Transcript

Trump and ICE Sink To New Low In Shock Move

From Pod Save America · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 20 min · 15,599 words · 169 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Trump and ICE Sink To New Low In Shock Move", an episode of Pod Save America published January 16, 2026 (1 h 20 min, about 15,599 words). It mentions 6 people, works and ideas, including ICE, Donald Trump, DHS, Pod Save America, Hannah Natansen.

What this episode is about

The content discusses the escalating tension in Minneapolis following a federal agent's shooting of a man, leading to protests and confrontations with law enforcement, including tear gas usage. It addresses Trump's potential invocation of the Insurrection Act amid concerns over federal agents' excessive actions and the challenges faced by local officials in maintaining order amid growing unrest.

Key takeaways

  • When federal agents become the invading force, Minneapolis proves that chaos can be a disturbing new normal.
  • The Insurrection Act: a dangerous power play, showing more desperation than strategy from Trump amidst chaos.
  • One resident’s outrage could be the rallying cry for change; disengagement is the real threat to democracy.
  • In Minneapolis, a six-month-old's distressed cries highlight the absurdity of a militarized local response to everyday life.
  • Ignoring Minneapolis is ignoring America’s tipping point; political inaction in crisis is the true definition of negligence.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: DHS, Pod Save America
  2. – 50:00: Donald Trump, Hannah Natansen
  3. – 1:00:00: Donald Trump, Robert Kennedy Jr.
  4. – 1:10:00: Pod Save America
  5. – 1:19:33: Donald Trump

Notable quotes from "Trump and ICE Sink To New Low In Shock Move"

  • Many trying to terrorize the people in Minneapolis. there are thousands of masked ICE agents roaming the cities of Minneapolis, right? And after everything we saw with National…
    about ICE · at
  • Congress, and now raiding the homes of journalists. On Wednesday, the FBI showed up at Washington Post reporter Hannah Natansen's house and seized her work computer, her…
    about Hannah Natansen · at
  • Politically they're not necessarily helping them. They really haven't borne fruit in court. And so I'm I'm sure it satisfies Donald Trump and makes him happy, but I don't know. What do you think about this?
    about Donald Trump · at
  • Miller rocketing to the top of the charts. she had as her guest this week none other than Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
    about Robert Kennedy Jr. · at
  • Senator Ggo, welcome back to Pod Save America.
    about Pod Save America · at
  • Hurting right now. Trump's once again threatening to invoke the insurrection act. This time in Minnesota, DHS has already deployed a small army to Minneapolis. They're…
    about DHS · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Donald Trump — Person · Core topic · 3 mentions · first at
    Same individual as 'Trump'; referenced explicitly in segments on DOJ intimidation, Venezuela oil, and RFK Jr.’s comments.
  • Hannah Natansen — Person · Referenced journalist · 1 mention · first at
    Her home raid and device seizure is cited as an alarming escalation by Trump’s DOJ against journalists in a leak investigation.
  • Robert Kennedy Jr. — Person · Referenced guest/clip subject · 1 mention · first at
    Appears via audio clip discussing Trump’s diet and health claims, used as a comedic but revealing window into administration culture.

Companies & orgs

  • ICE — Company · Core topic · 10 mentions
    ICE is portrayed as the operational arm of the administration’s crackdown in Minneapolis and the face of Trump’s immigration policy, sparking debate over reforms vs. abolition.
  • DHS — Company · Core topic · 1 mention · first at
    Discussed as the department overseeing ICE and as the focal point of looming appropriations fights and potential shutdown leverage.

Concepts & topics

  • Pod Save America — Concept · Show / framing concept · 2 mentions · first at
    The podcast platform where hosts discuss Trump-era governance, Democratic strategy, and interview Senator Gallego.

Full transcript with timestamps

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favro. I'm Dan Fefeifer. On today's show, we're going to talk about the chaos in Minneapolis where protests have broken out after federal agents shot another person, prompting Trump to threaten the Insurrection Act. We'll also talk about how this is all landing with Americans, as well as the debates Democrats are having about what to do. We'll get into the latest with Trump's Justice Department, where more lawyers have resigned and more investigations have been launched, as well as RFK Jr.'s 's assessment of Trump's eating habits and testosterone levels.

Then, Senator Ruben Ggo stops by to talk about Trump's invasion of Minneapolis and his potential invasion of Greenland. Another another great day of news. Uh, let's start with the latest in Minneapolis, which now feels like a war zone to the people who live there. On Wednesday night, a federal agent shot a man he was pursuing, leading to a long night of protests that led to more federal agents firing tear gas, flashbangs, and other projectiles. Mayor Fry held a press conference where he reiterated that he's in an impossible situation trying to keep people safe with only 600 police officers versus around 3,000 armed federal agents who are terrorizing citizens and non-citizens alike, arresting people without warrants, physically assaulting them, dragging them out of their cars.

And that was before Trump said on Thursday morning that he's considering invoking the Insurrection Act and sending actual troops to the city. a move that pretty clearly seems designed to bait residents into violence. One of those residents summed up how so many of his neighbors and so many of us feel about what's going on in Minnesota right now while talking to a reporter on Wednesday night. Let's listen.

This is nuts. This is Yeah. And you're right in the middle of this What the is going on, dude? This is insane. Have you ever gone out to these sort of things before?

Never. Never. I've never protested in my life. My brother, my brother's here. He does it all the time. I've never

I I got Dude, I like I said, I'm far enough away but close enough and I sit in my cushy house and look at and get mad and I Yeah, they're just trying to scare people and you know, but but but why shoot people? My No, you know what really pisses me off is the fact that they detain people, cuff them, and then still beat the out of them. They tell you it's immigrants only immigrants. It's anybody. I I have friends that got detained and all they were doing was driving home from work. What the

Sounds like you don't fit the definition of the uh Oh, and I'm not PAID TO BE HERE LIKE EVERYBODY SAYS. WHAT THE IS THAT? I got to work in the goddamn morning just like everybody else. I'm just here trying to stand up for community, dude. We're all human beings here. I don't give a who you are, where you came from, what color you are. It doesn't matter. This is wrong.

That guy in 2028. I mean, more Democrats should sound like that starting his campaign. Who can we get him? Can we get him on the horn? Let's draft him. Uh yeah, he doesn't sound like your typical paid leftist agitator, huh, Dan? Uh what what's your what's your reaction been to watching this unfold Wednesday night and uh and just over the last few days? It seems insane to say this, but when you watch what's happening in Minneapolis right now, it is clear that the president of United States dispatched a mass paramilitary force loyal to him to invade and occupy an American city for basically no reason at all, just because he could and because he wanted to send a message. And that that is what is happening. And it is horrific. I mean, I just saw right before we did this, you just tweeted a video of a dad talking about how ICE threw tear gas into his car with six kids and then wouldn't let him call an

ambulance or get access to healthcare. His six-month-old, his six-month-old, he had a 2-year-old, a six-month-old. The six-month-old couldn't breathe.

And you know, if you watch the video, it says uh he he's like, "I wasn't even I wasn't even at the protest. I was just trying to drive somewhere." Of course, all the people on Twitter, all the right-wing are like, "Oh, he shouldn't have put his kids in a dangerous situation." It's like, not everything. There's not a excuse for everything, you The guy literally lives in Minneapolis and was driving home because that's where he lives, and his six-month-old couldn't get a ambulance because there weren't enough officials to help them with an ambulance because there were so many trying to terrorize the people in Minneapolis. I mean, there are thousands of masked ICE agents roaming the cities of Minneapolis, right? And after everything we saw with National Guard troops in DC, Portland, Chicago, Memphis, LA, elsewhere, it's easy to sort of become numb to what's happening here. But this is deeply, deeply

dangerous. And if you can't look at these videos, look at what's happening there, read the local reporting about what's happening on the ground, and not realize that we are at a very dangerous crossroads in this country, then I honestly don't know what you're doing or what you're looking at. Right? If you can see all of this and decide that now is not the time to speak up or this is not the issue that is best for us and that we should just wait for our chance to talk about affordability or healthcare tax cuts or something, then honestly, you shouldn't be in politics, right? You are missing a moment because this is what is happening. This is what matters and this is what is dominating discussion in America right now.

