophobia or terrible theology, they lack imagination about what is possible. And so we're going to have to just show them what is actually possible.
- [103:08]
A
And.
- [103:08]
E
And hopefully their humanity will then kick in. Or if not, we'll just have to create it without them.
- [103:13]
A
Yeah. May they be prosecuted. And all have black cellmates.
- [103:17]
E
Yes. Yes. Hallelujah.
- [103:19]
A
Who are then getting out immediately because they actually get pardoned.
- [103:23]
E
Yeah.
- [103:24]
A
They're alone or immigrants in there anyway. John Pavelovitz, you're great. Please tell everyone where they can get your stuff. Sack.
- [103:32]
E
It's John Pavelovich.substack.com where you can just look up the Beautiful Mess and that's where you can find me.
- [103:38]
A
It's one of my. That. That is one of my favorite things about. It's called the Beautiful Mess. This. Lord.
- [103:42]
E
Yeah, I'd like a little more beautiful joy at this point.
- [103:46]
A
This is. What do we ask for much?
- [103:48]
E
No, it's the gospel.
- [103:50]
A
Thank you very much, my friend. Appreciate you. Please come back.
- [103:53]
E
I will. Thank you.
- [103:54]
A
Thank you very much. John. Pa is good. If you guys are not subscribed to the Beautiful Mess, it actually is really, really good. It's very in inspiring and it's actually very comforting to know that there's somebody who is completely different from me, but who thinks exactly what I think and who can see it from a perspective of a white Christian. Robbie Jones is not alone. And I think Robbie will be glad to know he is not out there by himself.
- [104:16]
B
I need to get John and Robbie on together.
- [104:18]
A
Oh, we should absolutely do that.
- [104:19]
C
We should.
- [104:20]
A
We'll. We'll try to get them on together. I think they would be a perfect pair because the reality of it is, is, you know, this is a religious problem. And I said for a long time and used to get in a lot of trouble for it. That MAGA is a religion. Maga is a religion. It's not a political ideology. It's a religious ideology. And when you put it together and you look at who created Project 2025 and the fact that they want a second American Revolution, but they want it to be a Christian theological revolution. You look at who is connected to Doug Wilson and who is connected to Curtis Yarvin and how Peter Thiel, though he, he seems to be an atheist as far as I can tell. I don't know if he's religious, but he certainly dovetails. And here's the challenge. You have these techno feudalists who really believe that you can create a country in which a small number of tech CEOs have complete autonomy to run the country. They want total surveillance. We're going to play this clip on Friday because we're going to dig into this on Friday about the new owners of TikTok, Larry Ellison, he goes into this long soliloquy which we're going to play you on Friday, where he talks about how great it will be when we have a total surveillance state. And you.
- [105:28]
B
I'm sorry, honey, I don't mean to cut you off, but I, I took us off a tick tock today. I hope you don't mind.
- [105:34]
A
Oh, well, I mean, we're not on tick tock anymore.
- [105:36]
B
We got off because, you know, the, I don't know if you guys have seen the Terms of Service, but if you can drop TikTok, it ain't good.
- [105:44]
A
So I went to open TikTok because I actually wanted to try to follow up with the young lady who, you know, had the indigenous, you know, moment where she chased and I got the Terms of service and I just don't want to hit it. I don't want to tap it. So I haven't tapped it yet. But the reality is the people who own TikTok now, Larry Ellison, and they've made it very clear that one of the things they're doing, if you read through the terms of service, most of it was already the terms of service. For being honest, most of it hasn't changed that much. They added to the things that they were will collect about your personal information, immigration status. That's one of the things that really jumped out to people. So they added immigration status and they.
- [106:18]
B
Also sexual orientation, how much you make and blah, blah, blah, blah.
