January 8, 2026 • 32 mins
A fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis has ignited a battle over the truth. Federal officials say Renee Nicole Good tried to run over an immigration agent. City leaders say she was wrongly killed. And the videos circulating online raise more questions than answers
This confrontation unfolds as President Trump launches one of the largest immigration crackdowns in years, flooding Minneapolis with thousands of federal agents just months before the midterms. Schools have closed, protests are growing, and Washington and Minnesota are locked in a public fight over what happened on that street and why the city has become a political flashpoint.
A fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis has ignited a battle over the truth. Federal officials say Renee Nicole Good tried to run over an immigration agent. City leaders say she was wrongly killed. And the videos circulating online raise more questions than answers.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
It is impossible for someone to show you that video from
yesterday and prove to you, well, this is terrorism.
But that message, because it waspropagated so early by this
administration, is being accepted by millions of people
without a second thought. And that is very alarming
because it expands beyond this incident.
What happens when there's an actof terrorism?
(00:20):
Well, what you do is you increase a law enforcement
presence and you crack down on the potential perpetrators.
There are folks inside this administration, people I worked
with in the first Trump administration, who have been
waiting for and looking for a pretext for a domestic terrorism
crackdown. Hello and welcome to the
(00:41):
forecast an innocent woman shot dead in her car by aggressive
ICE officers who've terrorized the city, or a domestic
terrorist who weaponized her vehicle and tried to kill an
agent who was lucky to escape with his life.
The competing narratives over what exactly happened at
Minneapolis yesterday are now entrenched, and the fallout from
(01:01):
the shooting has gone national and is going global.
All this happening in the middleof President Trump's aggressive
immigration push with thousands of federal agents deployed to
Minneapolis as the White House tries to demonstrate toughness
ahead of the midterm elections. Protests are spreading and the
city's become the latest battleground in a national fight
(01:22):
over immigration policing and political strategy.
Well, today on the forecast, we speak to Miles Taylor, who
worked in the Department for Homeland Security in the first
Trump administration and has since become a very vocal critic
of the president. And Minneapolis based journalist
Madison McMahon, who's been reporting from the scene.
So let's just go, you know, to the scene itself.
(01:43):
Let's go to Minneapolis and talkto Madison.
Madison. I mean, we saw the
demonstrations last night. There was a vigil, I think
overnight, the the actual shooting itself was played again
and again and again on cable television.
But with these two very different takes depending on who
you were watching, What's the latest, you know, on the ground?
(02:03):
What's the mood in the city? And to what extent do people
there think that they are in theheart of this kind of
battleground? Well, the city of Minneapolis is
no stranger to being at the heart of conversations about
police brutality and in racial violence.
This is where George Floyd was murdered in 2020.
(02:25):
Just a. Few blocks away, right?
Yeah, yeah. The shooting of Renee Goode was
just a, you know, less than a mile from where the murder of
George Floyd occurred. So this is a community that
already is wary of law enforcement that has come out
and and demonstrated in mass against law enforcement
violence. And yesterday's shooting was
(02:48):
definitely a reminder of that for the people of South
Minneapolis. This morning we saw some renewed
protests at the federal buildingoutside of Minneapolis where the
local ICE agency is headquartered.
A complicating factor here is that, you know, in 2020, the
protests were against the Minneapolis Police Department
(03:09):
specifically. And now we're seeing protests
against federal law enforcement,which complicates things.
You know, ICE are not the peoplewho are responding to protests.
And so we didn't see things escalate, you know, like they
did in 2020. Yesterday, there was some
deployment of of tear gas as ICEagents were leaving the scene.
(03:32):
But, you know, not that type of stand off as the Minneapolis
police left, for example. So some key differences and some
similarities to 2020 we're seeing here.
Yeah, and I want to get to the, you know, the the differences
and especially the sort of potential pitting of of federal
agencies against local or state law enforcement agencies in a
minute, because that is that could be quite dangerous.
(03:52):
Just before we get to that Madison, I mean, Minneapolis has
had a very troubled recent history with ICE agents, hasn't
it? And of course, it's not the only
city that falls into that category.
Tell us a little bit about that.Right.
I think for people outside of the US, I, I, I think it's
important to talk about what, the way that the residents of,
(04:15):
of cities have been responding to ICE.
I mean, there has been a mass movement to train people to
alert the public when ICE is carrying out an operation, to
come out and demonstrate and in some cases, disrupt ICE
operations. So that seemed to be kind of the
situation yesterday when Renee Good was killed.
(04:36):
There were some, there was a ICEvehicle that was stuck in the
snow. Some people were blowing
whistles. They were honking horns.
They were drawing attention to the fact that ICE was present in
the neighborhood, drawing peopleout to protest and disrupt.
We don't know specifically what Renee Good was doing there.
There's still a lot we don't know about what her involvement
may have been in these organizations, but her car was
(04:58):
parked there. So we don't know Madden if she
was part of that disruption exercise.
Eyewitnesses on the scene told me that she was yelling at ICE
agents and had blocked their vehicles with her car.
But what we don't know is how involved she may have been in
some of these organizations thatare doing that, whether she was
(05:18):
kind of an independent bystanderor if she was someone who was,
you know, you know, tightly incorporated into the
organizations that are protesting.
Nice. Right, Miles.
Miles Taylor, let's get to you. I mean, one thing that really
struck me about this, and it's not the first time I had this
impression in President Trump's second term, is how quick the
administration was to jump on this incident and politicize it,
(05:41):
frankly. I mean, you had Kirsty Gnome
appearing, I think first of all,in Brownville, Texas, sooner
soon after the shooting, wearinga cowboy hat and basically
saying that Renee Goode was a domestic terrorist, you know,
without any shadow of a doubt stating that she was using her
vehicle, you know, to try and harm ICE agents.
It was an act of domestic terrorism.
(06:03):
What happened? It was our ICE officers were out
in enforcement action. They got stuck in the snow
because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis.
They were attempting to push outtheir vehicle and a woman
attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted
to run them over and ram them with her vehicle.
She seemed to row back from thatjust a little bit later on in
another statement that she made on the in Minneapolis later that
(06:26):
day. And the president himself also
at first seeming to jump on this.
I mean, the fact that it's beingpoliticized quite overtly by the
administration and that you don't get the usual calls for
calm that you would expect. How significant is that?
Well, look, all I can tell you is what I would have done when I
(06:50):
was chief of staff at DHS, whichI was in the previous Trump
administration. I've been there with a lot of
these same characters. And what I would tell you is
after you have an officer shooting where an American
citizen is killed, what you don't do is then fire more
rhetorical shots because you dramatically increase the risk
(07:15):
of escalation, inflaming the community and putting more
people in danger. And you certainly don't do that
before you have all of the facts.
And yet, as you noted, the secretary went out there
publicly and said this was an act of domestic terrorism,
accused the victim of being a terrorist.
