Will changes to ICE operations in Minneapolis be enough?

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Certain improvements could and should be made, his words there. For one thing, Homan said ICE would focus more from now on on targeting dangerous individuals like people in the country illegally already serving time for crimes in jails and prisons. Presumably, that means fewer large scale sweeps through neighborhoods. Homan also said there will be a drawdown in ICE presence. But what we have witnessed in Minneapolis so far cannot be undone or rolled back. For the second time this month, Americans have been inundated with videos of a U.S. citizen killed while protesting federal immigration enforcement. Border patrol agents killed 37-year-old Alex Preddy just two miles from where Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed earlier this month. And here are some of the voices from people in Minneapolis over the past week. This is crazy. And it's got to stop. And if Minnesota falls, everything falls. And I firmly believe that. We're done as a nation. We've seen that this federal government is disregarding the Constitution on a daily basis. You know, there's an illegal force attacking the citizens of this state right now and other states. This is when we show our resolve as a city because we're better than this. We are under attack by this administration right now, and this is not OK. It's just not. I'm a 55-year-old woman who lives in Edina, and I have to come in here and tell the world, like, we have to change this. This is not OK for our city. Some voices from Minneapolis there coming to us from Mother Jones, KTLA, and also WCCO, a CBS affiliate. Now, back to Tom Homan, the border czar. He says he and President Trump are only trying to make our country safer, even if their tactics now need to change. But that all raises a host of questions about how easily Americans can move past the events we've seen in Minneapolis, how the president's change in tone is going to be received by the public, and also what Congress is going to do here, if anything. This really does feel like an inflection point in our politics, and I want to talk about it and what it means with our panel. Mo Alethi is here on the left. He's executive director at Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service. Mo was communications director for the Democratic National Committee. And it's good to have Will Swain back on the right. He is a co-host of National Review's Radio Free California podcast, and he is the president of the California Policy Center. A lot to talk about here, guys. And Will, I guess since we haven't heard your voice for a while, you know, as all of these events have been unfolding in Minneapolis, I'd love to start with you. Listening to Tom Homan there talk about that there should and could be changes made in the administration's policies during this ICE deployment. Does this feel like an inflection point to you? And if so, how should we be reading it? It does. I think that Tom Homan's presence is really important, not merely symbolic. There has been a fissure inside this administration between Homan and Christy Noem, who is the secretary of Department of Homeland Security, and others in the administration. Homan is a law enforcement guy with tremendous experience in immigration and worked under the Obama administration, the first Trump administration. This is a guy with deep experience and an ability. I mean, you can tell just from that communication, an ability to communicate a much clearer and, I think, more accurate description of what the federal agents in Minnesota and elsewhere in the U.S. are supposed to be doing. I absolutely welcome it. I do think that we have to be careful about calling what's going on in Minnesota or in my hometown of L.A. protest. I just I don't see it as protest. I think, you know, some of it is some of it is legitimate protest. Renee Good, Alex Freddie, these are not people who were there to just protest and register their objection. They were part of a well-organized, well-funded campaign to disrupt federal agents. We heard it in some of the voices that you cited there. These are people who are coming with a purpose of disrupting, taking action, putting themselves in a really dangerous situation between law enforcement and others. And that's that is a really fraught situation to ask. And we see this from Jacob Fry. We see it from Governor Walz. We see it from Keith Ellison. These are people who are urging their citizens to get in the middle of a very, very tense situation with very heavily armed agents, some of whom have limited experience in actual police work. So I just want to be really clear about defining terms. There are protesters and then there are activists who are trying to disrupt something. Yeah, and Mo, I do want to turn to you. But Will, just since we haven't heard you much on this, I'd love to dig in a little more. I mean, we've talked about with Mo and, you know, on the show, what protest in this moment in our country looks like, some of the safety concerns, who should be giving advice on what actions you should be taking, what civil disobedience looks like. I just want to be