The ICE debate: Sohrab Ahmari vs Jenin Younes

Summary

UnHerd with Freddie Sayers

Episode: The ICE debate: Sohrab Ahmari vs Jenin Younes
Date: January 15, 2026

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Overview

This episode dissects the polarizing ICE shooting incident in Minneapolis that killed Renee Goode, a case that has ignited national debate over the role of ICE, law enforcement powers, civil liberties, and political rhetoric. Freddie Sayers hosts a structured dialogue: first with civil liberties lawyer Jenin Younes, then UnHerd’s US editor Sohrab Ahmari (who publicly defended the ICE officer’s actions), and finally polling expert David Montgomery of YouGov. The episode uses the "Rashomon effect" as a lens for understanding how the same event can yield radically divergent interpretations, aiming to illuminate the legal, ethical, and political fractures it has exposed.

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1. Setting the Scene: The Rashomon Effect (01:07–03:10)

• Freddie Sayers introduces the case of Renee Goode’s death, framing it as a prism for starkly divided interpretations—what he calls the “Rashomon effect,” referencing the classic Japanese film where witnesses all see the same incident differently.
• Sayers describes the tribal split in public response and sets out his aim: to dig into both sides of the dispute and offer listeners insight into the legal and political complexities.

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2. Jenin Younes: Civil Liberties Critique of the ICE Officer (04:00–22:32)

Legal Framework & Authority (04:00–05:22)

• Younes clarifies ICE’s limited jurisdiction:
  • ICE officers enforce federal immigration law only
  • No legal authority over most US citizens (unless involved in illegal immigration)
  • Cannot make routine traffic stops or arrest US citizens for state crimes
  • Can ask questions or investigate where there is "knowledge" that an illegal immigrant is present, but not perform broad “sweeps”
• On the current case: Goode, a US citizen, was only obstructing traffic—a state (not federal) law matter.

Incident Breakdown & Legal Analysis (05:22–10:36)

• Sayers summarizes events: Goode was blocking the road as part of an organized protest, was approached by officers, refused to move, and in a fast confrontation, tried to drive off; an ICE officer shot her three times.
• Younes’ legal opinion:
  • Debatable whether ICE had authority even to stop or arrest Goode ("I tend to fall in the first camp [no authority], but… that's not an entirely clear delineation." – 07:52).
  • On use of deadly force: “You have to show that you were in imminent fear… of death or serious physical injury…” (08:02).
  • Younes feels the officer put himself in harm’s way, instinctively building justification.
  • “I think if you look at the… videos… he was on the side of the car and was already out of danger… fired in anger or… as revenge.” (10:30)
  • She admits the first shot could be contestable, but the second and third are clearly unjustified.

Political Dimensions & Public Response (12:11–14:18)

• Younes condemns the administration’s “full-throated” defense of the officer and labeling Goode a domestic terrorist within hours.
  • “A serious administration doesn’t come out and immediately label a civilian U.S. citizen a domestic terrorist… It just conveys to the public that this was just political.” (12:56)
• She affirms right to protest: “People absolutely have a right to protest. It’s protected by the First Amendment. They should do so lawfully. But what she did was relatively minor…” (14:18)

What Should Have Happened & Systemic Critique (15:19–17:23)

• Suggests ICE should have called state police or continued peaceful attempts to get Goode to move.
• “Law enforcement doesn’t have the right to shoot people just for fleeing… they’re supposed to let you go…” (15:34)
• Raises issue that ICE officers lack training of regular police (14:48), and cites recent ICE overreach (brutal detention of a US citizen).

The Weaponization of Justice & Political Tribalism (17:56–22:32)

• Younes alleges judicial weaponization by both parties: “The justice system is being completely weaponized against the administration’s ideological enemies… both sides do it.” (18:32)
• On ICE’s role: “They’re almost becoming the kind of praetorian guard of the president who can do whatever they like and will get protection.” (19:37)
• Laments the decline of respect for civil liberties: “People are more interested in scoring political points against the other side than protecting each other’s rights against the government…” (20:52)
• Memorable quote: “This expansion of federal power and evisceration of civil liberties is very likely to come back and harm them.” (22:10)

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3. Sohrab Ahmari: The ICE Officer’s Defender & Institutionalist (25:22–48:07)

Context & Contradicting Narratives (25:41–29:16)

• Ahmari dispels what he sees as “Democratic talking points,” emphasizing that Goode was not an innocent bystander but a trained ICE Watch protester who deliberately blocked ICE vehicles.
• Details the footage: Goode blocks road, is sarcastic to officers, refuses to move; her partner tells her to “drive, baby, drive” just before she attempts to drive off and the shots are fired.

Legality vs. Prudence (29:16–39:41)

• Concedes that protesting and even obstructing are not grounds to be shot, but stresses that physically blocking officers’ vehicles is illegal.
• Justifies the shooting on established legal grounds:
  • “The legal standard is, was he put in reasonable fear for his life or the life of others given the totality of circumstances?” (34:41)
  • Courts are “very deferential to cops’ subjective interpretation of what’s happening.” (35:34)
• Insists the officer was legitimately threatened even if Goode’s intent was to escape, not injure.
• Freddie Sayers presses: “Are you happy to live in a country where non uniformed federal officials can shoot women in SUVs…?”
• Ahmari’s core stance: “The responsibility for what happened lies with Renee Goode… Once you don’t listen to what law enforcement is saying… it is possible you will get shot.” (38:36)
• Admits tragedy and expresses sadness, but locates blame with Goode and her partner.

On Political and Social Consequences (39:41–48:07)

• Dismisses the idea that this incident signals blanket permission to shoot protestors:
  • “It’s a cartoonish interpretation to say it means don’t mess with ICE. If you protest them, you get shot. There’s all sorts of ways to protest ICE that don’t involve blocking their way or driving at one of them…” (41:00)
• Sayers notes brewing standoff between federal government and sanctuary cities (42:13), with local officials resisting ICE.
• Ahmari asserts the administration is merely executing its democratic mandate and existing federal law; blames local resistance for the drama.
• Acknowledges “theatrical meanness” of ICE, saying the administration “would benefit… from dialing back… a little bit, again, the theatrical meanness.” (47:02)
• Rationale for tough rhetoric: “They feel they were elected to do certain things, and they were hindered at every term… They’re like, you know what? I’m impervious to your calls to be nice, and I think that might be a mistake…” (47:22)

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4. Public Opinion: Insights from David Montgomery, YouGov (50:09–58:33)

Key Polling Findings (50:20–51:12)

• 53% of Americans think the ICE agent should face criminal charges; 30% (28% in some responses) say he shouldn’t.
  • “Among people who have opinions, there’s much more sort of negative sentiment toward ICE than positive sentiment.” (51:06)
• Twice as many say use of force was not justified as say it was.

Partisan Breakdown (51:19–52:31)

• 88% of Democrats say shooting unjustified; 61% of Republicans say justified.
• “Independents,” a key swing group: 58% say not justified, 20% justified. Many are unsure, but the 2:1 margin mirrors national numbers.

Public Engagement & Media Saturation (52:31–53:48)

• “About 70% of Americans [say] they’ve seen the video… which is very high.”
  • This equates to >170 million US adults, a “Super Bowl-level” media event.
• Montgomery comments on the unprecedented reach and engagement of the story.