So if I was there right now, this is honestly the
(07:35):
conversation I would be having. I would be talking to the
secretary about resignations up and down the chain of command up
to and including her and my own,because this is the type of
thing, this is the type of rhetoric, like I said, that is
like follow on shots after the incident itself.
And, and keep in mind here this week, here is the context.
(07:57):
The administration was surging ICE agents into Minnesota under
the auspices of investigating fishy accounting at
kindergartens. Okay, fishy accounting at.
Kindergartens, that's. Right.
And the responding with massive armed lethal force.
So in a lot of ways, to Americans, this has the
(08:18):
hallmarks of Kent State 1970. That's when 4 unarmed student
protesters were killed by the National Guard.
And it set off a wave of protests in the United States.
In a lot of ways, this feels like that.
Is there anyone, as far as you know, in your position today at
the Department of Homeland Security who's having more
(08:39):
difficult conversations with thesecretary?
Christina, I'm saying don't go this far.
You've overstepped a line. Try and row him back.
Or are they all basically, you know, one team behind her and
behind the president? If there are folks of
conscience, I've yet to see them.
And, and I'll say this, watchinghow this played out, it's very
clear to me that this is not a one off or a fog of war
(09:03):
accident. And and you have to go back in
time a little bit to see that Donald Trump has been
conditioning ICE to shoot 1st and explain later.
He's been doing that for months.And the message from the top has
been pretty unmistakable. If you go back to July, for
instance, the president melted down after protesters vandalized
ICE cars. He said, you know, these were
(09:25):
brand new vehicles he'd given them and they showed total
disrespect for law order. What he said after that was he
was directing the secretary of Homeland Security to give total
authorization to use whatever means necessary against
protester thugs. That's what the president said.
And in the in the wake of that, we have seen ICE engage in
illegal entry, warrantless arrests, arrests of U.S.
(09:47):
citizens, violent assaults. I mean, things that I never saw
the agency do when I was helpingto oversee it.
And now to a lot of Americans, that looks like the president
has given them a license to kill.
And we have not seen folks within the agencies stand up and
say, Mr. President, we can't do this.
If anything, they are reflexively defending officers
(10:08):
even when video shows it might be the indefensible.
Now, the administration would reply to that, hang on a minute.
This is what the American peoplevoted for.
They knew what my anti immigration agenda was when I,
you know, was on the ballot lastyear.
I won, you know, convincingly. And this is what they're now
getting. ICE agents are going in there to
(10:28):
the poor people who shouldn't bein our country.
That's what they would say. Yeah, and I would respond to
them that that's a bold lie. The three things they told
America that ICE was going to doif Donald Trump got re elected
was 1, ICE was going to go afterdangerous criminal aliens, 2.
ICE would not be harassing U.S. citizens.
And three, ICE would be following all rules and it would
(10:50):
be following the law. Well, let's go to that first lie
about ICE going after criminal aliens.
If you look at the recent arreststatistics, only 10% of recently
arrested and detained immigrantshave criminal records.
In other words, 90% of the people ISIS arresting right now
are people without criminal records, students, families,
parents, people who've been herefor decades.
(11:12):
OK, that's a huge deal. And it's something that people
are starting to pick up on and say even conservatives like Joe
Rogan, who supported this president.
Wait a second, Mr. President, you said we were going after
criminal aliens, and now 9 and 10 of people you're picking up
are not that second lie about ICE not harassing U.S. citizens.
I mean, Christine Gnome just testified before the US
Congress. No, we're not harassing U.S.
citizens In the wake of a reportcoming out showing that hundreds
(11:34):
of Americans have been arrested by ICE, swept up in these raids.
I'll remind folks that's unconstitutional.
That's against our United StatesConstitution.
And then finally, that claim that ICE is following the law.
Let me tell you what Tom Holman said this week.
The borders are at the White House, he said.
I have not seen ICE act outside of policy.
I'll tell you what, either one of two things is true.
(11:55):
Either Tom Holman knows he's lying through his teeth, or
somehow he has secretly authorized ICE to break the law.
Because I know just as much about this as Tom, and I've
watched every single day on social media feeds, ICE do
things that are completely outside of policy, the policy
both Tom and I were responsible for implementing in that first
Trump administration. So this is not what the American
(12:17):
people voted for. They voted for something very
different that was sold to them and now the administration is
moving the goal post. Although to be fair to Tom
Holman, he was also on CBS News last night saying, actually,
let's not rush to judgement, youknow, in brackets, unlike some
of my colleagues. And let's find out what the
investigation, what the body cams actually what story they
(12:38):
tell on the ground. So I think you know, So he he
was slightly more judicious there than than some of the
people in the administration. Madison Mcgrahan, if I can get
back to you. I mean, Miles referred to it.
But how does it feel in Minneapolis?
Does it feel like a city that iskind of under ICE occupation and
the mayor yesterday, using some very fruity language amongst
(12:59):
other things, referred to the fact that ICE was tearing
families apart? What they are doing is not to
provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing
chaos and distrust. They're ripping families apart.
They're sowing chaos on our streets and in this case, quite
literally killing people. Is that true and give us some
(13:23):
description of that? Yes, it certainly feels like
that. I was speaking to my editor
today. He pointed out that the number
of ICE agents in the Twin Citiesright now is several times, that
is several times the size of thelocal Police Department.
So it really does feel like theyare everywhere in terms of the
(13:43):
way that they're carrying out their operations.
They're getting in and out quickly.
It seems like they're kind of going in arresting one person or
a small group and then getting out before people really have
time to congregate around them. Like I said before, that's
that's kind of the goal of a lotof the residents is to disrupt
these things. Now they're getting in and out.
So we're seeing these kind of isolated standoffs.
(14:06):
I and yesterday's shooting just really ramped up the stakes and
made the tensions significantly higher.
I think we're also going to see more people going to these
trainings, getting involved in these organizations that are
combating ice. I mean, you saw that in the turn
out at the vigil. Yes, last night.
I mean, thousands of people on the block where Renee Goode was
shot and the organizers of the vigil urging people to get
(14:30):
involved in, you know, the groups that are working to
protest and disrupt ice operations.
And I think we should talk aboutRenee Goode herself a bit.
Tell us about her. What I know.
She was 37 year old and she had a six year old son.
Tell us a bit more about her. What kind of a person was she?
You know, we're still learning about that.
She, We know that she was a poet.
We know that she played music. She was a recent arrival to the
(14:54):
Twin Cities. We know she spent some time in
Missouri and I believe Colorado.But, you know, it's been just
about 24 hours since she was killed.
And we're still, you know, working on getting in touch with
people who knew her to really get a portrait of what kind of a
person she was. Just on, on Minnesota, I mean,
(15:15):
you know, the president just a few weeks ago launched this very
aggressive tirade against Somali, the Somali community in
your state, which is sizeable, basically telling them to go
back home, even though the majority of them are American
citizens. So, I mean, Minnesota has been a
bit of a battleground for this administration, hasn't it?