really crystal clear. I mean, you can certainly look at someone like Renee Good, Alex Preddy, and talk about what they were doing and whether it was agitating, whether getting in the way of law enforcement operations is protest or what to call it, whatever they were doing, though, I don't think you could say they legitimately should have been killed for those actions. No. And thank you for bringing up that important distinction, because there were two things that happened there that were terrible. One was in each of these cases, I think it's arguable that Renee Good's shooting is going to be found, if anybody brings it to court, I think it's going to be found that this guy, the shooter, the agent, had a legal right to do what he did in terms of self-defense. That one, legal experts can disagree with. They can argue that out in court. Hopefully there'll be an actual legal investigation into this that looks at all different. That's to my second point, which is that the immediate response of the administration was just absolutely nuts on stilts. It was a clown show. I don't count on Kristi Noem to be familiar with legal language, but she appears to have lost her capacity for English itself. And her description immediately afterward of Preddy's intentions being clearly to carry out mass murder, he brandished his weapon. None of this was true. None of it was true. And that made things really bad. And that's why you've again, that's why Homan is where he is today, because Kristi Noem, Kash Patel, these guys just really were out over their skis. I think their audience was only Donald Trump. That's all they really cared about was how much can I really bolster Trump's sense of his own right in this instance. And it takes somebody like Homan to really describe, I think, much more sympathetically and rightly accurately. This is terrible when Americans die like this. As you just said, David, anything I'm saying here about putting people in harm's way does not excuse any officer from just shooting them in a situation that we saw. And this is what was so great. You could watch the video for yourself and listen to Christy Noem's description and conclude on your own. I'm not an expert. I'm not a forensic analyst, rather. You could conclude on your own that the shooting of Alex Preddy was really a product of chaos, I think, and that her description of it was insane. It was just inarguably bad. And I think that creates mistrust in our public institutions. If nothing else ever had before, that did. And I think Trump gets that now. Mo, I want to start with you here. Like you and I and Sarah Isger during the when the second Trump administration began talked a lot about who was going to be in leadership roles. And, you know, I remember Sarah who worked in the first Trump administration talked about that this is going to be different. I mean, a lot of the people who were there in the first term to provide guardrails to keep President Trump from kind of acting on some of his worst instincts were no longer there. and you had people who were going to allow things to happen that we hadn't seen the first time. I think about this moment. I think about Kristi Noem sort of taking a backseat at the moment because President Trump has sent Tom Homan to send some of the messages like the ones we're hearing. Does that give you some kind of reassurance that the situation in Minneapolis might be changing? I don't know because I don't know what's really changing yet. They haven't told us what's really changing yet. They've said some things. They said they wanted to deescalate and people are applauding Hohman for using more measured language and saying, you even said earlier, David, that we've seen a shift in tone from the president. Well, hours before Tom Hohman's big press conference, Donald Trump was rage tweeting again, spent the entire evening once again after Hohman was deployed, reposting things on social media, calling Freddie a domestic terrorist again and still when it is clear he was neither of those things. So, I'm not sure I see a change in tone yet. He's talked about a drawdown. We don't know what that means. We don't really know. At the same time, he said that there would be a drawdown. He said ICE's mission was not going to change. Well, the mission has never been articulated clearly. So, our best bet is, or guess as to what the mission is, is through their actions. And their actions have been indiscriminate sweeps that did not focus on the most violent criminals. So I don't know what drawdown means. He said that improvements could be made, but didn't say what any of those improvements would be. Would those improvements mean limiting it just to violent criminals instead of stopping American citizens and demanding their papers and arresting five-year-olds and not arresting, but detaining five-year-olds? All of this, does it mean that they are going to stop harassing the protesters who are exercising their voice and their right? Alex, pretty moments before he was shot, wasn't trying to impede law enforcement. He was standing up holding up a camera to film law enforcement. And when ICE approached him, approached him, he backed away. That's not an impediment of law