- [106:23]
A
Right? And some of those things they already had a little bit in there. They already had previously because there was a, a journalist who read both and sort of compared them. And most of that people just weren't reading it. They weren't reading the Terms of service. They were just saying okay and using it and didn't realize Some of that was already there. So they were already doing a fair amount of surveillance. But the idea was they didn't want the Chinese government having access to that data. They apparently don't mind if Larry Ellison has access to it. He is one of the owners of TikTok. But one of the things that's happened now is that one of the changes in the terms of service is that they are ideologically monitoring what you're saying. And one of the things they seem to be flagging and trying to correct for is Gaza is they. Is one of the challenges that people who are very Zionist, including Larry Ellison, have had with TikTok is that TikTok was one of the places that Palestinians were telling their own stories, were streaming their own deaths, were streaming the genocide. And so the goal is to take TikTok and stop it from, in their minds, sort of teaching people to be anti Israeli when all it's doing is showing people the Israeli genocide.
- [107:30]
B
But that in itself should give you the reason to get rid of TikTok. That in itself, I'm gone.
- [107:37]
A
It's problematic. And that is part of the language that they've put in to make it very clear that you will no longer be able to utilize TikTok effectively to be what they consider to be anti Israel. And they want to ensure that the content on there is calibrated in a way that does not in their mind, is not anti Israeli. So that's one of the, that's one of the things that they've done. But the thing about it is that these techno feudalist guys, they believe in total surveillance. So to go back to that, Larry Ellison believes we should all be surveilled at all times. Every single American should be under Palantir surveillance. We're already along that way. We're getting pretty far down the road of total surveillance anyway. Right. And they also believe in a kind of. Of Christian white nationalism. They all seem to believe in it. You've heard some of the same kinds of musings from Elon Musk about the fact that, you know, talking about racial oppression is divisive, that we should not talk about slavery, that we should not talk about apartheid, which he comes from. They all kind of agree a lot more White South Africans or they're white Americans or Jewish white Americans like Larry.
- [108:49]
B
Ellison, but we can't. Well, we, we can never say anything about, about Jew what happened to the Jews in Hitler, but we can't talk about black issues. It's very strange.
- [108:59]
A
You, you. So the bottom line being the Bottom line being these techno feudalists want to surveil us. They want to own our data, they want to invade our lives in every way. And one of the things that you're seeing in terms of Elon, they also want, want to create these 1 apps where you do everything on the app shop, look at content, use it as your money. And, and so we're gonna, we're trying to put all of this stuff together to start to really get you guys to start thinking in a bigger way. Because as I say, often it's usually just one big story. They seem like micro stories, but it's one story. And this whole move toward cryptocurrency, destroying the dollar, making it more that. It's all this sort of, you know, made up currency that then goes into your TikTok. Like a lot of it is creepy. A lot of it is creepy. And the people behind it have this kind of white Christian nationalist bent. So we're going to stay on top of it. We're going to continue to follow what they're doing in terms of white Christian nationalism because it is dangerous. But as John Pavlov had said, it is a minority. This is not like a majority of Americans want to live in a total white Christian national surveillance state.
- [110:04]
B
It is a minority, but the minority has billions of dollars that can influence everything.
- [110:09]
A
That's it's the richest men in America.
- [110:11]
B
That's why it's a problem. That's why there needs to be a public social media platform that we all own and that they have nothing to do with it. But just because there's a few billionaires, they own what we want. And I'm done with it, personally, I'm done.