It has been. And, you know, people outside
(15:36):
the US may recall that our governor, Tim Walz, was selected
to be the vice presidential nominee.
So I that really put our governor and our state on the
national scale. Tim Walls himself became a a
frequent target of Donald Trump and that's continued even after
Donald Trump won his re electioncampaign.
(15:56):
Tim Walls came back to Minnesotaand Walls actually earlier this
week suspended or ended really his campaign for a third term
because of some of these fraud issues.
And just briefly on Governor Waltz, what's he been saying?
Is he, you know, using a more cautious land than the mayor of
(16:16):
Minneapolis? And, you know, is he, you know,
I think he was suggesting possibly sending out the the
National Guard. Is that actually going to
happen? Is that a possibility?
It's certainly a possibility. He has told the National Guard
to be prepared to deploy if needed.
Again, another parallel to 2020.He, you know, Tim Walz,
activated the National Guard to quell some of the protests after
(16:40):
the police murder of George Floyd.
So we kind of just told them be ready for something like that to
happen again. A lot of the activists here want
to see him use the National Guard to protect people from
ICE. Yeah, Which, you know, would
spark a whole bunch of constitutional questions and
possibly put an even bigger target on Minnesota's back.
(17:02):
I mean, Miles, what I found really fascinating is this
prospect, which is potentially really alarming, of two
agencies, one state and one federal had loggerheads with
each other. I mean, that's a recipe for
division and disaster, isn't it?I mean, how worried are you
about this whole, you know, the texture of America kind of
falling apart, coming apart to the seams because of, you know,
(17:23):
the federal government is using a federal agency, ICE against
state and local authority. And we saw this in Chicago, you
know, we saw this to some extent, you know, in here in, in
DC where ICE agents were on the streets, although, of course,
you know, there is no state here.
But that's, that's kind of worrying, isn't it, for the
(17:43):
future of America? Yeah, I mean, look, you don't
have to take my word for it thatthe administration's falsehoods
here are having an impact on Americans confidence.
In fact, if you look at Gallup polls, recent Gallup polls,
trend lines and Americans trust in the federal government are
plummeting. They are absolutely plummeting
(18:03):
year over year. What does that mean?
Well, that means that overall public safety is damaged by
this. So specifically when it comes to
federal law enforcement, if members of the public are losing
trust in law enforcement, I'll tell you having, you know, run
what is the biggest law enforcement agency in America at
DHS? If they don't trust you, they
don't report crimes to you, theydon't cooperate with you during
(18:26):
investigations. And as a result, the criminal
situation gets worse. Everyone is less safe.
It also bleeds over into wider law enforcement.
So when trust in federal law enforcement like ICE is going
through the floor, people don't go check every police officers
badge and say, ah, you're part of this agency or that agency.
They start to lump them together, their heads.
And so that overall social fabric is affected by this
(18:49):
decreased faith in law enforcement.
And I will tell you from having talked to other law enforcement
leaders, people at other agencies are really worried
about this. They are saying what ICE is
doing is making all of us look bad and it's affecting public
safety writ large. So that's the big, big macro
concern right now with everything we are seeing with
this agency. It's interesting, actually, just
(19:11):
on the stage behind Christy Norm, the Homeland Security
secretary, I think on both occasions yesterday in Texas and
in Minneapolis, you saw, you know, the representative of the
Army of ICE, of the local police.
None of them look very happy, I have to say.
They, they're all, you know, youcan just imagine that scenario
that you've just outlined playing out in their own minds
repeatedly under these circumstances.
(19:32):
Miles, I just want you to tell me a little bit more about ICE,
because we know that ICE was perhaps the biggest beneficiary
of the big beautiful budget. That's right.
I mean, ICE has now become the largest federal law enforcement
agency in America, and as you know, larger than the armed
forces of most nations, and it'sstill growing.
(19:52):
And to staff that expansion, what the administration has
done, because it's been very hard to meet those numbers, is
they've lowered qualification standards while openly lowering
recruitment standards. And soliciting people from MAGA
fan bases, from the president's fan bases that they know that
they can inspire to come and join the mission.
(20:13):
And they're doing that with withmemes and online propaganda
about cleansing the homeland. I mean, some very, very
provocative messaging to try to fill their ranks.
The consequence, of course, is that law enforcement officials
have warned that the agency is going to be fielding under
trained, under qualified and ideologically motivated federal
(20:34):
officers to roam the streets of American cities.
And you combine that with the fact that the president is
arming them with this use all means necessary authorities,
you've got a recipe for many more incidents like we saw
yesterday in Minnesota. So this is, in a sense, a
witch's brew of potential corruption and violence.
(20:57):
We are seen by making this agency so big, so fast and
unprepared to meet the moment. So Madison, I mean, you know, we
go back to the murder of George Floyd that, you know, the police
officer who murdered him ended up being tried and convicted
and, you know, is in jail. And I'm sure that after that,
the mini Minneapolis police tried really, really hard to to
(21:17):
repair relations with the local community and so on.
So what was what was their attitude when they saw ice
officers behaving that they did yesterday and and a few weeks
before? Yeah, Minneapolis Police Chief
Brian O'Hara said, you know, condemned the actions yesterday
and basically said that he couldn't see any justification
for using lethal force in that situation.
(21:39):
Minneapolis, like many American cities, has what we call a
separation ordinance, which means that local police are not
allowed, according to city rules, to assist ICE in
immigration enforcement. They can assist with criminal,
with criminal matters, but they're not supposed to help ICE
arrest people solely because of their immigration status.
(22:02):
So our local police leaders havereiterated that, But the scene
on the ground is often confusing.
Like Miles said, people aren't always thinking, you know, what
particular agency is this law enforcement officer with?
There's a broader anti law enforcement sentiment that's
been growing because of the agent, because of the actions of
ICE that I do believe Minneapolis police see damaging
(22:24):
their community relationships. When I was on the ground
yesterday in the immediate aftermath of the shooting,
Minneapolis police were present.City leaders said that was
because this is an active crime scene they're investigating.
But people were insulting the police.
They were throwing snowballs at them.
You know, So there's kind of, you know, there's certainly is a
(22:46):
visible disconnect between the attitude of the leadership or at
least their public statements and what the public perception
of them is in Minneapolis right now.
I mean, Miles, what I find so alarming about the state of
America today, and, you know, it's been accelerated by the
second Trump presidency, but it was there before as well.
It said there are two rival versions of the truth here.
(23:07):
You know, think back to what Kellyanne Conway, you know,
Trump's chief strategist communications officer in the
first administration, said. These are our rival facts.
So 1/2 of America thinks that Renee Good was a domestic
terrorist and the other half of the country thinks that she was,
you know, murdered by ICE officers who are overreaching
(23:28):
their power. The president, as far as I can
see, has done very little to calm down tempers, you know, and
to to make everyone step back from the brink a little bit
because that's not the way he operates.