enforcement. So are those the improvements he's talking about? we haven't seen. We don't know. And I think this is why people are still incredibly anxious and incredibly angry. Mo, you might have missed this, but the fact is, I think it was on Sunday night, a bunch of local vigilantes decided that they had identified a hotel where ICE agents were supposedly staying in Minneapolis. They went and started trashing the building. And by the time local police could show up to intervene, federal agents had already showed up. Now, this was a disaster because a federal agent showed up, no coordination, no communication. I don't know whether the local police failed to step forward, failed to reach out. I don't know. But what happened next was chaos. We saw federal agents firing something like pepper spray, and they backed people off. But it was kind of chaotic and typical. The very next night, Now, Monday, after Homan's deployment is announced, we see something very different. Another hotel, another report of violence outside that Minneapolis hotel. And there's communication between federal agents and the police. The police set up the perimeter. They issue the order to disperse once they can see that there's actual vandalism and violence going on. And they arrest people. And it is quickly shut down. So within about 24 hours we actually see concrete differences in the way in which local cooperation with federal authorities can actually really mitigate the potential for chaos and violence of the sort that leads to a death And I happy that Homan is in communication with the local officials. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. But I still come back to the whole reason they're there in the first place. They need to articulate why they're there, what they hope to accomplish, and that mission needs to be adjusted from the way it's been. Otherwise, I think and I fear that we're going to continue to see the same kind of anger by the local residents. Well, I think, Mo, you're pointing to what I'm watching for, too. You know, the kind of change that, Will, you're describing, does that continue or is that a one-time thing? And I think it comes down to trust and good faith kind of on both sides of this. Like Homan says all this hinges on whether local law enforcement will cooperate, whether they'll let ICE into jails and prisons. Mo, I agree with you. Like if the goal of this operation, if you call it that, is to go to jails and prisons and find people in the country illegally who have already been convicted of doing things, and that's the focus, that's one thing. And if that's what's happening, then tell us. And if that's what requires the cooperation of local authorities, then tell us. And I think it is going to take good faith and collaborating. But Mo, you bring up the hate tweets from the president. That doesn't help with good faith and collaboration when you're talking about local and state and federal officials. Nor do the comments from local officials, you know, Waltz, Jacob Fry. You know, Jacob Fry is saying to ICE, get the F out of Minneapolis. We don't want you for your stated reason, et cetera. He says he apologizes for people's delicate ears. Frey does when he uses pretty vulgar language in his communications about ISIS presence. But it is inflammatory. Governor Waltz talking about federal agencies, he's called them Nazis, a modern day Gestapo, organized brutality. This is before people were shot. And so using that kind of accelerant, rhetorical accelerant, and then telling people you have a job. You are untrained civilians, but put down your school books, put down your engineering T-squares, if they use those things anymore, rush out into the streets and enforce the law on your own. It's just really, I think, damaging. You know, you got Keith Ellison talking about an invasion. This is hardly friendly. And then insisting that you will not cooperate in identifying actual people, not just charged with, but convicted of crimes who are here illegally, that you will not cooperate in handing those people over is also not helpful. Because what is ICE left with to go find those kinds of people? Do they just do nothing? And then, you know, the progressives win and we have a borderless America. If we believe in border enforcement, then I think it's incumbent on us to really have a fair conversation about how you enforce the border and internal security this way. Let me stop there for one second, but we'll return to that. We've got to take a quick break, but we'll come right back there. I do want to tell everyone, if you have anything that you all want to say about this week's conversation, you can join the left, right and center community discussion because we are on Substack. You can sign up for a weekly inbox reminder to find some great articles that inform what we talk about on the show. Talk about what you heard on the show with one another. Maybe we'll even pluck a comment or question from the Substack to talk about on the show. So how do you join the latest discussion? Well, go to kcrwlrc.substack.com. Again, that's K-C-R-W-L-R-C dot Substack dot com. Mo, I'm going to come to you and keep this conversation going when we come back in a minute with more Left, Right and Center. You ever get a weird spam call or a suspect email that just seems a little too specific? It's because our personal info is scattered all over the Internet, sold, traded and stored by data brokers. But you don't have to be helpless. Let me tell you about Incogni. It's incredibly useful. It takes just a couple of minutes to sign up, and once you give them permission, they go to work scrubbing your personal data from those databases. 