And I understand that when your world is peaceful and doesn't look like Minneapolis or even when look when this was happening in Los Angeles I remember the rest of the country's like what's what's what's Los Angeles like right now and sure enough it was like a few city blocks right uh in downtown LA and you know that's been the case in a few other cities. Chicago was very bad. Most it was most of Chicago. Obviously DC was, you know, we had occupied DC for a while. But um because I think Minneapolis is smaller and because there are so many more federal agents there than there have been any other place, it re like you know I know people on the ground in in Minneapolis and um people are afraid to leave their homes. Uh kids who are in school have had like so many of their family members taken. Um they it's they said it feels like a war zone.

Like it it it's it's not it's not just that the clips we're seeing are isolated incidents or certain neighborhoods or anything like that. It is the whole city feels like this. And it it would be it would be nice if most Americans sort of stood up and spoke out for our neighbors in Minnesota right now in Minneapolis because they're going through a really hard time and they must feel very lonely I'm sure because the rest, you know, partly everyone's distracted with everything else in the news and everyone else is like going about living their lives like oh it's Trump another crazy Trump thing but this is really scary. Trump and his uh goons have already decided that the ICE agent who killed Renee Good should be praised, not investigated. Uh and that the person who really deserves to be investigated is Good's widow, Rebecca. These decisions reportedly led to the resignations of six federal prosecutors from the US

attorney's office in Minnesota, including the Trump appointed prosecutor, who had been running the administration's fraud investigation in that state. thought that was supposed to be the the most important agenda item, the big the big Somali fraud investigation. So, the attorney that was running that resigned because um he wouldn't investigate this woman's widow. Uh Pam Bondi uh who seems eager to rebut the Wall Street Journal's reporting this week that Trump's been complaining about her being quote weak and ineffective, uh went on Fox to yell about this.

The breaking news tonight, I fired them all. They're fired from the office. And we learned these people had been out there interviewing at liberal law firms prior to this. But I'll tell you what, from a personnel level, that'd be an HR nightmare. So, people better look into them.

This is so embarrassing. You didn't dump me, I dumped you. I know. I You And she says earlier, too, she's like, "And they they resigned, you know, but then I fired them." It's like, what? You did what? You're a idiot. You are all idiots.

Not for not for nothing, letting him resign is probably better. She is clearly someone who's in so far overhead and beginning to feel the pressure because of the Wall Street Journal story that said that Trump has been complaining about her all over the place as he should. I mean, she almost single-handedly created the Epstein files PR crisis for them for the last year and is clearly terrible at her job. It is quite telling that the cabinet secretaries in charge of the most powerful agencies, the Justice Department, DHS, and DoD are the biggest idiots. And that

who are the nine idiots, Sean? Well, but those are they're they're they're special idiots. I mean, in front in top of these agencies. And I think it's because they're not really in charge. Steven Miller's in charge of those three agencies. um you know, from all the reporting and they're just there because they were good on TV. Um which they're not.

Exactly. No, I would say I would say that you got that one wrong, Mr. Trump. Trump thinks they look good on TV. You know, they have they that's they have the look that Trump likes, right? Which is Fox Fox host, Fox pundit.

So, everyone has been rightfully focused on on ICE and DHS. I do feel like the resignations over DOJ choosing to investigate Good's widow instead of her killer is as big of a deal, if not bigger. Just how this has been handled legally to me speaks volumes because it's I it just goes to show that like the administration, the government is basically saying we decide what the law is even when it comes to murdering Americans. I think if you just go out to people just like not political people, not people at protest, not people listen to the show, just like regular people and you just said the following. A ICE agent shot a unarmed woman in the face three times, killing her in broad daylight on video. The agency responsible for investigating them is not investigating the shooter.

They are investigating the widow of the woman who was shot. People would think that is nuts because it is. it who had to stand there and watch her wife die. Yeah. I I just like and and they have a six-year-old who has who has just dealt with the loss of his mother now. Um, I don't know if you saw the uh CNN did a whole story on um Renee Good's actual connections to these ICE watch groups. And sure enough, basically Renee Good was on the board of her son's elementary school. And the board linked to documents encouraging parents to monitor ICE and directing them to training. and they had a bunch of lawyers look at all the documents and all of them are, you know, civil disobedience, non-violent tactics. It's like a it's an elementary school. It's like, hey, thanks the thanks to the parents for watching out for our neighbors and you know, there's like a a school bulletin board and you know,

they're they're thanking in the bulletin board Renee Good and Rebecca Good um for you know, they brought us pot they brought pots for us to paint and we're going to sell them at the plant sale in the spring. They look beautiful. And they interview the um the PE teacher at the school who had taught the six-year-old good son in class. And he was like, you know, whenever they would drop him off, um they would say goodbye several times before they could leave. And then they would drive around the front of the school so they had a window where he could see them and then they would wave. Um, and they were just awesome parents.

And it's just like the the vitriol that has been directed towards first of all a woman who's now dead. Um her wife who is very much alive and now this six-year-old who just a couple weeks ago was having trouble saying goodbye to both of his parents when he went to school and now has lost one of them. and now they all have to deal with this. The PE teacher also said that like the names of the of teachers and um and staff members at the school have been posted on social media and they're all getting death threats. Like I just don't like I don't understand like where the humanity is right now.

There's none. There's absolutely none. And this is not a bunch of angry or clickhungry right-wing media influencers. This is the federal government of the United States. This is the president of the United States. This is the vice president of United States is the attorney general of the United States. You know, in like you know when we used to work for Obama and David Axro used to say that we talk about the pastoral role of the president right that like when the nation is hurt that it's the job of the president whether they like it or not.

It's not in the Constitution, but what people expect is the president to speak to them, right? Whether it's Obama after New Town, Reagan after challenger, Bill Clinton after um after the Oklahoma City bombing or even George W. Bush with a bull horn in N, you know, after 911. And here you have a moment, this is something that has captured the nation's attention, right? You have a dead woman killed on video in a video that huge swasty American people have seen. And the response is not let the investigation play out. The response is not, you know, sympathy for her family, for the for the widow, for the son. It is to smear her without evidence for the purposes of advancing your broken political narrative.

It is. And no one at any point just takes a moment to think or say or appear even conflicted for a second about doing this. It's like the idea that you would only be out there protesting or opposing ICE because you are some left-wing ideologue or crazy activist and not because you're scared and your neighbors are scared and you want to protect people who haven't done anything wrong.

You know, this didn't get enough attention, I don't think, but after the shooting when Christy Gnome did the press a veil with the sign that said one of ours, all of yours.

Yeah, I had missed that. The idea being if you you it's it's like an old war saying if you kill one of ours we'll kill all of yours and in the ours and yours right this is the country these are the these are the people you serve whe they voted for you or not whether they protest you or not and to think they did like it is just a simple fact that the federal government of the United States from the president on down to the people enforcing his orders in these communities believe that anyone who who disagrees with this president who didn't vote for this president who has a different view of in this country is the enemy.