I mean, the rival versions of truth about something like this
again, that's a recipe for disaster, isn't it?
It really is. And, and, and because there are
rival versions, it doesn't mean that there's no objective truth.
(23:51):
I mean, I look, I will tell you I, I remain a Republican and a
conservative, but you know, I, I've spent 20 years responding
to terrorist attacks in the United States, in the UK, in
other countries. And terrorism has a very
specific definition. It is intentional violence meant
to intimidate or coerce A civilian population.
(24:13):
And it is impossible for someoneto show you that video from
yesterday and prove to you, well, this is terrorism.
This individual meant to intimidate or coerce the
population of the United States by committing an, an act of
violence. That's, that's very hard to see
there. But that message, because it was
propagated so early by this administration, is being
accepted by millions of people without a second thought that
(24:37):
this was an act of terrorism. And that is very alarming
because it expands beyond this incident.
What happens when there's an actof terrorism?
Well, what you do is you increase a law enforcement
presence and you crack down on the potential perpetrators.
There are folks inside this administration, people I worked
with in the first Trump administration, who have been
waiting for and looking for a pretext for a domestic terrorism
(25:00):
crackdown on the political opposition in the United States.
So the fear right now is that this incident and others like it
will be used to try to go to theopposition, to overreact, to try
to get protests, to be violent, to justify the administration's
crackdowns. Because right now, 2000 ICE
officers in a state that has accounting problems with
(25:22):
kindergartens does not seem to meet the moment, seems like an
overreaction on the side of government.
And so this administration is looking for a way to justify
that visually. And, and that's why they're
hoping that the opposition overreacts.
And it's one more reason why commentators are out there
saying when people protest, which they will, and it's likely
(25:43):
that these protests become nationwide this weekend, that
they need to do so peacefully. That's very, very important to
remind folks in moments like these.
OK. And Madison, in that context,
it's quite interesting that the mayor of Minneapolis used, you
know, some pretty unacceptable language, you know, for
primetime television. He used the F word when he told
ICE to get the F out of Minneapolis.
(26:05):
You know, I'm sure that that played very well with some of
the crowd, but is that helpful, that kind of language when you
consider how bitter the divisions are and and do the do
the people are kind of organizing against ICE?
The grassroots organizations? And I saw them operating in DC,
by the way, in the summer and itwas really fascinating to see
how quickly they were quick theywere to organize stuff and warn
(26:26):
people about the presence of ICE.
Do they get that message what Miles has just outlined?
Will they hold back a little bitor will they double down on the
demonstrations? I think whether or not his
rhetoric was helpful depends on your perspective.
Was it helpful in de escalating the tensions that we're feeling?
Probably not. But when you look at the city
(26:47):
politics, the local feelings here, a lot of people share his
sentiment, you know, get ice outof here as fast as you can.
So potentially helpful and, you know, creating, you know, better
sentiment for the mayor in this town.
He's actually been very criticized by a lot of the
people who are involved in theseimmigrant rights groups.
(27:10):
So we actually saw him more aligned with these groups.
Well, he was mayor during the police killing of George Floyd,
so he took a lot of the heat forcriticism of the police at that
time. And so just like the Police
Department, he's been trying to repair his relationships with
the community, particularly, youknow, civil rights activists,
(27:34):
immigrant rights organizations, those kinds of things.
So he was actually more with them yesterday than, you know,
I've seen in a while. Interesting.
I mean, maybe he's trying to repair some past damage there
himself. Miles back to you.
I mean, you know, the one question I keep being asked when
I'm back in the UK is how likelyis it that the Trump
administration will try and somehow, you know, scrap the
(27:56):
midterm elections, come up with some excuse to delay them, you
know, use emergency powers in order to to shoot demonstrators
on the streets. I mean, you know, these very,
very dark scenarios which are played out on various Hollywood
screens, but not necessarily on the streets, you know, bring us
back to planet reality. How likely is it that the
administration will use some of the things that we've seen and
(28:19):
take them to the next level? Well, two things are true here.
Unfortunately, these aren't conspiracy theories because they
come from the president's mouth.I mean, there are things he
wants to do, however, he doesn'thave the authority to do them.
So let me let me start with elections and shooting unarmed
people. You know, look, Donald Trump has
(28:40):
speculated about canceling elections in the United States.
He does not have the authority to do that.
Donald Trump has speculated about shooting unarmed
civilians. I was on the receiving end of
some some of those initial directives years ago when he
told us he wanted to shoot people in the legs at the
border. I was the one who came out
(29:00):
publicly and and talked about that because it was so alarming.
Now, we had to remind the president that under the
military's rules of engagement, no, we could not do that.
No, that was not lawful. But he continued to say things
like that throughout his term. So again, like I said, these are
things that the President of theUnited States thinks and says
and intends to do, and yet the law doesn't permit him to do it
(29:22):
so to. Interrupt Does anyone reminding
him today that he can't do that as you reminded him then?
I, I worry that they're not. I mean, let me give you a very
recent example. Let's look at Greenland.
I was also one of the first people to be on the receiving
end of the president's request that we take over Greenland.
Now, that's something that we conveyed to the president and
the White House we thought was an absurd idea and is something
(29:44):
that we shrugged off. Now, in a second Trump
administration, he's surrounded by advisers who are trying to
goad him into taking over the territory of a NATO ally.
That is a marked contrast. And I think we are seeing that
on a lot of issues in this second Trump administration.
There are not people telling himto follow domestic and
international law. There are people trying to find
(30:06):
him workarounds to domestic and international law.
But as it relates to elections, look, I'll say this.
The president doesn't have the authority to cancel elections,
but I do believe he will try to engage in efforts that you would
characterize as voter suppression, try to get the
political opposition in certain areas to make it harder for them
to vote to in, to decrease theirlikelihood of voting so that his
(30:28):
party is more likely to win. Those are what we're going to be
looking out for, those types of efforts of voter suppression.
And it's going to be something that the American people need to
be very, very aware of. Know your rights training used
to be a really boring bureaucratic term.
You're going to see around the United States in 2026 a lot of
organizations reminding the American people what their
constitutional and legal rights are because of what's happening
(30:51):
from their government. But to conclude, you know, this
first week of the year 2026 was a pretty sobering week in which
we were reminded at the beginning of the week with the
actions in Venezuela that America thinks might is right
and the same thing at the end ofthe week or towards the end of
the week on the frozen streets of Minneapolis.
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.
(31:11):
And, and look, I respond to thisas someone who has spent many
years saying Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela should be removed from
power, as someone who's been saying for many years, we need
to fix a broken immigration policy in the United States.
But neither of those policies, the way they've been executed by
this administration, have been done in a way that is lawful.
(31:31):
There's a right way and a wrong way to go about things.
And I think what's starting to concern so many people, and not
just Democrats in the United States, independents and
disaffected Republicans, is thatthis administration is carrying
out actions that federal judges continue to find are contrary to
the constitution. Dozens of federal judges have
ruled this administration has violated the constitution.