Political Implications (54:32–57:49)

• Sayers notes VP JD Vance’s rapid support for ICE as a calculated pitch to the Republican base.
• Montgomery: “Republicans are fairly supportive of ICE on this… The Republicans, who are more conservative and are more likely to identify as MAGA Republicans, feel even more strongly…”
• On general election risk: “If decisions like this keep happening and there continue to be policies that the Trump administration is on the wrong side of, a 2 to 1 split, conventional wisdom would suggest that would probably be bad for them politically.” (57:49)

Local Mood in Minneapolis (58:03–58:33)

• “Lots of people are very worried. Other people are very angry…” (58:03)
• Notable: “There are about 500 Minneapolis police… and over 2,000 ICE agents in the city right now. So it’s a very noticeable change in law enforcement presence.”

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5. Notable Quotes & Moments by Timestamp

Jenin Younes

• "Regardless of exactly what happened, a serious administration doesn't come out and immediately label a civilian U.S. citizen a domestic terrorist." (12:56)
• "People are more interested in scoring political points against the other side than protecting each other's rights against the government." (20:52)
• "This expansion of federal power and evisceration of civil liberties is very likely to come back and harm them." (22:10)

Sohrab Ahmari

• "Protesting is certainly no reason to be shot. Even obstruction by itself is no reason to be shot in the face. That’s completely clear. However, obstruction is reason to be apprehended…" (32:43)
• "Our courts don't do that. They think like, okay, when you are the police officer and you see a big old SUV…rolling at you, that puts you in reasonable fear of your life." (36:34)
• "The responsibility for what happened lies with Renee Goode… Once you don’t listen to what law enforcement is saying… it is possible you will get shot." (38:36)
• "If you want to defend such people, I think it’s wrong to do so. But… you’re allowed to hold up placards across the street… But throwing your body or your vehicle in front of an ongoing federal law enforcement operation, that’s pretty dangerous." (41:00)
• "The administration would benefit from being ruthless about enforcing the law… And at the same time, dialing back from the top down a little bit, again, the theatrical meanness." (47:02)

David Montgomery

• "About twice as many Americans say that the use of force was not justified than justified." (50:46)
• "This is clearly an issue that has broken through. One poll found 70% of Americans say they've seen the video or a video of the killing of Renee Goode, which is very high." (52:42)
• "To the degree that the Trump administration continues doing things where there’s sort of a two to one split against them among the American people… that would probably be bad for them politically." (57:49)
• "There are about 500 Minneapolis police in the city… and there’s over 2,000 ICE agents… It’s a very noticeable change in law enforcement presence." (58:33)

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6. Thematic Takeaways

• Divided Nation: The country is splitting into camps with “Rashomon-like” certainty, each seeing the same evidence as obvious proof of their own case.
• Blurring Lines: Both right and left are accused of “weaponizing” law enforcement and legal norms for political gain.
• Legal vs. Ethical: Ahmari and Younes agree that the law may shield the officer, but diverge on whether that is desirable in a free society.
• Democratic Stakes: Even as tough-on-immigration policies energize the Republican base, polling suggests the wider public could be alienated by such tactics.
• Media & Political Impact: With such high public engagement, the incident has leverage to shape national debates and elections.

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[End of Summary]

Note: Ads, podcast promotions, and sponsor messages were excluded per instructions. This summary synthesizes the main arguments, political context, and legal interpretation while highlighting vivid quotes and key transcripted moments.

Transcript

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[Sohrab Ahmari]

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[Freddie Sayers]

Hello and welcome back to Unherd. The killing of Renee Goode, a woman in Minneapolis, last week seems to be one of those moments, those divisive moments that is really going to have a ripple effect for weeks, maybe even years to come. There's something called the Rashomon effect in psychology where the same exact incident can be watched by different people and they can reach completely opposite, completely conclusions. It's named after a Japanese film in 1950, and it seems like this killing was exactly that. We have tribes within the United States and around the world who are lining up to draw completely opposite conclusions. It's almost one of those moments where we wonder whether a common truth is even going to be possible anymore. Well, we're going to try in this special episode of Unherd to dig deep and understand what both sides of this dispute are really getting at. And hopefully we will leave you the wiser at the end of it. To begin with, we are going to talk to Janine Yuniz, who is a very high profile civil liberties campaigner, someone who really made her name in the public sphere over the COVID years. At that point, she was an ally of more the right wing group who were complaining against censorship from then President Biden. She has now turned her fire on President Trump and is not happy with what she saw, of course, taking place in Minneapolis. After Janine, we will talk to our very own Sohrab Amari, the U.S. editor of UnHerd, who is being quote, tweeted by JD Vance as one of the key sort of online litigants in defence of ICE and in defence of the man who, who took that lethal shot. So we'll get a very different perspective from him. And then finally, we are going to talk to David Montgomery of the opinion pollsters and research agency YouGov. They have done fascinating research into what members of the public think. It seems like 80% or thereabouts of the public have actually watched this video and the conclusions they draw are absolutely fascinating. So, first to kick us off, welcome and thank you so much for giving us the time.

[Janine Younis]

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[Freddie Sayers]

You are a lawyer, a civil liberties campaigner. Start by putting us in the legal picture. Who are ICE officers? What are they allowed and not allowed to do constitutionally? And how do you think this incident fits into that framework?

[Janine Younis]

So ICE officers are part of dhs. They're part of the federal law enforcement. They have limited authority. Their powers are basically restricted to trying to enforce immigration law. So they don't have any legal authority over U.S. citizens unless U.S. citizens are in some way assisting with illegal immigration or something like that. They don't have the ability to conduct traffic stops or to arrest U.S. citizens for state crimes. They do have some limited ability to arrest U.S. citizens for federal crimes if they happen to observe them. So that's basically the framework in which ICE exists.

[Freddie Sayers]

But they must be allowed to do some kind of searches or investigations to uncover whether someone is a legal or illegal immigrant.

[Janine Younis]

They're allowed to ask questions, so they can, you know, ask you if you're a US Citizen or not. They can't really go around asking for identification, though. They're not really supposed to be doing that. They can knock on doors and ask some questions, but really they're supposed to have some knowledge that there is an illegal immigrant in, you know, in a certain residence or in the area, rather than conducting vast sweeps where they're ending up getting US Citizens as well and sort of creating a reign of terror. I think that we're seeing.

[Freddie Sayers]

This particular incident that took place only a week ago is now world famous. It involves a woman in a car being kind of chatty and maybe, you know, cocky or giving some attitude back to these officers. She doesn't seem to be very frightened of them. She is blocking the road, and then there is a very rapidly moving altercation where she tries to either drive off or drive over. One of the officers will get into that controversy, and he then immediately pulls out a gun and shoots three times and shoots her dead. What is your best understanding of the legal implications of those few seconds?