And like I know everyone debates the historical comparisons and can you call it fascism, authoritarianism, or this or that. I don't care what you call it. Just look at what has happened over the last couple weeks. That's what it is. You can call it whatever you want. You can label it whatever you want. But like this is happening. And what you're seeing on TV, what you're seeing from these officials, this is our government right now. And if you don't think that like this effect trickles down to the rest of the population, this like dehumanization of people and someone dies and then you start attacking them and like you know you can say oh do you need a nice speech from the president that makes everyone feel better because does it actually fix anything? Yeah, but but what they have done, if you don't think that like that numbs us and dulls people to violence and to people losing their lives, then like I don't know what

to tell you, you know, and that that I really worry about that long term because that's going to be a harder thing to build back. Okay, one one piece of good news here is that most Americans don't support any of this by a pretty healthy margin. Uh there have now been polls out from The Economist, Yuggov, Quinnipic, CNN, our friends at Data for Progress, our friends at Blue Rose. Basically, they all have very similar findings. A majority of Americans don't believe that the shooting was justified. They don't think Good was a domestic terrorist. They don't approve of what ICE is doing. And they do support most Democratic proposals to reign in ICE. Uh and they believe all these things by around like around a 20 point margin.

Depends on the question, but it's pretty significant. We did something on YouTube about this Wednesday. Uh but we're also seeing some uh prominent Trump voters like Joe Rogan and Tim Dylan uh heavily criticizing Trump over this with Rogan comparing ICE to the Gestapo. What was your takeaway from all the polling and any surprises? Anything stand out to you? You know, so much of the time that we spend on this show in our very in our like political life is talking about things that only people who listen to this show or listen to the right-wing equivalent of this show know about or care about. This is not one of those moments. In the Economist poll, they asked people if they'd seen the video or heard about the video. 89% of people pled had either seen the video or heard the heard about the video. 69% of them had seen the video. In the Quinnipak poll, 75% had seen the video. That is impossible

to imagine in this media environment like we're with you have large swats of people checking out of politics and checking out of news. We have this hyperfragment environment and this is a monocultural moment and there are so few of those and so this is breaking through in huge ways. The second, I think, really important takeaway from here is that the Trump administration's attempt to gaslight the American people about what happened and who Renee Nicole Good is has failed miserably. You have majorities say that she was justified, majorities who say that she is not a domestic terrorist, majorities who say that the officer that criminal charges should be pressed against officer. Like, they have failed. And I think that's just important to note and remember is that for all of the media firepower that Trump has and all his messaging skills, all this idea that he can make people believe what they're he can make people

disbelieve what their eyes are showing them, that has not happened in this case. And then there's just like one I think very important poll result buried in here is that in the CNN poll, a majority of Americans believe that ISIS presence is making US cities less safe. And that I think is fundamentally important because the core premise of Trumpism, the core rationale for all of this is that Trump is going to keep you safe. And if people now believe that ICE is not making them safe, but making them less safe, the entire political project around immigration unravels.

And it's like, of course they're not. It's it's I'm glad to see it. obvious, but it's

but it's it's actually and and look, ICE has been in, I don't know, half a dozen cities in a significant way um since this started. And that number is also, I think, notable in that like there's a lot of people who haven't seen a lot of people who live places in this country who haven't seen ICE at all or may maybe they've seen an agent here or there, right? But they have not seen what people are seeing in Minneapolis or Chicago. And for those people, you know what I'm saying? Like for those people to still think like, yeah, from what I'm seeing and hearing, it's not really making people safer. That is significant. Today's presenting sponsor is Simply Safe Home Security. Look, we spent all day talking about threats to democracy, but at the very least, you can get rid of threats at home with Simply Safe Home Security.

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stamps.com code PSA. Now the question is uh what can Democrats do about any of this and what will they do? Um the the next government funding deadline is just a few weeks away and there is a debate among Democrats about how much leverage they have if any to force changes at ICE and DHS. Uh Joe Perticone at the bull work spoke to a bunch of Senate Democrats who all said they're outraged at what's happening and they don't want to increase funding for ICE but stopped short of saying it was a red line for them. I talked to uh Senator Ggo about this. He basically said that they are still in the midst of trying to figure out whether uh a shutdown or a partial shutdown uh aimed at DHS would actually have an impact on ISIS's operations. Um, and I saw that, you know, Angus King um, just said to SEO that during the last shutdown, ICE still operated at full speed because they got all that money um, from Trump's tax cut legislation

from the big bill. And so the challenge is if you shut down just DHS and ICE can still operate, then do you really want to be in a situation where you've shut down DHS, which means TSA and the airports, TSA can't operate and FEMA can't operate, but somehow ICE is still out there up and running. And

well, FEMA and TSA could operate, but they would not under this president. Right. Exactly. Because basically Yeah. The point is the president and Gnome and Miller have such latitude even in a shutdown or maybe even especially in a shutdown to do whatever the they want with the money and the personnel that they have. But I don't know what do you think about the politics here?

So I think there are more options than simply green light an increase in funding for DHS and uh and for ICE in particular and uh shut down DHS. So just can I nerd out just for one second just explain people what is happening here? So the last time we had when the shutdown happened, it was over a continuing resolution, a bill to just keep the government funded at the same levels of the previously agreed upon budget for an ex for a certain period of time. That's not what's happening here. So after the shutdown, Congress got really horny for the appropriations process again and they started passing bills. And so you can the way and the way you fund the government is you do these continuing resolutions. You do what's called an you pass all the bills individually, which is how this used to work back in the day. you know, you pass the pass the bill for the defense department, you pass the one that's for

commerce, justice, and state or whatever it is, pass the House, pass the Senate President signs. You do them all. You have to get them all done by the time the uh government funding runs out, which is usually at the end of September. The next option is what happens more often these days is they just pass an omnibus bill, which is just they take the entire federal budget, they put it into one gigantic bill, and pass it. The problem with that is no one ever reads it. It's we always find out afterwards there's all this in there that no one knew about. It's it's a bad way of doing business. But you at least, you know, there's at least a bipartisan negotiation between the House and the Senate leadership to get we get some things, they get some other things, etc.

The other way, which is one they're doing here, something called they passed mini buses, which are bills that contain a handful of the appropriations bills. And so they have passed a couple mini buses now. So more than half the government, not in terms in terms of agencies, not in terms of funding have been or funded for next year. They passed the president's either signed them or he's going to sign them. The problem is around DHS and in these things like they're there like they're really doing the thing where the House the Democrats Republicans get together.

The appropriators are sitting there. They're figuring out like we're going to give you guys a little more funding here. You give us this much here. We have a bipartisan agreement. We get it out the door and Trump signs it. DHS is the problem. All the rest of them will pass fine. And so you could what I don't want Democrats to do I do not think Democrats should do is be so committed to this bipartisan bipartisan process that we that they vote for a year-long DHS appropriations bill that contains no reforms, no efforts to curtail ICE. It increases funding for ICE. I do not think they can do that. I think that is morally important. And I think it's politically bad because you can't rightfully scream as we were asking people to do to talk like that guy at the beginning of the podcast about what ICE is doing and then pass their bill. Like you cannot do that. What you can do

I should say that it does from all the reporting it does not seem like there's many Democrats on board for that option.

There's there in the House it seems like Hakee Jeff and others are not for that. in the Senate there would be much more koi although uh Patty Murray since that Joe Perticone piece has come out and and suggested that she would not be for that. Um but like we cannot be for that. I don't think I don't think that's going to be an issue. You could theoretically just keep DHS funded at its current levels. I think the important

CR basically. Yeah. Just a CR for DHS and for the year and so they get nothing new. Now a lot of their funding and the funding for ICE comes from the one big beautiful bill.

That's that's the real problem here. Yeah. It's mandatory funding, so you can't really you're not affecting that. I think the important point here that everyone should be aware of is shutting down DHS would do nothing would do absolutely nothing to stop ICE from doing what it's doing right now.