(31:51):
And in that regard, we are in uncharted territory.
OK. On that serving note, that's it
for the Forecast. Miles Taylor, Madison McMahon,
thank you very much to both of you for coming on this edition
of the Forecast. I hope you found it interesting.
I certainly did. See you next time.
It is impossible for someone to show you that video from
yesterday and prove to you, well, this is terrorism.
But that message, because it waspropagated so early by this
administration, is being accepted by millions of people
without a second thought. And that is very alarming
because it expands beyond this incident.
What happens when there's an actof terrorism?
(00:20):
Well, what you do is you increase a law enforcement
presence and you crack down on the potential perpetrators.
There are folks inside this administration, people I worked
with in the first Trump administration, who have been
waiting for and looking for a pretext for a domestic terrorism
crackdown. Hello and welcome to the
(00:41):
forecast an innocent woman shot dead in her car by aggressive
ICE officers who've terrorized the city, or a domestic
terrorist who weaponized her vehicle and tried to kill an
agent who was lucky to escape with his life.
The competing narratives over what exactly happened at
Minneapolis yesterday are now entrenched, and the fallout from
(01:01):
the shooting has gone national and is going global.
All this happening in the middleof President Trump's aggressive
immigration push with thousands of federal agents deployed to
Minneapolis as the White House tries to demonstrate toughness
ahead of the midterm elections. Protests are spreading and the
city's become the latest battleground in a national fight
(01:22):
over immigration policing and political strategy.
Well, today on the forecast, we speak to Miles Taylor, who
worked in the Department for Homeland Security in the first
Trump administration and has since become a very vocal critic
of the president. And Minneapolis based journalist
Madison McMahon, who's been reporting from the scene.
So let's just go, you know, to the scene itself.
(01:43):
Let's go to Minneapolis and talkto Madison.
Madison. I mean, we saw the
demonstrations last night. There was a vigil, I think
overnight, the the actual shooting itself was played again
and again and again on cable television.
But with these two very different takes depending on who
you were watching, What's the latest, you know, on the ground?
(02:03):
What's the mood in the city? And to what extent do people
there think that they are in theheart of this kind of
battleground? Well, the city of Minneapolis is
no stranger to being at the heart of conversations about
police brutality and in racial violence.
This is where George Floyd was murdered in 2020.
(02:25):
Just a. Few blocks away, right?
Yeah, yeah. The shooting of Renee Goode was
just a, you know, less than a mile from where the murder of
George Floyd occurred. So this is a community that
already is wary of law enforcement that has come out
and and demonstrated in mass against law enforcement
violence. And yesterday's shooting was
(02:48):
definitely a reminder of that for the people of South
Minneapolis. This morning we saw some renewed
protests at the federal buildingoutside of Minneapolis where the
local ICE agency is headquartered.
A complicating factor here is that, you know, in 2020, the
protests were against the Minneapolis Police Department
(03:09):
specifically. And now we're seeing protests
against federal law enforcement,which complicates things.
You know, ICE are not the peoplewho are responding to protests.
And so we didn't see things escalate, you know, like they
did in 2020. Yesterday, there was some
deployment of of tear gas as ICEagents were leaving the scene.
(03:32):
But, you know, not that type of stand off as the Minneapolis
police left, for example. So some key differences and some
similarities to 2020 we're seeing here.
Yeah, and I want to get to the, you know, the the differences
and especially the sort of potential pitting of of federal
agencies against local or state law enforcement agencies in a
minute, because that is that could be quite dangerous.
(03:52):
Just before we get to that Madison, I mean, Minneapolis has
had a very troubled recent history with ICE agents, hasn't
it? And of course, it's not the only
city that falls into that category.
Tell us a little bit about that.Right.
I think for people outside of the US, I, I, I think it's
important to talk about what, the way that the residents of,
(04:15):
of cities have been responding to ICE.
I mean, there has been a mass movement to train people to
alert the public when ICE is carrying out an operation, to
come out and demonstrate and in some cases, disrupt ICE
operations. So that seemed to be kind of the
situation yesterday when Renee Good was killed.
(04:36):
There were some, there was a ICEvehicle that was stuck in the
snow. Some people were blowing
whistles. They were honking horns.
They were drawing attention to the fact that ICE was present in
the neighborhood, drawing peopleout to protest and disrupt.
We don't know specifically what Renee Good was doing there.
There's still a lot we don't know about what her involvement
may have been in these organizations, but her car was
(04:58):
parked there. So we don't know Madden if she
was part of that disruption exercise.
Eyewitnesses on the scene told me that she was yelling at ICE
agents and had blocked their vehicles with her car.
But what we don't know is how involved she may have been in
some of these organizations thatare doing that, whether she was
(05:18):
kind of an independent bystanderor if she was someone who was,
you know, you know, tightly incorporated into the
organizations that are protesting.
Nice. Right, Miles.
Miles Taylor, let's get to you. I mean, one thing that really
struck me about this, and it's not the first time I had this
impression in President Trump's second term, is how quick the
administration was to jump on this incident and politicize it,
(05:41):
frankly. I mean, you had Kirsty Gnome
appearing, I think first of all,in Brownville, Texas, sooner
soon after the shooting, wearinga cowboy hat and basically
saying that Renee Goode was a domestic terrorist, you know,
without any shadow of a doubt stating that she was using her
vehicle, you know, to try and harm ICE agents.
It was an act of domestic terrorism.
(06:03):
What happened? It was our ICE officers were out
in enforcement action. They got stuck in the snow
because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis.
They were attempting to push outtheir vehicle and a woman
attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted
to run them over and ram them with her vehicle.
She seemed to row back from thatjust a little bit later on in
another statement that she made on the in Minneapolis later that
(06:26):
day. And the president himself also
at first seeming to jump on this.
I mean, the fact that it's beingpoliticized quite overtly by the
administration and that you don't get the usual calls for
calm that you would expect. How significant is that?
Well, look, all I can tell you is what I would have done when I
(06:50):
was chief of staff at DHS, whichI was in the previous Trump
administration. I've been there with a lot of
these same characters. And what I would tell you is
after you have an officer shooting where an American
citizen is killed, what you don't do is then fire more
rhetorical shots because you dramatically increase the risk
(07:15):
of escalation, inflaming the community and putting more
people in danger. And you certainly don't do that
before you have all of the facts.
And yet, as you noted, the secretary went out there
publicly and said this was an act of domestic terrorism,
accused the victim of being a terrorist.
So if I was there right now, this is honestly the
(07:35):
conversation I would be having. I would be talking to the
secretary about resignations up and down the chain of command up
to and including her and my own,because this is the type of
thing, this is the type of rhetoric, like I said, that is
like follow on shots after the incident itself.
And, and keep in mind here this week, here is the context.
(07:57):
The administration was surging ICE agents into Minnesota under
the auspices of investigating fishy accounting at
kindergartens. Okay, fishy accounting at.