[Janine Younis]

First of all, I think one of the reasons there's such disagreement. I know this isn't exactly your question, but to sort of frame it, I think a lot of people's take on the issue had to do with whether or not they liked ICE and what they're doing, or they hate ICE and they don't like what they're doing. And so they sort of viewed everything through that lens. I hope that I come at this as a. I was actually a former defense. I'm a former defense attorney, so I used to defend people, for instance, who did things like what the officer did. And so that's sort of how I looked at it and reached my conclusions. So there are sort of two issues, and the second is more important, but the first is also relevant, which is first whether he had the authority to arrest her, try to stop her, get her out of the car in the first place. And that's disputed. And if, you know, this goes to trial, it will be a litigated issue. So some people would say that he had no authority whatsoever because she was a US Citizen, she was just committing a traffic violation. That's a state matter, state police matter. ICE officers can't do anything about that. Maybe they could, you know, tell her to get out of the way, but they don't have the ability to arrest her. Other people would argue that she was obstructing what they were doing. She was obstructing A lawful enforcement operation. I tend to fall in the first camp. But I'll admit that it's not that. That's not like an entirely clear delineation.

[Freddie Sayers]

Just to. To be clear, that's she was blocking the road so that the ICE officers weren't able to get past. She's part of a sort of organized campaign of resistance which is particularly popular in some of these liberal cities like Minneapolis. They hate ice. They think they are a kind of thuggish force attached to the president and must be resisted. He was trying to get her to move and eventually lost patience. It feels. I think. I don't know, but if you asked many ordinary people on this, you know, clearly she was literally obstructing their way. It feels kind of achievable to make the case that she was obstructing their business and therefore they needed to get her out of the way.

[Janine Younis]

So the obstruction has to be pretty significant. If I were the prosecutor, I would argue that what she was doing, okay, they could have gone around her. She wasn't doing something that significantly obstructed their ability to carry out their tasks overall. Like, they could still go up to houses and do their. Whatever they were doing. She wasn't, like, doing something that completely eviscerated their ability to do their jobs. Question of whether or not he was entitled to shoot her is obviously the more important one. And I think I fall squarely in the campus saying absolutely not to successfully have a justification defense, you have to show that you were in imminent fear or you were at imminent threat of death or serious physical injury from the person that you killed. In order to prevent that. You can do it in defense of third parties, too, but that's not an issue here. So he would have to reasonably believe. So it's a subjective and objective element. You both have to believe it, and it has to be a reasonable belief. And you have to believe that the force was necessary to stop what was happening. It's also relevant to an extent that he's a law enforcement officer. So we would. We hold them to a higher standard than maybe just a regular citizen who hasn't been trained to deal with precisely these situations. I think a lot of people also reasonably think that the fact he put himself in the car in front of the car was unreasonable. And so he sort of played a role in instigating this, which is also pertinent to evaluating a justification defense.

[Freddie Sayers]

So your claim or suspicion is that if this were to go to trial, you think a jury would convict, or you think a jury would find against this ICE officer, Is that what you're saying, or just that, you know, the legal argument could be made.

[Janine Younis]

I think they would likely convict. So you have to also show this mindset for each shot fired, each use of deadly physical force. So even if I think the first one is probably the. The one that maybe you could contest, if I were his lawyer, I would definitely argue, well, that shot, you know, he was sort of moving out of the way. The video is unclear. I've seen many, many videos from different angles. I. I believe he was on the side of the car when you look at his feet, and he was already out of danger. And it looks like he fired in anger or, you know, as revenge rather than to prevent death or serious physical injury. But let's say the first, you can argue about the first shot. The second and third, he's clearly on the side to the right firing the shots in the window. I don't think any jury is going to say that that was justified. Now, we don't know what shot killed her because we don't have an autopsy report. We might never know because we can't know the order the shots were fired. But, you know, it's possible an autopsy report will show that perhaps the first shot didn't kill her. She would be alive today if he had only fired that shot. That's going to cause him significant problems. And I think he has some pretty big problems because of the second and third shot. Well, he should have problems. He may not because of some, you know, he may never be prosecuted. That's another issue.

[Freddie Sayers]

It feels like quite a big concession, though, from the kind of case for the prosecution. If you think the first shot could be defensible. I mean, they were fired. If anyone has watched the videos, and I know most people have, those three shots were fired within maybe a one or two second period. So it was really one single action. If the first shot is defensible on the grounds that she was driving off or in his direction, he could claim, and no doubt will, if it does come to court, that he felt she was weaponizing her car and intending to harm him. And the understanding I have, you can correct me here, is that officers are trained, if they do use force, to use lethal force and to continue until the subject is neutralized. Do those two things in combination make a decent case for the defence, for the officer?

[Janine Younis]

Again, I don't think so. So I'm sort of saying what the counter argument would be. And obviously, you know, in law, we don't have any. There's no 100% anything. So I'm, you know, I'm saying if I were his attorney, that's what I would argue. I don't think a jury is going to accept that and I don't think that they should accept that. I think if you look at the, there's the first video that came out was very grainy and from an angle where it looked as though it was a little unclear, although I watched it a lot and concluded that he was on the side of the car out of harm's way when he fired the first shot. But the videos that have come out since then, there's the New York Times did a very nice job sort of showing exactly where he was positioned. I don't think those make it even arguable. But I'm saying for the sake of argument, the first shot is a little bit, you know, even if he could get away with it for that one, the second and third, I think he would have a lot of trouble with.

[Freddie Sayers]

The other aspect of this, which of course makes a civil liberties issue more generally, is how quickly the administration rushed to his defence. The president on Truth Social described it as self defense against a violent agitator. DHS spokesperson the subject weaponized her vehicle in an attempt to kill our law enforcement officers. J.D. vance, the vice President, she was trying to ram this guy with her car. This is classic terrorism. His life was endangered and he fired in self defense. So there's a couple of things going on there. There's the just totally full throated defense of the officer from these absolute top politicians within hours of the event. And then secondly there's the language they're using describing her as a domestic terrorist. What's your response to those?

[Janine Younis]

Well, that's part of the problem with this whole thing. Regardless of exactly what happened, a serious administration doesn't come out and immediately label a civilian U.S. citizen a domestic terrorist. Coming out immediately before anybody could really know what happened. And calling her a domestic terrorist I think eviscerates public trust. How can you take that seriously? And I think that sort of inflamed people immediately. It was the exact opposite response you would take from a serious administration that wants to do the right thing in circumstances like this. It just conveyed to the public that this was just political.

[Freddie Sayers]

At one point the president, President Trump was saying that she was being disrespectful to law enforcement almost as a rationale for, for killing her. There is a sense among the Republican administration that these are our officers, you know, they are being put in harm's way to carry out the mandate of the democratically elected government. And people who make it their business to organize against them need to realize that they are doing so in hazard to themselves and it could go horribly wrong. And they need to step out the way because these people are, you know, enforcing the will of the democratic government. That, I think is a lot of the mood inside the administration. What's your kind of response to that? Is that dangerous or is it fair enough?