- [110:24]
A
I mean, it's a challenge because all of the big tech companies, they're all on one accord, particularly around Trump. And again, it's a important to remember that Donald Trump does not sit at the top of this pyramid. Donald Trump sits below people in the pyramid who can feed him with money and bitcoin and shower him with wealth. He is the avatar for what they're doing, but he isn't the creator of it. Just as Stephen Miller is the engineer behind his immigration strategy. Trump is just, you know, he raises. So it's fine with him. He doesn't have a problem. He hates Elon Omar, so he doesn't mind it. He doesn't mind stoking it because he's just, he's a theater actor that helps them get what they want because the base loves them. But at the top of this pyramid are a group of billionaires who are very determined to own the country. They're very determined to treat the rest of us as cattle. And they genuinely seem to believe that peak capitalism, the slavery era, was peak America. And they have a big problem with everything that happened after the Civil War. And so we are in a fight for our lives in this country. We're in a fight for our democracy. We're in a fight for our multiracial democracy. Because there are people who firmly believe that whitening the country, forcing the country to behave as their kind of Christian, with their particular Christian dogma, which is as far from Jesus as it could possibly get. Notice, they always go to Christian and not Jesus. They're not believers in anything Jesus said. In fact, in many of their churches, you can't quote Jesus because he's too woke for them. But this sort of Christian nationalist, techno feudalist, small number of uber CEO men that will run the country, it's a problem. I will note that some of the reporting now is that this scheme of theirs is cracking already. It is not in a good place. Kristi Noem is a disaster. People can see that she's incompetent. Her boyfriend that is sort of semi running everything with her. They seem to be in falling into disfavor with the other side of the White House that may be finding them to be too much, too incompetent, too embarrassing, allowing too much violence. And I do believe that the murders of Renee Good and Alex Preddy are game changing in the sense that they thought that this kind of Christian nationalist violence would only target immigrants, and particularly brown and black immigrants. Instead. It's ensnaring their own people. People. It's ensnaring. As Trump said, he can't believe that Renee Goode's parents are big time Trumpers. They were Trump fans. And so he's even sorrier about her.
- [112:56]
B
Death because they live in a bubble.
- [113:00]
A
It's getting your own. It's starting to hit inside the house. And so I think what we're gonna start seeing, we will see, because I don't really have a lot of faith in Capitol Hill. But you are seeing people who are saying we have to put a stop to the, this, this level of chaos and trying to argue that, well, if you just complied, if you just be like Texas and let us take people, let us make concentration camps like we do in Texas and Florida, let us incarcerate people like we do in Louisiana, just let us have our concentration camps, let us do our Nazi thing. If you just Let us do it then. We won't kill you. We won't violate your Second Amendment rights by shooting you simply because you have a gun, which violated his Second Amendment rights. Trump is just the puppet. He is not at the top of this pyramid.
- [113:48]
B
No, he just wants to make money and that's it.
- [113:51]
A
He is a make a wish president on his way out of here. He wants to be rich, lauded. He wants prizes. He wants gold, filigree. He wants to surround himself with TEU gold sculptures and things. He wants to get awards. He wants the Kennedy center renamed after him. That's all he cares about. He wants Greenland so that he can pretend to be William McKinley. You know, and they just indulge all of that because they know it keeps him happy. It keeps him, yes, as their useful idiot. And he's just clanging around along, trying to keep from dying from whatever's infecting his hands and his cankles, and that's it. But the people who are thinking through this and who are writing the plans and who are in their churches preaching these fake gospels, they actually are pretty dangerous. And I truly hope, I truly hope that when this ends, the other side, the Democrats, should they regain power, have the courage, the courage to put people in prison. Because if you don't actually cause there to be repercussions, they're just going to do this again because they did it after they did it to end Reconstruction. That was the redemption period. They did it in the 1930s when they sought to literally overthrow FDR and put a American furor in his place. In the 1930s. They did it in Tuckman's favorite era, the 1930s, when they terrorized black people for trying to vote, when they terrorized women for trying to be free of their kitchens. They did it in the 1960s when they used violence to try to put down the civil rights movement and assassinated leader after leader after leader, from Medgar to King and a lot in between. Fred Hampton was trying to do this across racial lines. They did it during the Obama era when they tried to push him off as some sort of foreign entity infecting the White House. And they called him everything but a child of God and refused to respect him as president. They just keep doing it. They did it in Ruby Ridge. They did it in Waco. These people just don't quit. And they won't stop doing it until they pay a price for it. And so I just hope and pray that when we get a Justice Department again, the people who are fomenting this insurrection will actually Pay a legal price for it.