Kindergartens, that's. Right.
And the responding with massive armed lethal force.
So in a lot of ways, to Americans, this has the
(08:18):
hallmarks of Kent State 1970. That's when 4 unarmed student
protesters were killed by the National Guard.
And it set off a wave of protests in the United States.
In a lot of ways, this feels like that.
Is there anyone, as far as you know, in your position today at
the Department of Homeland Security who's having more
(08:39):
difficult conversations with thesecretary?
Christina, I'm saying don't go this far.
You've overstepped a line. Try and row him back.
Or are they all basically, you know, one team behind her and
behind the president? If there are folks of
conscience, I've yet to see them.
And, and I'll say this, watchinghow this played out, it's very
clear to me that this is not a one off or a fog of war
(09:03):
accident. And and you have to go back in
time a little bit to see that Donald Trump has been
conditioning ICE to shoot 1st and explain later.
He's been doing that for months.And the message from the top has
been pretty unmistakable. If you go back to July, for
instance, the president melted down after protesters vandalized
ICE cars. He said, you know, these were
(09:25):
brand new vehicles he'd given them and they showed total
disrespect for law order. What he said after that was he
was directing the secretary of Homeland Security to give total
authorization to use whatever means necessary against
protester thugs. That's what the president said.
And in the in the wake of that, we have seen ICE engage in
illegal entry, warrantless arrests, arrests of U.S.
(09:47):
citizens, violent assaults. I mean, things that I never saw
the agency do when I was helpingto oversee it.
And now to a lot of Americans, that looks like the president
has given them a license to kill.
And we have not seen folks within the agencies stand up and
say, Mr. President, we can't do this.
If anything, they are reflexively defending officers
(10:08):
even when video shows it might be the indefensible.
Now, the administration would reply to that, hang on a minute.
This is what the American peoplevoted for.
They knew what my anti immigration agenda was when I,
you know, was on the ballot lastyear.
I won, you know, convincingly. And this is what they're now
getting. ICE agents are going in there to
(10:28):
the poor people who shouldn't bein our country.
That's what they would say. Yeah, and I would respond to
them that that's a bold lie. The three things they told
America that ICE was going to doif Donald Trump got re elected
was 1, ICE was going to go afterdangerous criminal aliens, 2.
ICE would not be harassing U.S. citizens.
And three, ICE would be following all rules and it would
(10:50):
be following the law. Well, let's go to that first lie
about ICE going after criminal aliens.
If you look at the recent arreststatistics, only 10% of recently
arrested and detained immigrantshave criminal records.
In other words, 90% of the people ISIS arresting right now
are people without criminal records, students, families,
parents, people who've been herefor decades.
(11:12):
OK, that's a huge deal. And it's something that people
are starting to pick up on and say even conservatives like Joe
Rogan, who supported this president.
Wait a second, Mr. President, you said we were going after
criminal aliens, and now 9 and 10 of people you're picking up
are not that second lie about ICE not harassing U.S. citizens.
I mean, Christine Gnome just testified before the US
Congress. No, we're not harassing U.S.
citizens In the wake of a reportcoming out showing that hundreds
(11:34):
of Americans have been arrested by ICE, swept up in these raids.
I'll remind folks that's unconstitutional.
That's against our United StatesConstitution.
And then finally, that claim that ICE is following the law.
Let me tell you what Tom Holman said this week.
The borders are at the White House, he said.
I have not seen ICE act outside of policy.
I'll tell you what, either one of two things is true.
(11:55):
Either Tom Holman knows he's lying through his teeth, or
somehow he has secretly authorized ICE to break the law.
Because I know just as much about this as Tom, and I've
watched every single day on social media feeds, ICE do
things that are completely outside of policy, the policy
both Tom and I were responsible for implementing in that first
Trump administration. So this is not what the American
(12:17):
people voted for. They voted for something very
different that was sold to them and now the administration is
moving the goal post. Although to be fair to Tom
Holman, he was also on CBS News last night saying, actually,
let's not rush to judgement, youknow, in brackets, unlike some
of my colleagues. And let's find out what the
investigation, what the body cams actually what story they
(12:38):
tell on the ground. So I think you know, So he he
was slightly more judicious there than than some of the
people in the administration. Madison Mcgrahan, if I can get
back to you. I mean, Miles referred to it.
But how does it feel in Minneapolis?
Does it feel like a city that iskind of under ICE occupation and
the mayor yesterday, using some very fruity language amongst
(12:59):
other things, referred to the fact that ICE was tearing
families apart? What they are doing is not to
provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing
chaos and distrust. They're ripping families apart.
They're sowing chaos on our streets and in this case, quite
literally killing people. Is that true and give us some
(13:23):
description of that? Yes, it certainly feels like
that. I was speaking to my editor
today. He pointed out that the number
of ICE agents in the Twin Citiesright now is several times, that
is several times the size of thelocal Police Department.
So it really does feel like theyare everywhere in terms of the
(13:43):
way that they're carrying out their operations.
They're getting in and out quickly.
It seems like they're kind of going in arresting one person or
a small group and then getting out before people really have
time to congregate around them. Like I said before, that's
that's kind of the goal of a lotof the residents is to disrupt
these things. Now they're getting in and out.
So we're seeing these kind of isolated standoffs.
(14:06):
I and yesterday's shooting just really ramped up the stakes and
made the tensions significantly higher.
I think we're also going to see more people going to these
trainings, getting involved in these organizations that are
combating ice. I mean, you saw that in the turn
out at the vigil. Yes, last night.
I mean, thousands of people on the block where Renee Goode was
shot and the organizers of the vigil urging people to get
(14:30):
involved in, you know, the groups that are working to
protest and disrupt ice operations.
And I think we should talk aboutRenee Goode herself a bit.
Tell us about her. What I know.
She was 37 year old and she had a six year old son.
Tell us a bit more about her. What kind of a person was she?
You know, we're still learning about that.
She, We know that she was a poet.
We know that she played music. She was a recent arrival to the
(14:54):
Twin Cities. We know she spent some time in
Missouri and I believe Colorado.But, you know, it's been just
about 24 hours since she was killed.
And we're still, you know, working on getting in touch with
people who knew her to really get a portrait of what kind of a
person she was. Just on, on Minnesota, I mean,
(15:15):
you know, the president just a few weeks ago launched this very
aggressive tirade against Somali, the Somali community in
your state, which is sizeable, basically telling them to go
back home, even though the majority of them are American
citizens. So, I mean, Minnesota has been a
bit of a battleground for this administration, hasn't it?
It has been. And, you know, people outside
(15:36):
the US may recall that our governor, Tim Walz, was selected
to be the vice presidential nominee.
So I that really put our governor and our state on the
national scale. Tim Walls himself became a a
frequent target of Donald Trump and that's continued even after
Donald Trump won his re electioncampaign.