[Janine Younis]

I agree that that's absolutely their view. I think it's dangerous. People absolutely have a right to protest. It's protected by the First Amendment. They should do so lawfully. But, you know, what she did was relatively minor. I mean, she was sort of blocking traffic for a brief period of time. She wasn't doing anything extremely dangerous. It certainly didn't warrant escalating to this extent. Extent. And part of the problem here is that these ICE officers are not trained the way that police officers and other, I would say, more legitimate forms of law enforcement. And I, you know, I don't. Again, I don't have a problem with removing illegal immigrants. I don't come at this from that perspective at all. So I'm not saying I shouldn't exist. But the way that it's doing its job is really problematic. We just saw two days ago they grabbed a US citizen who was 17 years old out of a target. I watched the video. They were very brutal with him. They drove him to a parking lot 10 minutes away and dumped him while he was crying. Once they had verified he was a US Citizen, we're all seeing the videos that are coming out, and this is not how law enforcement should be doing its job. So it's depleting trust, I think, between the government and the public. And that's a big problem.

[Freddie Sayers]

What should have happened in this incident, I think most people would say, okay, well, if this woman is blocking the road and not allowing these guys to do. To do their job, she needs to be removed somehow. How should it have happened? With due respect to civil liberties, they.

[Janine Younis]

Really should have called state police to deal with this situation. If there was a timely issue and they really needed her to move right then I think just continuing to tell her to move or they're gonna have to arrest her once the situation escalated, they should have just let her go. I mean, that's another aspect I didn't get to is that in the United States at least, law enforcement doesn't have the right to shoot people just for fleeing. So if you're fleeing an arrest they're supposed to let you go rather than kill you. Which I think makes sense because we value life over killing someone. If they're not putting others in danger.

[Freddie Sayers]

By fleeing, let's just say they did have the authority to arrest her. What you would have liked to happen is she would have been. Even if it meant physically overpowering her, dragging her out the car if necessary, if she was resisting arrest. Yeah. Putting her in the back of a police vehicle or one of their vehicles and taking her to a local police station is that's what you would have liked to happen if it had to get to that.

[Janine Younis]

Yeah. And I think that's reasonable. Another point to, you know, and this is something that if this again goes to trial, the prosecution will almost certainly bring up, is that after he fired the shots or while he was firing the shots, he called her a. I don't know if I'm allowed to swear.

[Freddie Sayers]

So I should say, I think it's disputed which of the two officers said that, whether it was the same guy who shot. Made the shots. But one of them said that my.

[Janine Younis]

Yeah, if it was him, that's a fact that I would bring up to show if I were the prosecutor, that he was angry rather than frightened. So there are just a bunch of sort of factors that I think you can use to build this case.

[Freddie Sayers]

Big picture, as someone who cares about civil liberties. And as I mentioned in the introduction, you know, when it was President Biden, you were not a friend of President Biden. You were. In fact, you sued him. I believe it went all the way up to the Supreme Court for censorship over the COVID issue. So you are someone who believes in civil liberties. What is it big picture you see happening in this administration that you are most worried about?

[Janine Younis]

There is a very big problem with respecting people's civil liberties. I mean, so there's this issue with the ice, ICE and immigration enforcement, which I think is not being done in a targeted manner, which an administration that respects civil liberties would do. You don't just do these sort of sweeping in everybody, and then, okay, let's see if we got some of the right people. That's not how it works. Their record on free speech is horrendous, and I've been pretty critical of them for the past year. They've been, in my opinion, as someone who sued Biden and thought he was very bad on free speech, they've been worse. And there are a lot of ways in which they're disrespecting or violating the First Amendment on a pretty regular basis.

[Freddie Sayers]

Is it also something to do with the politicized nature of the judicial process? Because that does feel. Look, if you're a Republican, you will say hello. The political prosecutions attempted under Democratic presidents is a long list. And Donald Trump certainly feels he was the victim of political prosecutions, but it feels like their response is to sort of adopt the same tactics. To some extent. There's a. A sense that the justice system is not independent of political considerations as much as perhaps it should be. Do you observe that?

[Janine Younis]

Yes, that's a thousand percent true. The justice system is being completely weaponized against the administration's ideological enemies. They go after people for wearing watermelon pins or without showing, you know, what I would call a lot of, like, protected expression in support of Palestine or Palestinians. And there is group called Baytar I'm unfortunately familiar with that really engages in terrorist tactics. The New York Attorney general just reached a settlement with them, and included in the settlement were its findings that they had engaged in stabbings and beatings of Palestinians and Muslims in New York and actually also Jews who oppose Israel's actions and were with the Palestinians. And yet the federal government doesn't care about them at all. They have tax exempt status with the irs. If the identities of the people were reversed in this situation, you can bet that they would not have tax exempt status. They would probably. Many of their members would be in jail right now. So it's a complete, like, just ideological weaponization of the justice system in this country, and both sides do it.

[Freddie Sayers]

And in this scenario, ice, I guess, appears something like a kind of presidential guard. Is that the anxiety with ICE that it's. They're almost becoming the kind of praetorian guard of the president who can do whatever they like and will get protection?

[Janine Younis]

Absolutely. And I believe J.D. vance actually said that they have absolute immunity so they can do whatever they want. That's not true. Federal officers, including ice, cannot just do whatever they want and get away with it. They have to show that their conduct was necessary and proper in order to effectuate their duties. Again, if this goes to trial, the prosecutor is going to argue that these actions weren't necessary and proper to do their jobs or do the whatever. Officer Ross's job.

[Freddie Sayers]

Final question for you, Jeanine. The whole world of law that you work in, the civil liberties at the moment, it's sort of unfashionable, isn't it? It feels like there are these big, huge questions where people disagree on very fundamentally and it's considered a sort of nicety to obey these various Restrictions on power from different parts of the constitution and so on. And neither left nor right seem very interested in it. They want to just achieve their goals and they feel like it's an emergency. And if they have to barge past a few lawyers such as yourself, well, that's price of doing business. Do you, do you sense that?

[Janine Younis]

Yes. And it's getting worse and worse with the sort of poisonous political division in our country. The two sides hate each other more and more every day. What they are willing to do is to embrace policies and even laws that are restrictive of civil liberties, more and more violative of people's civil liberties. And then when the next administration comes in, it's often the opposite political party. They are now get to enjoy the expansion of federal government power, the limitations on civil liberties that the previous administration implemented. People are more interested in scoring political points against the other side than protecting each other's rights against the government. And this is exactly the sort of thing that I think our founders were terrified of. I think they're probably rolling over in their graves.

[Freddie Sayers]

I guess if you want to make it interesting to the people who are at the top of these administrations, you've got to say, well, just wait till the other guys get in. They will now do the same back to you. I mean, that's the best argument to care about this stuff, isn't it? Like if in three years time there's a Democratic administration with someone that Republicans absolutely despise, if they know that they can pretty much arrest people, maybe even kill people that they don't like, through various sort of presidential forces, they will do so. So ultimately, if you're a right winger, you can lose out because of this.

[Janine Younis]

Yes, and many of the right wingers who are celebrating what ICE is doing were themselves called terrorists for not getting the vaccine, domestic terrorists, or participating in the Canadian trucker protests. So it's really surprising to me that people can't seem to remember even three years ago and recognize that this expansion of federal power and evisceration of civil liberties is very likely to come back and harm them.

[Freddie Sayers]

Janine Yunus, thank you so much.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

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[Freddie Sayers]

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[Janine Younis]

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[David Montgomery]

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[Raj and Noah]

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[Janine Younis]

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[Freddie Sayers]

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[Freddie Sayers]

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[David Montgomery]

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[Freddie Sayers]

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[Janine Younis]

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[Raj and Noah]

Hey, it's Raj and Noah. And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.

Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong.

But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics that we could all use a little helping hit with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions, or even dreaming.

We'Ll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right. So the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us.

Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong? Dropping every Thursday starting January 1st, wherever you get your podcasts.

And for the first time ever, we're going to have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're going to be right here to help you do them better.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

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[Janine Younis]

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[Freddie Sayers]

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[Freddie Sayers]

Thanks to Janine Yuniz there. Well, I said we would get both sides of this controversy. And as I said, the Rashomon effect means that good people can view the same selection of evidence and come to very opposite conclusions. I know just such a person, a good person who takes the opposite view to Janine. I know that because he actually works for Unherd. He is our very own US Editor. His name is Sohrab Amari and he has been really involved in the online fight around this incident that took place last week. The vice president, J.D. vance, has been tweeting the points that Sohrab has made in defence of the ICE officer taking that fatal shot. And so I thought let's get him on the show and let's talk through it directly. Sourabh, welcome to you.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

Thanks. Good to be with you, Freddie.

[Freddie Sayers]

We just had Jeanine Younis on who I think you know and who takes the view that this was a completely illegal and immoral execution. You have watched the same evidence and you believe that the ICE officer was justified in taking that shot. Talk us through the arguments you are finding persuasive.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

Yeah, thanks for having me. And I like the fact that you referenced the Akira Kurosawa classic Rashomon, because that's the movie that came to my mind because obviously I've watched the same footage as lots of other people and yet myself and people on my side have taken one set of conclusions and lots of other well intentioned, sincere people looking at the same footage have come to the opposite conclusion. So therefore Rash Ramon is extremely apt as a frame of reference. I want to just immediately set the context about certain things that have been said by Democratic officials and others that have to do with the immediate facts of the case which are just not true and have been now definitively debunked. The main one, and the one that's especially pernicious, is the one that suggests that Renee Goode was just a mom who had dropped off her kid at school and then was suddenly and with no apparent reason caught in this ICE operation. And then this is something that, for example, Adam Schiff, a Democratic lawmaker, and others have said so high ranking officials have said this, that she was just caught up in this and ICE shot her. Now, what we know, thanks to reporting from the New York Post, which many people found distasteful, and I used to work for the New York Post, I should say so a little bias there, but I think it's perfectly legitimate is that. No. She was part of a group called ICE Watch. She had received training on how to disrupt ICE operations and sure enough, she did. And we now have lots of footage from what happened a few minutes before the footage that everyone's seen where she is using her maroon colored Honda SUV to block the road that the ICE officers are approaching down. And what happens is initially they're saying to her, move, move, move. She doesn't do. So. An ICE officer, the one who ultimately shot her, gets out of the, out of his car and approaches hers and starts using his cell film. And he kind of does a full circle around the car, has like certain sarcastic confrontations with both Renee, who's sitting in the car, and with her partner or spouse. Rebecca. Renee says, I'm not mad at you, dude. That's been held up as a sign of how friendly she is. Of course, that can have a different valence if it's like kind of sarcastic. And she's sort of smirking at him. Rebecca says, are you hungry, dude? You know, oh. And she says, we haven't. By the way, you don't need to like film our license plate because we don't change our license plate daily. And you're gonna see it tomorrow. I'm only slightly paraphrasing. He goes around all the way to the front of the car as he's filming. Meanwhile, another ICE officer approaches and at this point they've decided to apprehend her. He says, get out. Get out. Get the fuck out of the car. Rebecca, the wife says, drive, baby, drive. And at that point, Rebecca puts her pedal to the metal and the car lurches forward this heavy suv. Only when the car starts rolling forward does he pull out his gun and very rapidly fire one shot, which is through the front, goes through the windshield, and then the car begins to turn and away from him to. To its right. And he fires two more shots, apparently from the side. Obviously she's probably dead from the first shot and the car crashes into a pole or something like that. That's the basics of the incident as I've seen it in numerous pieces of footage from different angles.

[Freddie Sayers]

Let me just pick up a couple of those dimensions. Why is the first part of what you said relevant? Why is it relevant that she has a lesbian partner? That she is part of a. I suppose ICE Watch is some kind of resistance protest movement. Not illegal. Not illegal to join a protest movement against government missions that you don't support. You know, she was a mother of a six year old who she did drop off that morning. So that part is. Is not inaccurate. But I guess people will say when they see the. What you've just said. And also the New York Post, front page. It's a stretch, isn't it, to try to justify shooting someone in the face for protesting? I mean, it's a. It's a protected thing to do in the Constitution.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

Several points. One is on her sexual orientation. I actually didn't highlight that. I just said she had her spouse and a wife, so I don't think that's relevant. I do think some of the tabloid and Fox News reporting underscore that. I agree with you. I don't think it's relevant to the facts at hand. The only reason to mention the fact that she's part of ICE Watch, protesting ICE activity is not illegal. Obviously, Americans have First Amendment rights which are sacred and jealously to be guarded. I only mention it because some lawmakers have against very senior Democratic lawmakers have continued to claim that she just sort of popped up there without intending to just be involved in anything political. She just dropped off her kid and was caught in this crossfire somehow between ICE and whoever they were apprehending. And then the ICE agent cruelly shot her for no reason. So. So it's relevant to debunk that talking point. Now, the fact that she was protesting is not reason for her to get shot, to be clear. And I'm not suggesting that Americans, again have a First Amendment right to protest the government, to make known their discontent, et cetera, et cetera. However, it is illegal to obstruct law enforcement activity, and that's what she was doing. And a lot of people have pointed out that ICE doesn't have a right to apprehend U.S. citizens. And while that's generally true, there are two exceptions. One of them is to check your citizenship status, which does happen. So that's one instance. And the other one is obstruction of their legitimate and lawful law enforcement activities. And putting a car, using a car to block the way to ICE vehicles, that's a very clear. It's a literal obstruction.

[Freddie Sayers]

Saurabh, I think we can almost concede that point. And I made that point to Jenny and Younis as well. Like, you know, evidently it's obstructing ISIS work, quite literally, whether they have the legal authority or not. Most people would think that that's it's fair enough that she would be apprehended or even if she was a full on, you know, violent protester who was part of a really much more sinister network than ICE Watch. Yeah, she should be arrested if necessary, incarcerated. And, you know, the law needs to carry on. The difference is none of that is really relevant when it comes to should she be shot dead in the head. So tell us about that.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

So let me walk through the reasoning that I take on is I think it's the reasoning that will ultimately prevail in the kind of legal disposition of this case. Protesting is certainly no reason to be shot. Even obstruction by itself is no reason to be shot in the face. That's completely clear. However, Obstruction is reason to be apprehended, as you just said. And that's what the officers were trying to do. There's one that approaches her from the side window and one, Jonathan Ross, who ultimately took the shot, who's standing in front of the vehicle. And the one who approaches from the side says, get out of the car. Get out of the car. Get the fuck out of the car. So at that point they're saying, you know, you're apprehended, you gotta get out of the car. Certainly I've had, like, parking issues where I've been, you know, driving issues where I've been apprehended or stopped by the police and given a ticket. But I've only been when I was very young, maybe like 17 years old.