Yes. And that is the that is the very hard truth. Yeah. Um, and I I wish it weren't so, but like look, we have been through this. We've been through this shutdown stuff before. And um, it's I want I always want Democrats to fight. When Democrats have the power to fight. When they have the power to fight with results and they do not use that power, them. And we should all scream. when they do not have the power to fight or their fight is not going to produce the results that we want. Um I don't know. It's like I don't you know like sure they can shut it down. And it's not even like I'm worried about the politics of shutting down DHS. Um I I'm I'm really not. I'm I'm more worried about like well it's a it's a pirick victory if suddenly we're shutting down a department but the one the one thing in the department ICE that we we actually want to shut down that's still going while everything else gets shut down.

It's not even a piric victory. It's just not a victory at all. Right. Well, it's one you'd be like what they fought, you know? It's like what did they fight? What did they get?

Um so that's unsatisfying. Here's something else that'll be unsatisfying. The other question Democrats are

I'm so excited for this. I know the other question Democrats are once again grappling with here in 2026, uh, is whether it's wise to call for abolishing ICE, which is something that Democrats wouldn't be able to do until 2029 at the earliest if there's a Democratic president. Uh, the Search Light Institute, which is a startup Democratic group, is circulating a memo about why this would be a mistake. Uh, on the other hand, you have a lot of people feeling like what's happening is so clear-cut that we have to rid ourselves of ICE entirely. And that group naturally includes fellow ideological travelers AOC and Bill Crystal.

I saw Bill's tweet abolish ice. I was like, whoa. Um uh all right. What do you think? What what's your what are your thoughts on all this?

You alerted me to this debate. Uh I was blissfully unaware of it until we had a meeting yesterday. Um and now I'm

Nothing gets by this. Yeah, I know. Now I am deeply gets by these eyes. Yeah. I feel sorry for you and your and your cortex. Um I can't figure out if this is debate around a real problem or not. Like are there a bunch of Democrats who want to actually run on abolishing ICE? Like I'm pretty skeptical that that is the case. But even still, let's I think it's worth having the debate because I think it it does get at something bigger. And so I would stipulate at the beginning of this that Democrats should have no fear of aggressively criticizing ICE. Trump's immigration policies, Trump's deportation policies, the policies themselves, the enforcement of them. Trump is not Trump right now, his immigration approval is very far underwater. He is ICE has become the face of Trump's immigration policy. As our friend Peter Hamby pointed out in puck, ISIS's approval rating is down 30 points since last year. It's now 14

points underwater. That is a phenomenal slide. So, we should have no fear about being critical of ICE. There is polling. What sort of sparked this conversation is is that in the Yuggov poll, it shows a slight plurality, essentially a dead heat for abolish ICE, which is a relative dramatic shift since the last time they asked this question in 2019. We've seen I've seen other internal polling that shows that while it is more popular once it's 2019, it's still underwater and more so with swing voters.

Same. And I've seen some public polling that bears that out as well. Yeah. you see, but I think the the question I would have about abolish ISIS, like let's play it out logically, like not the slogan, not the idea, not like as a thing you're going to say on a debate stage in a 2028 debate to applause or post on like how does it work? So, you are you are the newly elected Democratic president. We are fortunate enough that we have a trifecta, right? One of our first things we're going to do is we're going to get Congress to pass a bill to abolish the abolish ICE to end that department make it go away. That is something that I believe would require 60 votes. So therefore is unless we have the election of all to end all elections in 2020 that is not going to happen. And so are you taking on what are you running on something that you cannot do that is not available to you? Why is it not a better

idea to run on aggressive transformative reform of ICE that includes accountability for the people in charge and the agents who have done the things we have seen to get them out of there, hold them accountable for it, deep investigation of everything that went wrong to fundamentally change how it operates. uh in this blue rose research poll that's been making the rounds they test a bunch of ideas proposed by Chris Murphy including requiring warrants masks sending border patrol back to the border which is a crazy idea getting them out of cities those all poll quite well like why not do those things why can't is it not a better idea substantively if not even politically to run on just fun on making ICE work making it like fundamental reform so that it is unre that the ICE serving under the Democratic president is unrecognizable compared to the ice serving under Trump,

which I think it will be no matter what. I mean, here here's here's my here's the exercise I went through. I was like, put the polling and the politics aside for a second. It's like, what do what do I want to hear from 2028 presidential candidates, one of whom will hopefully be in a position to decide what happens to ICE? And I will say to your to the first point that you made, I think that the next president, hopefully the next Democratic president is going to have very wide latitude to do whatever they would like with ICE. Both because the president always has pretty broad latitude in terms of immigration with what to do at an agency and after the Trump presidency and what the Supreme Court has decided is legal under the Trump presidency. It turns out you can do quite a bit with departments and agencies in in terms of uh cutting their funding, firing people, getting rid of them, all that kind of stuff. But I

would want the the next Democratic president to say like day one they will end ISIS reign of terror. A lot of the stuff you just said like no more militarized occupations, no more invasions, no more mass raids, no more arrests without a warrant, no more denial of due process. I would fire every agent hired by Trump. Fired all of them. And I would fire every agent that violated either the law or DHS's own use of force policy or other policies. Um I would and then like you said have them hold them accountable to whatever extent possible uh within the law. Use part of ISIS budget. You know now we're moving moving money around in the federal government. That's what Trump's doing.

move part of ISIS budget to go fund people's health care and then leave behind a small deportation force that um whose job is basically limited to detaining non-citizens who have a criminal record or pose a genuine threat to their communities because I do think you like again I and some I notice some of the people who are for abolish ICE were like well it's not fair to say that if you want to abolish ICE, you're not for immigration enforcement. It's like, okay, that's that's fine. But if like if the slogan is abolish immigration and customs enforcement, I I don't think it necessarily helps to have a slogan that is going to raise more questions with people that you then have to explain because I think the the benefit of a slogan when it's a good slogan is that it's obvious what it is and you don't have to answer a lot of questions about it. And I do think you you do need immigration enforcement in this country.

Like I just it's of of course you do. You absolutely do. Right. And like now in an ideal world

now we we could talk about like immigration reform at large because I think the other challenge here is whatever you do with ICE like that's just one that's the issue we're dealing with right now. There's so many other problems in immigration that you have to solve and some of them really do are going to require legislation. But in an ideal world, you would have most of the federal agents, whether Customs and Border Patrol or ICE, near the border, and you would try to stop people from crossing illegally before they get here.

Right? That is not the world we live in. We live in a world now where there are millions of people here who are undocumented. They are in the interior of the country. And if there is someone with a criminal record, if there's someone who poses a threat to the community, if there's someone who's dangerous, then you can't just have border patrol. you actually need and you can have law enforcement, but you also need like federal law enforcement to deal with this in some way. Whether you call it ICE, whether you call it whatever the you want to call it.

You just you just need that. So figuring out what that deportation force looks like and completely reforming ICE or or you can name it whatever the you want.

Change the name. I'm apparently we can just change the name of that legislation anyway. So

like I'm open to whatever, right? I do think that like having a debate in 2026 about what the DHS org chart will look like in 2029 makes less sense to do now when to me the most important thing is to figure out how to stop ICE from terrorizing our cities right now. And I think the most important thing for 2028 and the race we're going to have in 2028 is to lay out a vision of humane immigration enforcement and what that would look like. The thing I would add to this is I believe to my core that after all of this, the next Democratic president is going to have a the best shot we've had in a very long time to pass compreh comprehensive immigration reform.

I know. I was thinking about this the other day because I think you could I think you could do it by if you have the Senate, you could get rid of the filibuster and do it.