(15:56):
Tim Walls came back to Minnesotaand Walls actually earlier this
week suspended or ended really his campaign for a third term
because of some of these fraud issues.
And just briefly on Governor Waltz, what's he been saying?
Is he, you know, using a more cautious land than the mayor of
(16:16):
Minneapolis? And, you know, is he, you know,
I think he was suggesting possibly sending out the the
National Guard. Is that actually going to
happen? Is that a possibility?
It's certainly a possibility. He has told the National Guard
to be prepared to deploy if needed.
Again, another parallel to 2020.He, you know, Tim Walz,
activated the National Guard to quell some of the protests after
(16:40):
the police murder of George Floyd.
So we kind of just told them be ready for something like that to
happen again. A lot of the activists here want
to see him use the National Guard to protect people from
ICE. Yeah, Which, you know, would
spark a whole bunch of constitutional questions and
possibly put an even bigger target on Minnesota's back.
(17:02):
I mean, Miles, what I found really fascinating is this
prospect, which is potentially really alarming, of two
agencies, one state and one federal had loggerheads with
each other. I mean, that's a recipe for
division and disaster, isn't it?I mean, how worried are you
about this whole, you know, the texture of America kind of
falling apart, coming apart to the seams because of, you know,
(17:23):
the federal government is using a federal agency, ICE against
state and local authority. And we saw this in Chicago, you
know, we saw this to some extent, you know, in here in, in
DC where ICE agents were on the streets, although, of course,
you know, there is no state here.
But that's, that's kind of worrying, isn't it, for the
(17:43):
future of America? Yeah, I mean, look, you don't
have to take my word for it thatthe administration's falsehoods
here are having an impact on Americans confidence.
In fact, if you look at Gallup polls, recent Gallup polls,
trend lines and Americans trust in the federal government are
plummeting. They are absolutely plummeting
(18:03):
year over year. What does that mean?
Well, that means that overall public safety is damaged by
this. So specifically when it comes to
federal law enforcement, if members of the public are losing
trust in law enforcement, I'll tell you having, you know, run
what is the biggest law enforcement agency in America at
DHS? If they don't trust you, they
don't report crimes to you, theydon't cooperate with you during
(18:26):
investigations. And as a result, the criminal
situation gets worse. Everyone is less safe.
It also bleeds over into wider law enforcement.
So when trust in federal law enforcement like ICE is going
through the floor, people don't go check every police officers
badge and say, ah, you're part of this agency or that agency.
They start to lump them together, their heads.
And so that overall social fabric is affected by this
(18:49):
decreased faith in law enforcement.
And I will tell you from having talked to other law enforcement
leaders, people at other agencies are really worried
about this. They are saying what ICE is
doing is making all of us look bad and it's affecting public
safety writ large. So that's the big, big macro
concern right now with everything we are seeing with
this agency. It's interesting, actually, just
(19:11):
on the stage behind Christy Norm, the Homeland Security
secretary, I think on both occasions yesterday in Texas and
in Minneapolis, you saw, you know, the representative of the
Army of ICE, of the local police.
None of them look very happy, I have to say.
They, they're all, you know, youcan just imagine that scenario
that you've just outlined playing out in their own minds
repeatedly under these circumstances.
(19:32):
Miles, I just want you to tell me a little bit more about ICE,
because we know that ICE was perhaps the biggest beneficiary
of the big beautiful budget. That's right.
I mean, ICE has now become the largest federal law enforcement
agency in America, and as you know, larger than the armed
forces of most nations, and it'sstill growing.
(19:52):
And to staff that expansion, what the administration has
done, because it's been very hard to meet those numbers, is
they've lowered qualification standards while openly lowering
recruitment standards. And soliciting people from MAGA
fan bases, from the president's fan bases that they know that
they can inspire to come and join the mission.
(20:13):
And they're doing that with withmemes and online propaganda
about cleansing the homeland. I mean, some very, very
provocative messaging to try to fill their ranks.
The consequence, of course, is that law enforcement officials
have warned that the agency is going to be fielding under
trained, under qualified and ideologically motivated federal
(20:34):
officers to roam the streets of American cities.
And you combine that with the fact that the president is
arming them with this use all means necessary authorities,
you've got a recipe for many more incidents like we saw
yesterday in Minnesota. So this is, in a sense, a
witch's brew of potential corruption and violence.
(20:57):
We are seen by making this agency so big, so fast and
unprepared to meet the moment. So Madison, I mean, you know, we
go back to the murder of George Floyd that, you know, the police
officer who murdered him ended up being tried and convicted
and, you know, is in jail. And I'm sure that after that,
the mini Minneapolis police tried really, really hard to to
(21:17):
repair relations with the local community and so on.
So what was what was their attitude when they saw ice
officers behaving that they did yesterday and and a few weeks
before? Yeah, Minneapolis Police Chief
Brian O'Hara said, you know, condemned the actions yesterday
and basically said that he couldn't see any justification
for using lethal force in that situation.
(21:39):
Minneapolis, like many American cities, has what we call a
separation ordinance, which means that local police are not
allowed, according to city rules, to assist ICE in
immigration enforcement. They can assist with criminal,
with criminal matters, but they're not supposed to help ICE
arrest people solely because of their immigration status.
(22:02):
So our local police leaders havereiterated that, But the scene
on the ground is often confusing.
Like Miles said, people aren't always thinking, you know, what
particular agency is this law enforcement officer with?
There's a broader anti law enforcement sentiment that's
been growing because of the agent, because of the actions of
ICE that I do believe Minneapolis police see damaging
(22:24):
their community relationships. When I was on the ground
yesterday in the immediate aftermath of the shooting,
Minneapolis police were present.City leaders said that was
because this is an active crime scene they're investigating.
But people were insulting the police.
They were throwing snowballs at them.
You know, So there's kind of, you know, there's certainly is a
(22:46):
visible disconnect between the attitude of the leadership or at
least their public statements and what the public perception
of them is in Minneapolis right now.
I mean, Miles, what I find so alarming about the state of
America today, and, you know, it's been accelerated by the
second Trump presidency, but it was there before as well.
It said there are two rival versions of the truth here.
(23:07):
You know, think back to what Kellyanne Conway, you know,
Trump's chief strategist communications officer in the
first administration, said. These are our rival facts.
So 1/2 of America thinks that Renee Good was a domestic
terrorist and the other half of the country thinks that she was,
you know, murdered by ICE officers who are overreaching
(23:28):
their power. The president, as far as I can
see, has done very little to calm down tempers, you know, and
to to make everyone step back from the brink a little bit
because that's not the way he operates.
I mean, the rival versions of truth about something like this
again, that's a recipe for disaster, isn't it?
It really is. And, and, and because there are
rival versions, it doesn't mean that there's no objective truth.
(23:51):
I mean, I look, I will tell you I, I remain a Republican and a
conservative, but you know, I, I've spent 20 years responding
to terrorist attacks in the United States, in the UK, in
other countries. And terrorism has a very
specific definition. It is intentional violence meant
to intimidate or coerce A civilian population.