[Freddie Sayers]

But we're talking about him shooting her in the head here. So tell us the bit that justifies that.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

Just to be clear. There was only one time where I've been told, like, get out of the car. And I was 17 years old, I was a relatively new migrant. And I immediately got out of the car because it's a police officer. When he gives you a lawful of command, get out of the car. You're supposed to get out of the car. She did not do that. She decided, I think no one says she drove to try to kill the officer. I don't believe that.

[Freddie Sayers]

Lots of people say that, just to be clear, including the president and the vice president who says they weaponized their vehicle. Terrorism, and his life was in danger. So that is the view of the administration.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

So I do think his life was endangered by. I don't think she intended to do it, but I think it's irrelevant what her intentions ultimately were. And they are irrelevant from the point of view of the law. I think what she was trying to do is follow the suggestion of her partner, Rebecca, who said, drive, baby, drive, to try to drive away. So she sped up the car and it's, you know, it's approaching him.

[Freddie Sayers]

It's.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

And it does. It does make contact to him. Now, this is a disputed point I recognize some people say it doesn't, but I've seen enough videos from various angles. One is the kind of a 45 degree angle where he is literally kind of like driven back by the car initially. And he's like. Uses his hand to stabilize himself. There's another one where it's the frontal view. It's his cell phone camera. And he lets out, as many people pointed out, he lets out this like, whoa, I almost got hit noise. Like he's like, whoa, he makes a noise like that and there's a kind of sound of something. This is not the shot yet. This is the sound of something making contact. The legal standard is, was he put in reasonable fear for his life or the life of others given the totality of circumstances? So it's like these elements have to be met. Reasonable.

[Freddie Sayers]

Your answer to that question is yes.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

Yes, because. And I think the courts have answered yes. And the courts are. American courts, from Supreme Court precedent on down are very deferential to cops. Subjective interpretation of what's happening. And the reason for that is the courts don't want to put themselves in the. To try to second guess a cop and pretend like he's not a cop.

[Freddie Sayers]

Well, you keep calling him a cop.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

He's a law enforcement officer. He's charged with upholding American immigration law at a federal level. So there's a great deal of deference to their own perception of what's happening and their perception given the totality of circumstances. And it's very easy for you and me and Janine to look at this video at a distance when it's. Everything is calm and we're sitting comfortably in our homes, like on our phones, having a little coffee and watching this over and over be like, oh, well, he could have just swiveled his body this way and that. But our courts don't do that. They think like, okay, when you are the police officer and you see a big old SUV that weighs 2 to 4 tons of rolling at you, that puts you in reasonable fear of your life.

[Freddie Sayers]

I mean, it was rolling at him from maybe 1 meter away from a standing star. So it's not like it's coming at you on the highway at 70 or 100 miles an hour. Sure.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

But there have been cases where a car is. There was one in New York City where a car is stopped, officer is in front and says, stop, get out. And the person pushes forward from a similar distance and does make contact. And the officer was severely injured. That's why we don't. We try not to, like, second guess too much. Because a big heavy vehicle, like, who knows what it's going to do? Who knows what its physics are? Who knows?

[Freddie Sayers]

Yeah. So I understand that's the legal defense. And actually Ms. Youniz made a similar argument for the first of the three shots. And I will see if it does come to court. Do you believe that it was the.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

Right defended the first shot?

[Freddie Sayers]

She said that the first shot is. It may or may not be defended in court. So you don't disagree on that legal point, but do you think it was the right thing to do? Are you happy to live in a country where non uniformed federal officials can shoot women in SUVs in that way? I mean, that's the big question, isn't it? And that's what's dividing the country.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

I acknowledge the human tragedy and it's true. What is legal, what is legally reasonable is not necessarily the wisest thing to do. It's not the most prudent thing to do. It's not the most just thing to do. It is possible that Officer Ross did something that is perfectly legal, that will be upheld by the courts.

[Freddie Sayers]

But what's your opinion though, Saurabh? Because you've taken it upon yourself to be one of his big defenders. I mean, you are, I would say, one of the top three voices out there on social media saying that it was okay for him to kill that woman. So I'm presuming you think that it was okay.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

Although we, in our second guessing capacity on our Monday morning quarterbacking, which is a very American reference, I know, may be able to say this was not the wisest decision. The bottom line is that the responsibility for what happened lies with Renee Goode. Her choice not to follow a lawful command from law enforcement officers and secondarily with her partner who said drive, baby, drive. Because once you don't listen to what law enforcement is saying and there's a cop in front of you and part of the footage that I think is notable is that they seem to make eye contact, like she looks up, sees him in front of her, nevertheless presses the gas. Once you do that, it is possible you will get shot. If I'm assigning blame, I would put the primary blame on Renee Goode herself. Again, horrible. I'm saddened by it. I don't want to think about what it's like to tell her son. But I think ultimately, and I would put the blame secondarily on Rebecca in.

[Freddie Sayers]

Terms of a lesson then, because everyone has noticed this and it's obviously been a hugely divisive moment. The lesson coming from the administration, and it appears to be the one you endorse, is don't mess with federal law enforcement. Don't get in their way because you might get killed. And what it does is it says to people, hold on, if there's an ICE official in the room or on the road, be scared because they might shoot you. And they will have the full backing of the president if they do. Is that a good lesson for a democracy to learn I think that's a.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

Caricature of what I'm saying. You're allowed to protest ice. You can stand across the street from where they're carrying out an operation, for example, and hold up signs saying, you shouldn't deport this or that person. Now, a lot of the people that they are deporting, including one of the people that, by the way, Officer Jonathan Ross previously tried to apprehend, who was a multiple sexual offender and tried to drive away and dragged him for several feet and caused him to be injured. That doesn't mean that what he then subsequently did is reasonable or justified. It's reasonable justified for the reasons I laid out. But that's just the background of the kind of people they're deporting. If you want to defend such people, I think it's wrong to do so. But if you want to do that, you're allowed to hold up placards across the street. You can go to your congressperson, your representative or senator, and can say, let's change the immigration laws. Let's abolish ice. You can do that. You can write newspaper op eds. You can do all sorts of things. But throwing your body or your vehicle in front of an ongoing federal law enforcement operation, that's pretty dangerous. That's a risky thing to do. Officers will try to apprehend you, and if you then drive away and it's a car oncoming, you might get shot. So the idea isn't if you protest ice, you get shot. It's if you obstruct and then endanger ICE operations and endanger ICE officers respectively, then that's a very. That's a dangerous thing to do. And the consequences in this case are horrific and has caused the national tragedy. But I think it's a cartoonish interpretation to say it means don't mess with ice. If you protest them, you get shot. There's all sorts of ways to protest ICE that don't involve blocking their way or driving at one of them, even if you don't intend to hurt them.

[Freddie Sayers]

What is now happening in Minneapolis and in liberal centers around the country seems to be that local elected officials, mayors, senators, congresspeople are really trying to resist now the federal government. It feels like a standoff is now brewing or already happening. The mayor of Minneapolis says he wasn't in front of the car. This was an extrajudicial killing ice. Get the fuck out of Minneapolis. This is the mayor of Minneapolis. The language is now really approaching a standoff. What do you want to see next? Do you think that standoff will happen and how will it play out?