Yes, you could do it. And I think that there may you may even be able to find some Republicans for it. like you just just we are living in a world of absolute chaos. And I mean this is the

brutal irony of what Trump and Stephen Miller have done is that by winning on an anti-immigrant platform, by governing in an anti-immigrant way, they've made Americans overwhelmingly more pro-immigration. The number of Americans who say immigration is a good thing for our country is at a 25-y year high in the Gallot polling. A dramatic shift since uh 2024. There's like 2024 is this horrendous singular blip where opinions on immigration like or basically during the bid administration ch went the exact opposite way that they had been for a very long time and now back there are people are people under American people understand and the polling shows that immigration is good for our country.

They also, you know, polling also shows that they believe that the people who have been here for a long time, who have been working and paying taxes in their community should be given a path to citizenship. And that was true 15 years ago and it's true again. And so I say that only to say like that if we want to stop all of this, if we want to really on the on the change prevent the next Trump from doing something like this down the line, the way you do it is you pass comprehensive immigration reform. And so you have to work backwards from what's the best way to do that and how would an abolish ICE or whatever your ICE reform plans fit in that. And that is not to say that you have to be pro- ICE to try to get like some sort of path to citizenship, border security deal.

It's just like where you that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm not making that case. I think like ICE needs to be better, smaller, renamed, all the above, reformed. But just the way to think about it is let's start with how do we fix the overall problem and then go backwards from that.

There's a lot of big questions you have to answer that I don't think are easy. Like I don't want to make it sound like it's going to be very easy even if Democrats have power to do it. But you got to decide like what's the border going to look like? How are you going to handle deportations? Um how are you going to handle a path to citizenship? How are you going to decide who's a recent arrival and who's not? And in some ways because we have punted the problem so far down the road for so long. It was easier. It would have been easier to do it. I mean it would have been easier to do it when George W. Bush thought about doing it and then when we thought about doing it. And it's getting harder and harder because back then it was mostly immigrants from Mexico um who were here undocumented and uh and were going to get a path to citizenship. And you know in the Biden administration there was an influx of immigrants and

asylum seekers from Central America, South America and all over the world. And so you do have a lot more recent arrivals who came in in the Biden years. and you're going to have to figure out like who gets to stay and who doesn't and make sure that you like account for all of those people and then also figure out what our asylum laws are going forward. I mean there there's like a you know I'm not complete immigration policy expert here but like there's a lot of thorny questions here but I do think that the the goal should be a humane immigration system where we're welcoming to immigrants but we also make sure that um that people follow the law follow our laws and that we and that we have like an orderly immigration system that finally works.

So we solved that problem. So what's next? Yeah. So, now we got the Justice Department, uh, which when they're not busy investigating the widow of a woman the government shot in the head, uh, they're also hard at work investigating the Fed chair, Democratic members of Congress, and now raiding the homes of journalists. On Wednesday, the FBI showed up at Washington Post reporter Hannah Natansen's house and seized her work computer, her personal computer, her phone, and her smartwatch. The warrant they obtained was issued as part of an investigation into a government contractor who may have leaked sensitive or classified information about Venezuela. Even though Natansen isn't the target of the investigation, the raid and the seizures are really shocking because one, it's not a crime to publish classified information. And two, usually DOJ will try to get the information it wants through subpoenas,

or at least they will try to do that first. Um, Trump's DOJ is also now investigating the Democratic members of Congress who filmed a video where they merely told Americans serving in the military that they don't have to follow illegal orders. They have all been contacted by ACE DC prosecutor Janine Piro or her prosecutors um who's also investigating uh Fed Chair Jerome Powell, at least until outraged fellow Republicans talk her out of it. On one hand, this is just, you know, one terrifying abuse of power after another.

On the other, it does seem like the Trump administration's very sloppy attempts to threaten and intimidate the president's perceived enemies keep backfiring. Like I don't know that they have gained much from Comey, the Comey pro, the attempt of the Comey prosecution, Tish James, like politically they're not necessarily helping them. They really haven't borne fruit in court. And so I I'm I'm sure it satisfies Donald Trump and makes him happy, but I don't know. What do you think about this?

Back in Trump 1.0, I used to describe the Trump presidency as the plot of House of Cards with the cast of VEP and that like that is exactly what's going on here. Like the we are blessed by the idiocy of our enemies and and people like Gene Piro doing this because they're just so bad at it. And there like and it's funny that they're so bad at it and we're fortunate they're so bad at it. But then there's the alternative reality that we are in we haven't even hit the one-year mark of this presidency and at some point they might get better people doing these jobs and Janine Piro makes her triumphant return to the five and so they put someone else who's better at that job in there and then that that's where this gets worrisome.

Yeah, it does. She she tags out for Greg Gutfeld. That's I guess the question is is who replaces her? No, it didn't. And look, the um going after the senators or and the and the members of Congress for that video is just nuts to me. The Kelly thing was nuts. The Mark Kelly thing, what the what Hegath tried to do. Um the Jerome Powell thing is clearly backfire. I mean, like the fact that even Piro is already trying to walk it back by being like, "Actually, we just called him for questions about the renovation and then he didn't get back to us and so what? we had to like threaten an investigation and subpoenas.

Come on. Um but you can tell that none of them think that this the Fed chair especially was a good idea. The post reporter thing is terrifying and like we have to see how this plays out in court and they have to like unseal um the warrant to see like how they got the warrant everything but like raiding on a reporter's house is nuts. Posy of America is brought to you by Uplift desk. You got two Uplift desk users here at microphones right now. Me Love John all have men in our uh in our office. It's really nice to be able to sit and work at a normal desk, but then stand up when you feel like it.

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thinks the map would look cooler if he owned Greenland. That's where we are. Uh because of that, France, Germany, the UK, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands have now sent troops to Greenland to conduct military exercises and show support for the Danes in this is like reading this is so nuts. It is it's hard not to laugh, but it's also horrifying at the same time, which I guess is like most of the Trump administration, but it is Trump remains undeterred uh and said that if Russia or China occupied Greenland, there's quote not a thing that Denmark could do about it, but that quote there's everything we can do. You found that out last week with Venezuela.

They're going to send Delta force in to uh what to to to capture the Danish prime minister? What are they doing? I mean, it's so stupid because if China or Russia invaded Greenland as members of NATO, we would fight back.

Yeah. It would trigger an article 5 response. That's the whole point of a I just think it's so funny that they were going to have to have like a there's like probably a working trying to figure out how article 5 applies if a NATO member invades a NATO member. I just like there's also just the opportunity cost of everyone having to like spend their time and energy on this scenile old man's deranged plans for the world when like another deranged old man is uh at war with Ukraine and like threatening Eastern Europe and now all the NATO countries are like spending time in meetings and sending troops to Greenland.

because Trump thinks it looks cool on the Merkar projection. Of all the things we've dealt with over the many years we've been forced to talk about and think about Trump, I've struggled to find something that was this dumb and this consequential as the federal government plan to invade or buy Greenland. Like did you see the estimate that that this working group put out that it would cost $800 billion dollars to buy Greenland

which is like also what are we we're just going to pay we're going to pay $800 billion that's what the United States is going to do.

We're just going to give it to Denmark. Are we going to give it to the people of Greenland? I mean it's just and then like let's just like play this out. We we we the the the federal government is unwilling to pay a third of that to stop people's health insurance premiums from rising for 20 million Americans

or to start or a fraction of that to uh feed children in Africa or prevent babies from getting HIV or give people clean drinking water, any of those things. But we have

we're going to buy Greenland because it looks cool on a map. a place that we already have a base and could have as many bases as we wanted, but we must own it for reasons that truly make zero sense. It is so stupid. Um, and like I don't know, I don't have a lot of faith in the um the high level working group.