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Will, you were just talking about some of the broader questions in your mind that really gives us the context for what we've been seeing in Minneapolis and some of the larger goals of the Trump administration when it comes to border policy, when it comes to making the country safer. We're curious to hear more about that. But Mo, you were about to offer some thoughts before we took the break. So the floor is yours. Yeah. I mean, look, the fact that Border Patrol is policing the interior as opposed to the border is an issue in and of itself. But this notion that the local officials aren't cooperating is just something that I think needs deeper examination. Because my understanding is that's actually not truly been the case. State prisons, right? The big question at hand, what the administration keeps saying is if they would just let us into the jails, that's all we're asking for. They would just let us into the jails. We'd be good. But since you won't, we have to do all these other things. And all these other things apparently include these major sweeps where they're stopping people and randomly asking for their papers and harassing many folks who are legitimate American citizens or here legally. But my understanding is the state of Minnesota does already cooperate by giving access to the jails and the information that ICE has been asking for. And that every county, when it comes to local and city jails, every county except one in Minnesota does the same. and the one that does not, which includes Minneapolis, if I'm correct, it's a longstanding policy because of the legal liability they face when ICE makes mistakes. And Lord knows, ICE right now makes a lot of mistakes. And they're grabbing people and seizing people and detaining people that they have no right to grab and seize and detain. And if they start doing that with people who are already in custody and they are wrong, then there's a legal liability for the local county. That's my understanding as to why the one county in Minnesota that doesn't cooperate, that's why. So this notion that they keep holding up that all of this is because state and local officials won't cooperate is just, you know, I don't think the reality and certainly does not warrant 3,000 federal agents being deployed. It does not warrant pulling the border patrol off of the border and sending them into the interior and does not warrant the actions that we are seeing as they are working. Everybody agrees. Go after those who are committing crimes, the most violent criminals. And the state and local officials have also said that they're on board with that. So let's focus rather than do this big sweeping thing, because that tells me that their stated mission isn't the real mission. The way they are acting tells me it's something deeper. Well, what do you see as the mission? I mean, this sort of these sweeps that we've seen, this large presence in Minneapolis, like, you know, I listened to President Trump. I listened to Tom Homan. Like, I still don't think I fully grasp why an operation this extensive and these sweeping raids through neighborhoods were necessary. Like, I hear you saying a few minutes ago, like, we need to keep our, you know, our border policy has been flawed. Like, there are people in the country who are dangerous. Like, I hear all that, but why this? Yeah, I think I would answer the question, I guess, with a question, and that is, why is it that we have four to five, maybe six times the number of detentions in Texas and no shootings of protesters? No shootings of protesters in LA, none in Louisiana, none in Florida, only in Minneapolis. The one county that won't cooperate, Mo points out, I think legitimately. And I don't buy the argument of legal liability. If that were true, every other county in Minnesota rather would follow the same policy. Clearly liability is a fig leaf designed by these people as an excuse not to, I think, cooperate. But Mo, I agree with your larger point and David to your question. I think the real answer to this is what's the mission? There are two missions and one of them is in conflict with the other coming out of the Trump administration, I mean. So you've got what I think is the Homan perspective. And I think he's honest when he says this. We want to get the criminal illegal aliens out of the country. People who are dangerous, people who are threats, like focus on those individuals, not this broad. And I think that's an 80-20 issue in America. I agree with Mo. I wouldn't say everybody agrees with that, but I think that's an 80-20 issue here. Unfortunately, you've got somebody like Stephen Miller. You've got Christine Elm, and especially Miller. His