(24:13):
And it is impossible for someoneto show you that video from
yesterday and prove to you, well, this is terrorism.
This individual meant to intimidate or coerce the
population of the United States by committing an, an act of
violence. That's, that's very hard to see
there. But that message, because it was
propagated so early by this administration, is being
accepted by millions of people without a second thought that
(24:37):
this was an act of terrorism. And that is very alarming
because it expands beyond this incident.
What happens when there's an actof terrorism?
Well, what you do is you increase a law enforcement
presence and you crack down on the potential perpetrators.
There are folks inside this administration, people I worked
with in the first Trump administration, who have been
waiting for and looking for a pretext for a domestic terrorism
(25:00):
crackdown on the political opposition in the United States.
So the fear right now is that this incident and others like it
will be used to try to go to theopposition, to overreact, to try
to get protests, to be violent, to justify the administration's
crackdowns. Because right now, 2000 ICE
officers in a state that has accounting problems with
(25:22):
kindergartens does not seem to meet the moment, seems like an
overreaction on the side of government.
And so this administration is looking for a way to justify
that visually. And, and that's why they're
hoping that the opposition overreacts.
And it's one more reason why commentators are out there
saying when people protest, which they will, and it's likely
(25:43):
that these protests become nationwide this weekend, that
they need to do so peacefully. That's very, very important to
remind folks in moments like these.
OK. And Madison, in that context,
it's quite interesting that the mayor of Minneapolis used, you
know, some pretty unacceptable language, you know, for
primetime television. He used the F word when he told
ICE to get the F out of Minneapolis.
(26:05):
You know, I'm sure that that played very well with some of
the crowd, but is that helpful, that kind of language when you
consider how bitter the divisions are and and do the do
the people are kind of organizing against ICE?
The grassroots organizations? And I saw them operating in DC,
by the way, in the summer and itwas really fascinating to see
how quickly they were quick theywere to organize stuff and warn
(26:26):
people about the presence of ICE.
Do they get that message what Miles has just outlined?
Will they hold back a little bitor will they double down on the
demonstrations? I think whether or not his
rhetoric was helpful depends on your perspective.
Was it helpful in de escalating the tensions that we're feeling?
Probably not. But when you look at the city
(26:47):
politics, the local feelings here, a lot of people share his
sentiment, you know, get ice outof here as fast as you can.
So potentially helpful and, you know, creating, you know, better
sentiment for the mayor in this town.
He's actually been very criticized by a lot of the
people who are involved in theseimmigrant rights groups.
(27:10):
So we actually saw him more aligned with these groups.
Well, he was mayor during the police killing of George Floyd,
so he took a lot of the heat forcriticism of the police at that
time. And so just like the Police
Department, he's been trying to repair his relationships with
the community, particularly, youknow, civil rights activists,
(27:34):
immigrant rights organizations, those kinds of things.
So he was actually more with them yesterday than, you know,
I've seen in a while. Interesting.
I mean, maybe he's trying to repair some past damage there
himself. Miles back to you.
I mean, you know, the one question I keep being asked when
I'm back in the UK is how likelyis it that the Trump
administration will try and somehow, you know, scrap the
(27:56):
midterm elections, come up with some excuse to delay them, you
know, use emergency powers in order to to shoot demonstrators
on the streets. I mean, you know, these very,
very dark scenarios which are played out on various Hollywood
screens, but not necessarily on the streets, you know, bring us
back to planet reality. How likely is it that the
administration will use some of the things that we've seen and
(28:19):
take them to the next level? Well, two things are true here.
Unfortunately, these aren't conspiracy theories because they
come from the president's mouth.I mean, there are things he
wants to do, however, he doesn'thave the authority to do them.
So let me let me start with elections and shooting unarmed
people. You know, look, Donald Trump has
(28:40):
speculated about canceling elections in the United States.
He does not have the authority to do that.
Donald Trump has speculated about shooting unarmed
civilians. I was on the receiving end of
some some of those initial directives years ago when he
told us he wanted to shoot people in the legs at the
border. I was the one who came out
(29:00):
publicly and and talked about that because it was so alarming.
Now, we had to remind the president that under the
military's rules of engagement, no, we could not do that.
No, that was not lawful. But he continued to say things
like that throughout his term. So again, like I said, these are
things that the President of theUnited States thinks and says
and intends to do, and yet the law doesn't permit him to do it
(29:22):
so to. Interrupt Does anyone reminding
him today that he can't do that as you reminded him then?
I, I worry that they're not. I mean, let me give you a very
recent example. Let's look at Greenland.
I was also one of the first people to be on the receiving
end of the president's request that we take over Greenland.
Now, that's something that we conveyed to the president and
the White House we thought was an absurd idea and is something
(29:44):
that we shrugged off. Now, in a second Trump
administration, he's surrounded by advisers who are trying to
goad him into taking over the territory of a NATO ally.
That is a marked contrast. And I think we are seeing that
on a lot of issues in this second Trump administration.
There are not people telling himto follow domestic and
international law. There are people trying to find
(30:06):
him workarounds to domestic and international law.
But as it relates to elections, look, I'll say this.
The president doesn't have the authority to cancel elections,
but I do believe he will try to engage in efforts that you would
characterize as voter suppression, try to get the
political opposition in certain areas to make it harder for them
to vote to in, to decrease theirlikelihood of voting so that his
(30:28):
party is more likely to win. Those are what we're going to be
looking out for, those types of efforts of voter suppression.
And it's going to be something that the American people need to
be very, very aware of. Know your rights training used
to be a really boring bureaucratic term.
You're going to see around the United States in 2026 a lot of
organizations reminding the American people what their
constitutional and legal rights are because of what's happening
(30:51):
from their government. But to conclude, you know, this
first week of the year 2026 was a pretty sobering week in which
we were reminded at the beginning of the week with the
actions in Venezuela that America thinks might is right
and the same thing at the end ofthe week or towards the end of
the week on the frozen streets of Minneapolis.
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.
(31:11):
And, and look, I respond to thisas someone who has spent many
years saying Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela should be removed from
power, as someone who's been saying for many years, we need
to fix a broken immigration policy in the United States.
But neither of those policies, the way they've been executed by
this administration, have been done in a way that is lawful.
(31:31):
There's a right way and a wrong way to go about things.
And I think what's starting to concern so many people, and not
just Democrats in the United States, independents and
disaffected Republicans, is thatthis administration is carrying
out actions that federal judges continue to find are contrary to
the constitution. Dozens of federal judges have
ruled this administration has violated the constitution.
(31:51):
And in that regard, we are in uncharted territory.
OK. On that serving note, that's it
for the Forecast. Miles Taylor, Madison McMahon,
thank you very much to both of you for coming on this edition
of the Forecast. I hope you found it interesting.
I certainly did. See you next time.
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