Oh, you such a cynic. Finding a way forward here. Like what what way forward is there? It's not for sale. They've said that a million times. And so we're gonna that's what we're going to invade.

I think they're just trying I think the high level working group is trying to run out the clock on Trump's short attention span.

Yeah. That's the other thing. It's like and and GGO said this too. It's like what like if a when a Democrat becomes president, we're just going to give it back. You know, that's be like the first thing.

Well, what a what a group of litmus tests we're going to have. Destroy the ballroom. Change the Department of War back to the Department of Defense. Get all that weird stenciling off the White House.

Yeah. now. Now we've got a a Rose Garden sign up. It looks It looks like you're at a Chili's. I like what

it's it's for him to know where he is at all times. He's an old daughter man who gets confused. So they're like they're like labeling his clothes like these are your socks. These are your underwear. This is the Rose Garden. In other uh hemispheric conquest news, uh Trump met with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Machado on Thursday at the White House where she presented him with her Nobel Peace Prize.

Did he accept it? I could not get to that. I could not find that in the reporting before this.

No one No one seems to know yet. Do you think he I I see everyone with this question. Do you think he's the kind of person that's like, "No, no, no. You keep it. You keep it."

Yeah. I I I would assume I was just looking for confirmation before I asserted it, but It's just so pitif It's so embarrassing that she is like here, take this trinket so you can feel better about yourself and that may improve our chances for a good policy outcome because I would like because now that you have deposed the authoritarian leader of my country, I would like to return and become that leader because I won the peace prize and the election. But instead you have the authoritarian leaders number two uh in command there and don't seem eager to get rid of her at all because you have called her a terrific person because I guess she's giving you all the oil that you need.

I think in hindsight now I do not believe that Trump deserved the Nobel Peace Prize but in hindsight it was probably a mistake not to give it to him. I mean think of what's happened since they did not give it to him.

You think you think Greenland wouldn't be happening if he had the peace prize? I I mean we have bombed we've invaded Venezuela. We've bombed Nigeria. We've we've invaded Minneapolis. Like he's he's really we are threatening Cuba. We're threatening Colombia. We are looking at bombing Iran. By the time you read listen to this podcast, Iran could be bombed. We don't know. Um

good news on the oil though. Um, Semur broke the news that the US uh has brokered its first sale of Venezuelan oil, apparently worth around $500 million, which is being held in bank accounts controlled by the US government with the main one located in Qatar. Why? Why are we stashing oil revenues in Qatari banks?

We have a bank account in Qatar now. We do. Do we think it's the US governments? Really? That's very very

And don't but don't worry, we're going to get more oil because all those oil companies that are a little worried about going back into Venezuela because, you know, it's still basically a dictatorship and and quite politically unstable. Uh and Trump, you know, he wants to keep his he doesn't want to send he wants to have boots on the ground in the form of American military. So now we're going to pay private military contractors to go to Venezuela and guard the oil. And one of them could be Eric Prince.

I mean, one of them is almost certainly Eric Prince. Yes. And because And they're all bit the the the White House put out a an RFP and they're all going to start bidding because boy is there going to be some money to be made to from the US government. So that so our tax dollars are going to go to pay military contractors to guard oil interests for the oil companies to lure the oil oil companies into Venezuela so Donald Trump can sell the oil and stick it and give it to put it in his Qatari bank account. What the is going on?

I mean Donald Trump seems to be is going to get rich on this. The oil company's going to get rich on this. The military

the military contractors. Yeah, I guess it is a win. Big win for the win for the hemisphere. And uh and just in case our other neighbors in the Western Hemisphere haven't gotten the message yet, the New York Times reported on Thursday that the Trump administration is quote intensifying pressure, we know what that means, on the Mexican government to let either US special forces or CIA officers conduct joint operations on fentinel labs in the country. So Mexico's next, that's cool. Um, over in the Middle East, uh, which is not yet part of the the Donro doctrine, uh, Trump seems to have decided for now to hold off on taking military action against Iran in response to the regime's brutal crackdown on protests. Trump claimed on Wednesday that he'd heard from quote very important sources that quote, "The killing in Iran is stopping. It's stopped. It's stopping and there's no plan for executions or an execution or

execution." So, I've been told that on good authority. Well said, sir. Well said. This is all because he gave an insane answer, an even more insane answer in the totally ridiculous and totally embarrassing interview with Tony Dopal on CBS. Uh where he learned in real time about the about the hanging of protesters and then declared that that that was his new red line and that would be a very I can't remember his words, but they were very strange and ominous and he like it's like how many I'm not arguing for Trump to do anything here.

It's not really not uh hoping for a bunch of bombing or anything, but it's like how many red lines is he going to draw and uh step right over and do nothing with.

And you can't tell, you know, it's like he they say he hasn't taken military options off the table. One of our aircraft carriers is headed toward the region. But it's like, you know, he does have a pattern of right when he says, "Uh, maybe I'm not going to bomb." Then he then he sneaks in and bombs. You know, he kind of like likes to do that. That's a that's a

this is the important part in my notes where I said insert caveat which is it feels like there's a very real chance that between now and when this podcast between when we record this podcast on Thursday afternoon when you're listening to it on Friday that something may have happened because that's basically what happened with the Iran bombings is that he said he's not going to do it. He set a timeline and then boom they did it. So it could happen at any moment here.

Yeah. I'm sure whatever the action is is going to be focused on saving the lives of the protesters.

That is what he car as we can see all across this country. He is a man who deeply respects civil disobedience and protecting protesters.

Human rights and democracy top of the list right after the oil. Um all right, one last thing before we get to my interview with Ruben Ggo. Uh podcaster just wildly successful podcaster Katie Miller rocketing to the top of the charts. Um she had as her guest this week none other than Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who uh spilled some secrets about how his boss keeps fun functioning at such a high level. Let's listen.

Who has the most unhinged eating habits? He eats really bad food, which is McDonald's. Uh and then, you know, candy and diet coke, but he eats drinks the diet coke all times. He has a constitution of a of a deity. I don't know how he's alive. If you travel with him, you get this idea that he's uh he's just pumping himself full of poison all day long and you don't know how he's walking around, much less being the most energetic person, you know, any of us have ever met. Dr. Hos looked at his um his medical records and said he's got the highest testosterone level that he's ever seen for a for an individual over 70 years old.

I don't even know where to begin with that. I do think I do think it might be the best news I heard all week that the Health and Human Services Secretary can't believe that the president's still alive and that he is pumping him believes he is pumping himself full of poison all the time.

I guess yeah, I guess that if we're looking we're looking for uh silver linings in this dark cloud. I guess that's one of them.

Let's see. Let's see. Could it could it be is it something about uh does he have the body of a deity? Is that the constitution of a deity? Is that what he said? Could it be that? Or could he just be lying to everyone about how healthy he actually is?

What What is the truth there? I can't tell. Do you think uh he really has the highest level of testosterone of any man over 70 that Dr. Oz has ever seen?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and also he has an 8 inch dick. That's what he said right in the medical records.

At least we got a pun title. That's good. It's just so funny to volunteer like, "Oh, but what is what is this diet like?" Also, really, really high testosterone. What a weird these people are. So,

I know most people are listening to this and not watching it, but I do recommend the video because in it there are all these very strange cutaways to Katie Miller silently laughing.

Yeah, I know. Just like losing your And then like he does when he does call when Robert F. King Jr. calls her calls Trump the most energetic person he's ever seen. Her like is an arched eyebrow isn't like what are you talking about? This is a man who fell asleep in a Oval Office meeting 24 hours ago.