goal is, on the left, the goal is let's set a trap. When federal agents come in, we're going to provoke, incite, get in their faces, and if one of them makes a violent mistake, if just one of them makes a mistake, we capture that on video, send it around the world, and Everybody understands the true. What was that great line in Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Now we see the naked force of the repressive society. We get to see that. We get to see these guys fight back. It just takes one. I was on the left. I was involved in setting up demonstrations. We knew we could count on the LAPD to act stupidly in the 1990s. And they did. They obliged us every time. So you have that going on. You're saying is the Stephen Miller, Christy Noem sort of wing of the Trump administration. Well, what I'm saying is on the left, that's what's going on in Minneapolis. And on the right, you've got Stephen Miller, Christine Ohm, and others who really believe, yeah, you set that trap. We're going to come in. We'll take that. Hold my beer. Miller sees fighting and violence as a feature, not a bug. Similarly, I think a lot of folks on the left think the same way. They want the fight. Again, 80-20 is not 100%. There are a lot of people on the left and the right, and especially in the administration, I think. A guy like Steve Miller has way too much leverage in that administration. And he sees violence. He sees real fighting and showdowns like this one in Minneapolis as a feature of his strategy. I don't think Holman shares that at all. You know, it's interesting. I sort of saw this as a trap that was set by President Trump to draw in people who would protest this huge presence of ICE agents in their city. What I hear you saying, Will, is that there's a penchant for trap setting on both sides that we're dealing with. that could be key to understanding how to prevent things getting like this again in the future. I mean, Mo, does the left have to own some semblance in this sort of context of the Trump administration of being, I don't know, like enticing to set traps to cause this kind of chaos in this political moment? I don't see that and I don't think that. I think your point about the Trump administration setting a trap because of this is an interesting one. I think a lot of members of the Trump administration saw that after the protests of the summer of 2020, there was a political backlash against the left. Didn't play out in the 2020 election at the top of the ticket. But I think they felt – I don't necessarily agree – but I think they felt that there was a political backlash that mobilized the right and that turned off some independence against the left. I think through their simplistic prism of politics, that is what they thought they could accomplish again this time. by provoking the left to protest, that the left would overreach, that the protesters would overreach, and then people would once again rally against the protesters. We are seeing the exact opposite happen The exact opposite happen Because of their heavy reaction and response to the protesters we are seeing a huge backlash political backlash right now against Trump and against this administration When recent polling, there was a Fox News poll that came out towards the end of this week that showed some stunning numbers about people's dissatisfaction not only with the president on immigration, which he's almost always had a positive approval rating on. But you're starting to see a real hemorrhaging of support amongst independents for the way they are handling this. And you are even starting to see growing numbers of Republican voters saying that they think ICE is going too far and is being too aggressive. When one in four Republican voters are saying that, you don't see that kind of dissatisfaction typically for anything that Trump does amongst Republican voters. You're seeing it here. That's significant. So I do think they tried to set a trap and underestimated how much it could backfire against them. You're listening to Left, Right, and Center from KCRW. And Will, I want to bring you into both what Mo was talking about and the trap, but I'm also curious about the hemorrhaging he's talking about. We can obviously look at polls, but I wonder if two deaths changed the sort of how Americans are taking this in significantly. It's like we were in a situation where you can talk about traps. You can talk about who set traps. You can talk about this in the kind of vision of this president thinking like I am going to show the power of force in Minneapolis. And if the left is going to send out protesters or agitators, that will just show, you know, validate these hard policies. But then two people were killed. And I wonder to what extent that has completely changed the political context for all of this and is the reason we're seeing Trump have to, whatever word you call it, retreat, you know, sort of change tone. Yeah, I think not the two deaths so much, but the last one. Alex Petty's killing among conservatives has them rattled. And not because they're worried about election results in the midterms or something like that. Like, you know, I think the Republican Party was founded on a