[Sohrab Ahmari]

I have trouble finding my sympathy, especially. I mean, we're talking about irresponsible rhetoric. And you mentioned what I consider some of the irresponsible rhetoric from the administration. I'm willing to grant that. But on the other side, I mean, Governor Waltz invoked the year 1863, meaning the civil War, suggesting that that's the kind of scenario we are in. Said like he has said, that Minnesota's National Guard is prepared to confront ice. It's not only irresponsible, but it's just simply small d democratically unfair. Why? Because in 2024American voters, not just by electoral college, but a plurality of voters of the popular vote, selected the nominee who promised to roll back illegal immigration and to deport lots of the people, 8 million people who came under Biden, many of them unvetted, many of them with criminal records. That's who won the election. And what ICE is doing is carrying out that democratic mandate. And also what they're doing is actually just enforcing existing immigration law. We have existing immigration law on the books that says so and so person can't be here. They are subject to removal orders. Often they already have removal orders against them and all ICE is doing is just executing the removal order, getting them out of the country. I think what a lot of people on my side of this debate think is, you know, there is no special Minneapolis or Portland, Oregon or California exemption to the federal immigration law. That's why they're called federal immigration laws. And the federal government is charged with protecting our border and making decisions about who belongs and doesn't. It's not a determination to be made by municipal government or by state government.

[Freddie Sayers]

Could this administration with its mandate not still achieve its objectives within the normal framework of the balance of powers of the Constitution, with more respect for civil liberties? Put people in jail if necessary, arrest people if they are obstructing justice or obstructing what you think is justice. There are plenty of powers there. You know, what do you say to the accusation that this has now spilt over and become a kind of thuggish, you know, non democratic way of conducting government where, you know, it's brute force and my way or the highway and due process isn't being respected. What's your response to that accusation?

[Sohrab Ahmari]

Response is that in states that don't have these sanctuary policies that basically have decided to cooperate with the federal government in enforcing federal immigration law, you don't see drama like this. This only happens in actually a relatively Few jurisdictions that want to have a different immigration law from the rest of the country. I will grant that there has been some amount of theatrical, what I call theatrical meanness to ice, you know, like the kind of swaggering. Someone standing in front of the car to block the car. Yes, you can arrest them, but they choose to hurl them forward. Is that within their lawful authority? Probably. I think a court would uphold that. Is that the best way to always confront someone who's standing in front of the car blocking the way? No, you can just say, sir, move, or something's bad gonna happen to you, whatever, instead of. Or just grab their arm, not hurl them. I'm willing to grant that. But the bottom line is that this only happens in jurisdictions that are trying to exempt themselves from the immigration.

[Freddie Sayers]

Final question for you. That swagger that you talked about and were a little bit anxious about in the case of the ICE agents, I think most people can fairly say is present at the podium of the White House from the President and also from your friend JD Vance, the vice president. Both of them have kind of a lot of that tough guy rhetoric, batting away liberal niceties and anxieties, civil liberties and the rest of it. There is a bit of a tough guy swagger going on there. Do you take the view that that is a necessary component of getting their agenda done, and so even though you don't want it to go too far, you applaud it, or do you wish that they could execute their agenda and their Democratic mandate without the swagger?

[Sohrab Ahmari]

Look, I think that the administration would benefit from being ruthless about enforcing the law, removing who needs to be removed when people throw street antics, confronting them and saying, you're going to go get arrested, you can't block our vehicle, et cetera, et cetera. And at the same time, dialing back from the top down a little bit, again, the theatrical meanness, I think more people would buy in to what's happening, and maybe the polling numbers around it would reset to where I think they should be if they dialed that down a little bit. But I just want to put it in the concept. The reason that a lot of it is happening is because for eight years, they feel they were elected to do certain things, and they were hindered at every term, in the first term and in the second term by people using lawfare, or in this case, sanctuary city tactics, et cetera, et cetera. And they're like, you know what? I'm impervious to your calls to be nice, and I think that might be a mistake. I think it's a mistake. You probably think it's a mistake, but I'm just trying to explain where it's coming from.

[Freddie Sayers]

Sohrab, you mentioned polling numbers there, and our very next guest will be investigating them for us. Thank you so much for your time today.

[Raj and Noah]

Hey, it's Raj and Noah. And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.

Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong.

But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics that we could all use a little helping hand with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions, or even dreaming.

We'll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right. So the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us.

Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong? Dropping every Thursday starting January 1st, wherever you get your podcasts.

And for the first time ever, we're going to have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're going to be right here to help you to unbox better.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

Love y'. All.

[Freddie Sayers]

This is an ad by BetterHelp.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

Did I talk too much? I just let it go.

[Freddie Sayers]

Take a breath. You're not alone. Let's talk about what's going on. Counseling helps you sort through the noise with qualified professionals, and online therapy makes it convenient. See if it's for you. Visit betterhelp.com random podcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy or and let life feel better. Our next guest is from an organization called YouGov, where in transparency I myself used to work. It's an opinion research market research company. And they measure. They do their best to measure accurately how the public is falling on big issues of the day. David Montgomery is senior data journalist at YouGov. And not only has he been involved in. In trying to understand from the American public how they've reacted to these events. He's also a Minnesotan and a Minneapolis local, and he joins us from Minneapolis. So he knows all about this case. Welcome to Unherd.

[David Montgomery]

Thanks for having me on.

[Freddie Sayers]

You've published some polling in the last couple of days which seems to really have quite a stark conclusion from the American public. Talk us through the key findings.

[David Montgomery]

We asked people about the shooting of Renee Goode and whether they thought the ICE agent should face criminal charges for it. 53% of Americans said that the ICE agent should face criminal charges compared to 30% who said he shouldn't, which is, from what I've heard, not what supporters of ICE were hoping to see. Our polling shows that to the degree that Americans fall down on this, they're falling in favor of charging for this. Also, we found that about twice as many Americans say that the use of force was not justified than justified.

[Freddie Sayers]

So once again, the numbers there, I think it's 50% say was not justified, 30% say say was justified.

[David Montgomery]

53 to 28.

[Freddie Sayers]

53 to 28. So again, it's a very narrow overall majority. But if you take out the people who are unsure, if you took out the don't knows, it would then be a very conclusive, nearly 2 to 1 verdict.

[David Montgomery]

Among people who have opinions, there's much more sort of negative sentiment toward ICE than positive sentiment.

[Freddie Sayers]

How much of this is just party political? Let's dig under the hood and look at the different registered voter groups. How do they break down?

[David Montgomery]

88% of Democrats say the use of force wasn't justified. 61% of Republicans say it was. So there's an intensity gap where Americans are splitting along party lines on this issue. Democrats are much more unanimous in their view that this was not justified than Republicans are in their support for the ICE agent.

[Freddie Sayers]

And what about independents, if indeed there are any independents left in the United States? Is that a big group now or is that a smaller group than before?