Yeah, he looks uh tip-top shape. Tiptop shape. Anyway, you know what? Keep it in that candy. Keep it in that McDonald's. We're behind you 100%. Keep that

you're back on the hamburger from Heaven uh move. I just I think that's I might be responsible for his high tea. It's It's all

It's not one of those low t betas like us, you know, us libs. All right. When we get back from the break, you'll hear my conversation with Ruben Ggo about Greenland, voting for DHS funding, and so much more. Uh, but two reminders before we get to that. Crooked Media's newest book, Hated by All the Right People, Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind, is releasing on January 27th. It's by one of our favorite political journalists, New York Times magazine writer Jason Zangerly, and it is a fascinating, really entertaining look at Tucker's political evolution and how his rise traces the rise of the MAGA movement. Uh Tommy's going to interview Jason on Tuesday's Pods of America. So, make sure to check that out. Um and uh as I said, Hated by All the Right People comes out January 27th, but you can get a discount right now when you pre-order a copy of Hated by All the Right People. Head to

crooked.com/books to get that discount and check out Jason's book signing tour dates. Also, there are still tickets available for our shows in New Zealand and Australia. The hopefully just visiting tour takes us to Auckland on February 11th, and then three cities in Australia, Melbourne on the 13th, Brisbane on the 14th, and Sydney on the 16th. For more details and to grab tickets, head to crooked.com/events. When we come back, Ruben Ggo. Positive America is brought to you by bombas.com. I bet a lot of you have 2026 resolutions. Stuff like hitting the gym, reading more, whatever, learning how to sing, learning a language. But this year, there's a new one at the top of my list. Get comfy. That's where Bombas comes in. They're bringing serious comfort to all my everyday go-tos. The allnew Bombas Sport socks are engineered with sport specific comfort for running, golf hiking skiing snowboarding and

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That's betterhp.com/psa. Senator Ggo, welcome back to Pod Save America. Thanks for having me.

Politically, the new year has been off to an uh absurd and infuriating start. What's pissing you off most right now?

The fact that it's that's it's that it's such a start. I mean, as any normal human, nobody wants chaos, and this president is all about chaos. creates the chaos whether it's you know uh starting a war in Venezuela, these massive suppression of our cities uh by those uh ICE agents uh or um you know the the buildup or some type of pressure campaign that we have going on for Greenland. You know, none of this makes sense. It all actually hurts Americans in the end. And um you know, of course that pisses me off that you know, we should be trying to help people right now because Americans are are really hurting right now. Trump's uh once again threatening to invoke the insurrection act. This time in Minnesota, DHS has already deployed a small army to Minneapolis. They're continuing to terrorize the people who live there, citizens and not citizens alike. Um, JD Vance tweeted the new line from the

administration, which is that in cities that aren't sanctuary cities, the deportation process is orderly and normal, but in Minneapolis and a few other sanctuary cities, local jurisdictions and a few left-wing agitators have decided to wage war on all immigration officers. What do you think of that?

That's total What's happening right now is that they're using overt force, the you know, these men uh with masks to go and they're violating people's rights. They're racially profiling. They're going up to gas stations and if you're not white, they're coming asking you if you're uh if you're a citizen, having to prove that you're a citizen. Even some people that do have proper identification, not accepting them. They're using, you know, these tactics that, you know, we didn't even use in Iraq uh in urban areas to basically suppress and make the people feel like they're under attack or they're they're they're taken over.

That's why you see videos of people reacting uh you know very harshly against these guys when they go into restaurants, when they go into stores, when they're all you know masked up, gunned up uh and uh acting like they're stormtroopers because the American public does not like that. They don't like being feel have this feeling like someone's coming after them or the government's here with their uh boot on the back of your neck. They don't do that in red states because they want to avoid the politics, but they do this type of overt, you know, suppression in blue states so they could get the political feels they get from it. They want to be able to say, you know, they stuck it to the libs. And they also want to create the the the environment for them to actually invoke the insur insurrection act. And let's be clear, the they're doing, right? And I was in cities, you know, of, you know, 50 to

100,000 cities, uh, of Iraqis in Iraq, surrounded by insurgents, and we, Marines, well-trained Marines, did not act the way that they're doing, the way they're treating other fellow Americans right now. It's disgusting.

Government funding's uh going to run out at the end of the month. There's been rumbling about Democrats withholding support for DHS, at least until there's uh changes to ICE. Do you think there's any chance that any of your Republican colleagues would support any kind of ICE reforms?

No, absolutely not. This is the one thing um that from what I see they understand that this is the red line you can't cross Trump on. You could maybe go a little against them on this issue, that issue. This is the world where if you do this, Steven Miller and his like online, you know, bullies will come after you. So, they're not willing to do it. Now, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't use whatever level levels that we can leverage that we can uh to stop them. And you know, I'm trying to figure out what that is. What is the best way to like rein in this craziness? Is it just denying them the funding? If that's if that's the best way to do it, I'm going to do that. If it's, you know, giving them some funding but putting tons of constraints on them, then I'll do that. But we need to figure out how to re these monsters in because it is bad bad. if there's a shutdown or a partial shutdown uh just because like

DHS isn't funding. I mean, does that impact what ICE is doing right now, does that really um deny them the ability to continue what they're doing right now in Minneapolis?

So, that's what we're trying to find out. And like and and I think a lot of us that are sick of what we're seeing of what we've seen so far and need to and understand that this is not normal. We need to use every lever of power to to reign them in. That's what we want to explore. If it if we can rein them in through appropriations, then we'll do that. If not, I have I don't see why we would continue to be funding this craziness. And look, they're going to be able to get the money anyway because they passed that big ugly bill a couple years ago. But it doesn't necessarily mean that I have to make this easier for them. And so whatever is the best way for us to stop these guys from acting the way that they are, abusing US citizens, abu racially profiling in our communities, physically harming Americans, we're going to look uh we're going to try to find a way.

Do you get a sense from your Democratic colleagues then that this is still a very live issue on whether or not um you you'll all join hands to fund the government? Talking to my Democratic colleagues, it sounds like uh a lot of them are aligned with me and a couple other people that that we need to use this opportunity to reign them in to constrain them to do anything because right now they're just it it's lawless what they're doing. They're not acting like a police force. They're acting like a goon squad for this president. Uh and they're not even effectively, you know, doing their jobs. I have friends of mine that that I've known for forever that are lifelong ICE agents and HSI agents.

you know, they're getting pulled off their very important cases, going after drug, you know, drug smugglers. They're going after uh moneyaundering, going after child exploitation cases, uh because now they're forced to go look for people that, you know, maybe they're in the country illegally, but have no other criminal record. Uh and we're using a lot of time, money, manpower to go after him for a political effect, not an actual for actual real security effect for for everyday Americans. This has uh resurfaced an old debate among Democrats uh over whether to call for abolishing ICE. I'm just going to ask like if you were in charge of DHS, like what would immigration enforcement look like?

Well, if I was in charge of DHS, it would look like a very very professional operation. Number one, you wouldn't be able to deport anybody without a warrant. And what we've seen right now is that without a without that safeguard, these guys feel they could go and grab anyone anywhere. And they're making mistakes, too. The reason the warrants are important is because a lot of times, you know, we it it creates the the right conduct of how they go and grab uh and export some of these people. We would, you know, rightsize the amount of people, you know, that there are way too many ICE agents. If you have so many ICE agents, that means they're just going to go after innocent people andor even feel the the necessity to go after uh you know, Americans. um the I would get rid of the quotas that they have to be filling because that encourages them again to just keep going out there and finding anybody. I would work with you

know the the president or or and the senate to pass comprehensive immigration reform so we could focus on the real criminals and not the people that are just working here. Uh that we could legalize and have them have a job and stay with their families. Uh and I would take off the masks. You know, you have to be accountable. You have to be accountable to US citizens. Police officers in almost every city every day interact with the with the public and they do it in a professional manner and this is why they don't wear masks. ICE agents they feel that they could get whatever get away with her they want because they're covered. They're covering their faces and this president has basically guaranteed them he's going to he's going to give them all a pardon no matter what they do. That's not uh it's not what uh should fly that way in the future. The area mate you hear from from some folks who who want to abolish

ICE is, you know, ICE is relatively uh new agency anyway, it's only been around for a couple decades and can't we go back to, you know, preICE when there was still immigration enforcement, but you didn't have ICE. What do you think we What do you think about that?