couple of key planks, I guess you might say, or just principles. One was we got to go back to the Constitution and really make sure that the federal government is restrained, that the states have tremendous authority under the original, you know, the U.S. Constitution. And so when you see federal forces deployed in states, that makes a lot of constitutional conservatives like myself nervous already to begin with. We are very wary. I speak generally about we. People like me who believe in the Constitution believe that's the real saving grace here. That's the exit strategy for a place like, you know, for what we see going on in Minneapolis. We can come to that later. But just the mere deployment of federal officers in the states is problematic for conservatives. It was problematic for them back when I think they were wrong on that, you know, back in the civil rights era, when conservatives objected to federal troops being deployed in the states to protect the rights of African Americans. I think they were absolutely wrong as conservatives. That was crystal clear to me. This is less clear. So federal deployment of forces is one thing. Then it was the response of administration officials, especially Cash Patel at the FBI and Kristi Noem, to the presence of Preddy's gun, which he was permitted to carry, that this became a murder weapon and he had no right to go there. And just because you have a permit to carry a weapon doesn't mean you can carry it into a place like this. It's not prudent to carry a weapon, even if you have a permit into this kind of, I think, a really fraught public place. I wouldn't do it. I'm not a gun person, but I don't think it's advisable, but you have a right to do it. And for a lot of folks on the right, including the much hated NRA, and I say much hated, I mean, particularly among the left and liberals, the NRA came out and said, that is flatly wrong. And so you have a lot of gun owners who tend to make up a strong part of the Republican Party now saying, that tears it. This is the red line. If we can be gunned down while legally carrying our weapons, it's game over. Like, you know, who's the next president who decides that I have to shoot anybody carrying a weapon in a public place? I think we are that the shooting of Alex Preddy was very is very troubling to a lot of us for that reason. So the fracture that we see, I think, or the change in Trump's tone, I think it has a lot to do with that. I'm not hearing anybody go, boy, if we don't get this right, we're going to lose the election. It's like, oh, my God, two Americans died, one of whom was killed. and the federal government that we helped vote in. This administration is now designating a guy who carried a weapon legally as a reasonable kill, if you will. I think that has people troubled, not just on the left. So many questions here. And I wanna listen to one question about all of this and this current moment that was sent to us from one of our listeners. Here it is. Hello, left, right, and center. Thank you so much for your show. This is Kylie from Kansas calling. And I'm wondering if you could describe more what we do know about presidential power. What I've gathered is Donald Trump is pushing the limits and Congress isn't standing up and things are going to the courts, which will have a big decision. But are those truly the only two guardrails? And why do we not in 2026 have a clearer understanding of the powers of what the president can and cannot do? Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Have a great day. You know, Mo, I think that question really does help frame this moment in many ways. I mean, this ICE deployment in Minneapolis, you know, two people now dead. We're seeing some action in the courts, including a Republican-appointed federal judge who's blasting ICE, saying the agency is not a law unto itself. And then Congress, which we have talked about for months now as being, you know, not doing much at all in this political context, like on either side. But Democrats now threatening to withhold funding for the Department of Homeland Security and, you know, the battle over the agencies funding, you know, coming close potentially to a partial government shutdown. Like, Mo, do you see a change in how people think about the danger of executive power, which has been expanding? I think we can all agree over the course of multiple administrations now. Is this a moment to really reflect on that? Yeah. And I think the last year, absolutely. I mean, yes, every president since virtually the beginning of the republic has tried to exert more authority. And every Congress has tried to exert its own authority. One of the reasons why sometimes it's unclear as to where the line is is because the system actually was kind of set up to be a little bit. And you would have that tension between those two branches of government. And then you would have the third branch of government step in and answer the question. That push and pull is healthy in a democracy, right? I mean, that's what we want. The big difference between this time and every other time this has happened in history is you have one of those two branches completely laying down. You have Congress