- [116:19]
B
The only problem I see is that we're going to have to have a strong primary because there are going to be some Democrats that just want the same status quo. And I honestly think we need our Tea Party moment. And we just need to just basically put our foot down because it's never going to change until this changes. I'm sorry.
- [116:36]
A
Yeah. I will argue. And Lincoln didn't have time to forgive the the south, but he did put the wrong man in office. He had a great vice president named.
- [116:43]
B
Hannibal give a damn about slaves. Okay. No, he did keep it real. He didn't give a damn about slaves.
- [116:48]
A
Yes, with malice toward none was never a good plan. And getting rid of Hannibal Hamlin and putting Andrew Johnson, huge mistake. I don't think he should be number one president. I think we should take him out of the top three just for getting rid of Hannibal Hamlin, who would have been a better vice president and a better person to take over after he went to the theater. Dude in public didn't seem very wise. But that's it. I think we need that. We're nominating Jack Smith in advance to be the new attorney General. Whatever it takes. Whoever comes back in, make it better.
- [117:17]
B
But that's part of our primary strategy. What did you say, Joy? That if you do not vote for Jack Smith, you cannot be in the Democratic Party.
- [117:25]
A
I need Jack Smith. Let's do our moment of joy. Our motor is actually pretty funny. It's a comedian, a comic named David Colombo who made fun of the justifications on the right for killing folks using ice.
- [117:37]
F
I'm not sure why you're all over complicating it. It's really quite simple. You can come to a protest, but not if you're bringing a gun. Unless it's for protection, but not protection from people with guns. You can attack people holding skateboards for reacting to you holding a gun, but not the people holding guns reacting to you holding your phone. Because being underage, shooting a gun you didn't legally purchase equals concerned citizen. But being an adult with a permit for a gun you've responsibly concealed equals domestic terrorist. Even if we only see it after we've already shoved you to the ground, which retroactively changes the reason we shoved you to the ground. Clearly, the teenager who shot people deserves a podcast. And the ICU nurse trying to help people avoid pepper spray is an agitator because we have a zero tolerance policy for disobeying uniformed officers that goes all the way back to January 7, 2021. And remember, they're only in Minneapolis to secure the border because of Somalia. Glad we cleared that up because so many of you in the media have been focused on the wrong things. Now, I am happy to take any questions you have about the President's Ballroom.
- [118:47]
A
Or the Melania movie. All right, y', all, this is the end of the show. If you all do decide to go and see the Milani movie, please let me know how it is because I know I wasting my time with that mess. Thank you all for watching. If you guys haven't voted for us in the NAACP Image Awards, please do that. Our category is best podcast. There it is. You guys can do that as well. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you for watching. On substack.
- [119:08]
C
Go ahead, guys.
- [119:09]
B
Scan that.
- [119:09]
A
There is. Scan the code. Scan the code. Scan the code. Scan the code. Scan the code.
- [119:14]
B
Come on.
- [119:14]
A
Yes. Thank you very much. Jeffrey Kirkwood, bigging up in Substack Food safety yarn. Bigging up Colleen Cummins and oh, hell no. On substack. Let's pick up some of the people on YouTube, too. Let's see. Oh, we always have our friend Karen Stoops. We love Karen Stoops. Is always there. Lisa Goldsby with all the fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire. We appreciate that very much. Y' all take care. We'll see you guys on Friday. Getting back to the basics, grassroot level Let me dig a little deeper with the shovel Plenty can't tell the force from the trees that are I'm hard to detect Like a black hole in a dark injustice anywhere It's a threat to justice everywhere Let me make this clear I got a bone to pick and I'll never fear the threat of poverty they don't want to talk about it they rap a party so I'm a real talk about it for show.