[David Montgomery]

It all depends on how you define independence. Lots of Americans identify as political independence, but in practice, many of them lean toward one party or the other fairly consistently. In general, independents in this view, pretty closely mirror the country as a whole. 58% of independents say the use of force was not justified. 20% say it was. Democrats overwhelmingly saying this wasn't justified. Republicans somewhat more tepidly saying it was. And Independents being considerably more likely to say not justified than justified.

[Freddie Sayers]

Well, twice as likely. So it's 58 to 30. So it is almost exactly 2 to 1.

[David Montgomery]

But also fairly high levels of not sures among independents as well as Republicans. Only 8% of Democrats aren't sure about this issue. More than 20% of independents and Republicans say they're not sure.

[Freddie Sayers]

You also showed from your recent research that a very surprisingly high number of Americans have seen or claim to have seen the video evidence of this incident. Tell us about that.

[David Montgomery]

This is clearly an issue that has broken through. One poll found 70% of Americans say they've seen the video or a video of the killing of Renee Goode, which is very high.

[Freddie Sayers]

I mean, when you say Americans, that presumably means adults. We're talking 70% of maybe 300 or 200 and something million people.

[David Montgomery]

About 244 million people, U.S. adult citizens. And about 70% of them say they've seen the video.

[Freddie Sayers]

I mean, that in itself, I feel, is worth just reflecting on, because if that was a television event, I mean, it would leave the super bowl in the dust. That is extraordinary and really shows just how politically engaged and how big these moments can be that you're literally getting more than 100 million people across the country watching a particular clip and making up their mind about it.

[David Montgomery]

Whenever there's a big event in the news, we tend to ask people, how much have you heard about this really big election stuff? Everybody hears about it. 90% of people say they've heard something or a lot. And a lot of stuff that gets news coverage. Maybe like 30 or 40% of people have heard, heard about it. The people who are really plugged into the news and are following it, this one has clearly broken through and is much closer to those universal events.

[Freddie Sayers]

And therefore it has the potential to be a very significant political moment. It feels very fair to say that the vice president, who obviously has his eye on 2028, took the decision early on that the political way to respond to this was to back the ICE agents to the hilt from the beginning. And that would showcase to his base, I suppose, that he was strong and, you know, wasn't going to be bullied by liberal, you know, screechy Karens from Minneapolis or whatever. Was that the right political decision? Because if you look at your numbers, it looks like a lot of people have noticed this, and by a factor of two to one, they are deciding that it was the wrong conclusion.

[David Montgomery]

Well, the question is, what audience are you talking about? Because, you know, if you run for president, the first group you have to win over is members of your own party to get the nomination. And as we saw, Republicans are fairly supportive of ICE on this. The Republicans, who are more conservative and are more likely to identify as MAGA Republicans, MAGA supporters feel even more strongly than the non MAGA Republicans. This is not an issue where like 80 or 90% of the Americans oppose this. There's a very healthy constituency that supports what ICE is doing here, supports the agent thinks that his use of force was justified, that he shouldn't face charges.

[Freddie Sayers]

So in terms of getting the nomination, if you're JD Vance and you're thinking how Do I make sure I am popular among the base? How do I make sure to become the nominee? He played it right.

[David Montgomery]

Clearly what he's saying is resonating with Republicans, which are not a majority, but it's a very important group, especially for a Republican politician.

[Freddie Sayers]

But the follow on question essentially is even more important, which is no matter who the nominee is, are the American public being turned off the Trump project by what they perceive as excesses of this kind? Kind of. They might think, yeah, I was kind of into Trump, but I liked the idea of shaking things up. But shooting a lady in the face in Minneapolis, I'm not on board with that.

[David Montgomery]

We regularly every week and ask people about their approval of Donald Trump's job performance and that is fairly negative. Considerably more Americans disapprove of Trump's job performance than approve of it.

[Freddie Sayers]

What number are we at at the moment?

[David Montgomery]

40% of Americans strongly or somewhat approve of Trump's job performance and 54% strongly or somewhat disapprove. The flip side is that has not changed much in recent weeks. It's been fairly steady or even upticked slightly over the past two months.

[Freddie Sayers]

Do you feel that the attitude of the administration to events like this is going to damage them politically or do you think they are right to calculate that they are sort of invincible?

[David Montgomery]

So what the first term showed us is that there are a lot of people who came out to support Donald Trump in the presidential election who are supporters of his who then didn't turn out in the midterms. Reports are that there is a concerted effort among the administration to try to increase enthusiasm among these Trump supporting voters who maybe don't turn out to support other Republicans on the ballot. And so that could imply more sort of base pleasing policies to try to drive up turnout among these Trump friendly voters who might not be expected to turn out in November for this midterm election.

[Freddie Sayers]

What should we expect to be the net political effect of these kind of incidents, do you think? Yes, I think it's clear that it will please the base, but the YouGov numbers seem to suggest that it will damage the Republicans chances in future cycles.

[David Montgomery]

It's always hard to tell how much any given news event is going to linger as things. There will be many more events in the news between now and the election. To the degree that the Trump administration continues doing things where there's sort of a two to one split against them among the American people, generally speaking, politicians try not to be on the wrong side of a 2 to 1 split of the electorate. If decisions like this keep happening and there continue to be policies that the Trump administration is on the wrong side of, a 2 to 1 split, conventionalism would suggest that would probably be bad for them politically.

[Freddie Sayers]

Final question for you, David. What is the mood in Minneapolis amongst your friends, people you know, what have you observed? Is it the talking point or is there a weariness about it already, even though it's only a week old? What's happening there?

[David Montgomery]

This is the story that anyone here in Minneapolis is talking about. Lots of people are very worried. Other people are very angry. I definitely know people who have gone to protests or been engaged in some of the activist groups. Other people are just worried that something could happen to them that just going out of their house, driving around. There are about 500 Minneapolis police in the city police department and there's over 2,000 ICE agents in the city right now. So it's a very noticeable change in law enforcement presence.

[Freddie Sayers]

David, thank you so much for your time. Our thanks there to Janine Yunes, Sohrab Ahmari and David Montgomery from YouGov. What we tried to show there was that serious thinking, good people have evidently come to very different conclusions on this, and I thought it was really useful to interrogate the arguments on each side, but then to conclude, just getting a sense of how the American public have concluded. Because that in the end, whether it's the midterms or whether it's the next presidential election is the opinion that actually matters. Thanks to them and thanks to you, this was unheard of.

[David Montgomery]

Foreign.

[Raj and Noah]

Hey, it's Raj and Noah. And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.

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And for the first time ever, we're gonna have full video episodes on YouTube, because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're gonna be right here to help you do em better.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

Love y'.

[Freddie Sayers]

All.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

Mom, dad, I'm not throwing shade, but the whole New Year's resolution thing kind of slippin. No offense.

[Raj and Noah]

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[Sohrab Ahmari]

He uses Blue Apron.

[Raj and Noah]

He says he ordered one pan assemble.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

And bake meals and these things called meal kits.

[Freddie Sayers]

They're all super easy to make. He keeps yelling protein and fiber baby.

[Sohrab Ahmari]

Also the food. We tried it so good so maybe.

[Freddie Sayers]

Check it out or whatever.

[Raj and Noah]

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[Sohrab Ahmari]

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