abdicating its responsibility, its authority, and seeming to willingly do so and just hand more authority over to the executive branch. The courts can get involved. But there is, to Kylie's question, a fourth option here, and that is the people can hold the executive in check. They can stand up. They can put their own political pressure because the one thing members of Congress are more afraid of than Donald Trump are their voters. And so if their voters stand up, and that's why I think this moment has been such a catalyst. It's because it has mobilized people. in a way that we haven't seen in the past decade. And you do see people standing up, which is why you're seeing more members of Congress stand up and you're seeing the courts get more engaged. All right, Will, I want to get your response to that and talk more about Congress after we take a quick break. Mo Lathie, Will Swaim, and I will be back with more Left, Right, and Center in just a moment. Hi, we're back with more Left, Right, and Center. I'm David Green here with Will Swaim. On the right, he's host of the National Review's Radio Free California podcast and president of the California Policy Center. Mo Alethi on the left, executive director at Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service. We were just talking about Congress, its role in this moment. Mo, you were taking us back through every presidency in the history of our country and saying that there's been a healthy kind of back and forth, the president wanting to expand executive power, Congress pushing back, the judicial branch, you know, playing its role. This moment we have seen Congress really lay down in a lot of ways and you saying now, you know, two things happening. Maybe there's a fourth branch, which is the people and their reactions to this moment are one reason why we might be seeing lawmakers start to step up and be more active. Will, where do you agree with that narrative and where do you disagree? I think Mo's largely right. Not that he was waiting for my approval. With bated breath. But I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I think that, you know, there are some real signal changes in how Congress, I think, has surrendered its power over time. And the first one, I guess, is under the FDR administration during the Great Depression and World War II, when you largely had Congress just willingly say, we just need somebody to rescue us right in on a white horse. Let's give FDR some elbow room to do his things. And Congress operated as mostly a blank check throughout the 30s. and it got worse under Truman, and especially for national security reasons. I think it's the National Security Act of 1948. It's been a long time since I looked at that, but that took a lot of the powers that seemed appropriately Article I congressional powers, especially the power of war, and it really arrogated the president under Truman. But there have been incentives on the congressional side as well to surrender that power. Congress people are elected every two years. I've talked to a lot of them, you guys have too. They are so concerned. They get elected. They just find out where the bathrooms are at the House of Representatives, and they have to go back to raising money. And they are constantly under threat of being outed within two years. It happens. You get into Congress and you've got to run and run and run and run. What's the best thing you can do? Keep your head down. Don't take any ambitious votes. Don't be outrageous in a place that's going to probably get you unelected at the next turn. Senators, of course, have a longer term, six years. That makes it a little more comfortable for them to stand up, not that they have. But I think the congressional incentives to kind of hide out and let the president take the heat and then write his coattails when he has a success, I think that's just, that has encouraged bad behavior in our congresspeople. So I agree with Mo that, you know, the people are the ultimate responsibility. I work out here in a state where Gavin Newsom is the governor and the state legislature is a Democratic majority. I don't blame the politicians for being out of their minds and drunk on power. They've got it all. I blame the voters, the voters who keep complaining about high gas prices and homelessness and crime and whatever. You guys voted for this. So we all have voted for this. The one thing I would add is that the people really need to be more charitable, I think. We need to be more charitable in our conversations with others with whom we disagree, that's how we establish, I think, a more enduring majority win for whomever comes next. I agree with both of you. And obviously, I think that voters have a lot of the power. But I also think, I mean, to come full circle, a lot of this moment and the coming weeks is going to ride on how this president decides to proceed. I mean, if we see Kristi Noem and Kash Patel and Stephen Miller remaining as important voices inside this administration and the president feels like he's somehow weathered this storm, like that is a choice about the kind of administration that he is going to have for the rest of this presidency. If we see him decide, maybe