Well, I mean, at that point, it's still ICE, which is by a different name. I the problem we have to avoid and and I actually don't necessarily disagree with that viewpoint either. I think the the problem we have to avoid is like the everyday person is not as well read in when it comes to immigration policies, right? So if you say abice to somebody, they're going to be like, I don't I don't know what that means. Everyone knows and understands we're always going to always going to have to have a deportation force. Do we have to have one that is how I is currently acting right now, lawless, without warrants, uh without justification? Uh no, we don't have to have it that way. We can have something that we saw akin even before 9/11 that is a professionalized force that goes after criminals, goes after people that shouldn't be in the country that does it in a in a you know a manner that isn't abrasive to everyday civil

liberties and and Americans in general. Um, but the confusion is around the language. And I think, you know, the the general rule I I I you know, especially as someone who has had to engage, by the way, in immigration and border policies, you know, for the last 16 years in Arizona is if you're explaining, you're losing, right? And so, let's be clear what we know Americans want. Americans want a secure border. Americans want criminals in this country to be deported. They don't want the mom, the dad with US citizen kids, the people that have been here that have community roots that have had haven't had any major crimes. They don't want them deported. And let's create a force that reflects that instead of what it is right now because what it is right now is not at all about immigration enforcement. It is about suppressing and trying to intimidate Americans in blue cities.

You uh you met with the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland on Wednesday. Uh the same day they met with JD Vance and Marco Rubio. Were they just like, "What the is wrong with your president?" Like, were they freaked out? What was the what was the mood there?

Honestly, they they were more uh, you know, they were more politically stable and uh than I would have been. It is clear from the conversation that I was having with them that Marco Rubio and JD Vance are trying to create an actual reason why we need to take Greenland because the actual reason we want to take Greenland is a stupid idiotic idea of the president because he just wants to have that big island uh you know on the map being part of the United States. So you know the the talking to the foreign minister they have been very clear like if you want to build more bases US bases in uh Greenland you are welcome to build more bases in Greenland. You want to stage more men in Greenland you're welcome to do that. We will cut off all commercial trade with with China. We cut commercial trade with Russia which they already have. Tell us what you want. We will do it. You know there's no need for any of this. And the

ostensible reason why uh JD Vance Rio came like well that may be the case right now but 10 years from now you could be in a totally different situation. So there is no logical reason for them to be engaging this. It's actually harmful right right now you have people trying to figure out how to balance against us versus us being able to work with them to balance power against China against Russia. You know, we need the buying power of NATO as well as of European Union to be able to really overcome the buying power of China, and we're going to make ourselves weaker in the long run if we go into a stupid war over Greenland, which in the end would not be successful. What happens when the next president comes, I guarantee you, it's a Democrat, we're going to give it right back. And even if you try to, you know, I don't know, bring it in, you have to have a treaty process to that. And again, you'd have

the a lot of people against that. And this is monumentally unpopular right now. You know, people don't want any wars, let alone a war with Denmark or sorry, a war with Denmark or NATO, especially right now when there's so many other problems happening in this country.

You uh you introduced a bill uh this morning um saying that any action in Greenland would require congressional authorization. Um your Republican colleagues in the Senate folded to Trump's pressure on the Venezuela war powers resolution. Do you uh have any more hope when it comes to the the Greenland resolution?

I do. India for a couple reasons. Number one, this is a violation of a treaty that that was, you know, NATO came into as a treaty in the uh late 40s, early 50s voted by the Senate. There's also generations of relationships across uh the pond uh with uh you know NATO leaders that a lot of these uh senators would lose respect not among necessarily their citizens or Arizonans or or sorry Americans uh but across you know these people that they consider friends you know parliamentarians in other states you know generals and other from other countries um and I think they also understand the existential situation that would come if we end up uh getting into a stupid war for Greenland. It would be the dumbest dumbest move strategic move that this country has done um probably since its birth. It would end up destroying an alliance that has stabilized uh you know at least the western hemisphere. It would end up

causing economic problems uh you know slowing down our economy uh and and potentially making China the rising and permanent uh economic power. And these senators would all have to pay for it because guess what? Donald Trump is gone in three years. These senators have to run again and they will end up feeling and and having to deal with a fallout of a very stupid war over Greenland. You also released a big housing affordability plan this week uh centered around making it easier to build more homes, making home ownership more affordable,

everything very abundance coded uh which reminded me this week also your Senate colleague Elizabeth Warren, she gave a big speech where she said abundance has become a rallying cry for wealthy donors and other corporate Dems who are putting big big-time muscle behind making Democrats more favorable to big business. She made the argument that economic populism uh is much more popular with voters than uh an abundance message. I know that you've previously said there is no need to choose between populism and abundance, but what did you make of her comments?

I mean, again, I think there is no need to to choose. You can do both. And I think most Americans really do not care the color of the cat when it catches the mouse. like you know you have to have uh the opportunity to build fast and you have to make some of the incentive for them to build fast but you also do have to make sure that the big conglomerates that are controlling maybe timber the mortgage industry or like that uh aren't becoming so powerful that it becomes uh uncompetitive non-competitive for smaller businesses or even for the consumer. I think you got to do both. So like I you know I'm agnostic when it comes to this stuff like you know I I don't take sides. You know, this is like a gang fight and I'm I'm an innocent civilian. All I care about is results.

And let me tell you, Americans when you talk to them aren't going to tell me like, "Ruben, I really hate the fact that you built that house, but you didn't do it in a populous way." Or or the opposite, Ruben, I'm very disappointed that you used your abundance agenda to bring down my mortgage costs. That's ridiculous. That's not how normal people are. No one thinks that way except for a couple people in a couple zip codes around the whole the whole country. Let's focus on results. And if you have to break up the banks to do it, then do it. If you have to make sure that we we're introducing uh you know or or you know cutting it on regulations to it, then we do that. But like this whole argument is with is a bunch of elites talking to a bunch of elites and it's not going to make a bit of a difference.

Yeah, I'm an elite and it breaks my brain. Um Senator Ggo, thank you as always for uh for joining Pave of America. I know you got a a meeting to rush to, but uh thanks for coming on.

That's our show for today. Thanks to Ruben Ggo for coming on. Alex will be back in the feed on Sunday with strict scrutinies Leah Litman about legal avenues for pushing back on ICE. Check it out.

Bye everyone.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Trump and ICE Sink To New Low In Shock Move"?

John Favreau (Host), Dan Pfeiffer (Host), Ruben Gallego (Guest).

What is "Trump and ICE Sink To New Low In Shock Move" about?

The content discusses the escalating tension in Minneapolis following a federal agent's shooting of a man, leading to protests and confrontations with law enforcement, including tear gas usage. It addresses Trump's potential invocation of the Insurrection Act amid concerns over federal agents' excessive actions and the challenges faced by local officials in maintaining order amid growing unrest.

What is mentioned in this Pod Save America episode?

6 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including ICE, Donald Trump, DHS, Pod Save America, Hannah Natansen, Robert Kennedy Jr.. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Trump and ICE Sink To New Low In Shock Move"?

The episode runs 1 h 20 min; the transcript is about 15,599 words in 169 timestamped sections.

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About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.