with input from Republicans in Congress, I don't know, like that they have to go and this is going to be an administration with more people, maybe like Tom Homan, like that is a choice. And we'll see how voters react to whatever choice this president makes. But I think this is a moment that President Trump has to make a decision And I think that the sort of from Kristi Noem to Tom Homan on the ground in Minneapolis was you know is that the beginning of some kind of trend Or was that him just doing something and he's going to keep firing off angry tweets? And we're going to see that the same kind of policies for the next few years. I think it's a big moment. David, he is who he is, right? He's not going to change. He's not going to change his tone. He's not going to change his approach. The question is, will we as citizens accept it? Right? I mean, we all remember 10 years ago in the middle of his first campaign for president when he said, I could walk down the middle of Fifth Avenue, shoot someone in the face, and my supporters won't go anywhere, won't leave me. You think he's still believing that? I never thought we would come so close to a literal test. We had American citizens literally shot in the face by agents of this government. Will we accept that? Will his voters stand with him after that? When he then blames the victim, as he still was doing almost a full week later, still calling the victim a domestic terrorist, will we stand for that? You know, Kylie, that's it. That gets to the crux of your question. Will we accept it? Right now, we're saying we won't. We've got to keep saying that or else we will just revert back to form. And next week, there will be something else. And we'll move on to the next outrage. I do want to turn to one more question from a listener and see what we think about it. Here it is. Hi, everyone. This is Key from the University of Illinois. Me and my partner listen to the show every week and have weekly discussions about it. Sometimes we're in agreement and sometimes we're not. But either way, it helps us strengthen our relationship with each other and with politics. My question for you all today is, do you think as the United States is losing respect within Europe that we could slip away from becoming the most powerful country in the world? Let me know your thoughts. First of all, Key, the idea of you and your partner feeling like you're strengthening your relationship by listening to a show like ours and having productive conversations, that warms my heart. Yeah, you're welcome, Key. You're welcome. Yeah, yeah. I hope that that is part of the goal of our show, and it means a lot that you said that. But as for your question about whether the United States is losing respect in Europe and whether we could slip away from becoming the most powerful country in the world, Will, I'll let you dig in first. The answer is yes. We are in danger of losing our position. When you start to go after your friends, it's a dangerous world. You know, I think that's something our friends on the left would agree with. It is a dangerous world. And we have real adversaries. And when you go after your friends, including your friends in Europe, and threaten them, bully them, coerce them, you're going to have a problem. We need our friends. We need our friends in Europe to be strong. I will say this Trump's for all of his flaws what Trump has achieved is something that has been achieved by no one else since the end of World War II and that is getting Europeans to so mistrust the reliability of the U.S. that they are now spending more on defense than they have at any point in the post-war this is a significant achievement I think it's a good thing that we ought to celebrate Europe standing up and taking on its own defense that's a good thing but it does mean that they're not going to be open to the kind of soft power we used to be able to use to influence our European allies to join us in adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't mean to open up that whole can of worms, but they have been there for us. These are our allies. So yes, and Trump is taking other actions. I think tariffs are a really obvious problem, not just in Europe, but around the world. They have destabilized our relationships with others. We've now got China going to Canada to cut trade deals on our northern border. Thank you very much. So the short answer for our friend Key in Illinois and her partner is, yes, we are in danger of slipping. And it's nice to hear folks who I imagine are, you know, regular listeners be concerned about that, our position as the leader of the free world. Mo, I want to turn to you, I want to add a layer to Key's question, if it's okay. I wonder when it comes to respect and when it comes to showing power around the world. If everything we've been talking about on the show today, like what is happening in Minneapolis, how that does or does not sort of fit into how we are seen around the world and perceived and respected and seen as powerful or not. You know, there was an interesting story that got very little attention. The people of Italy are up in arms. Italy is about to host the Winter Olympics. And they are up in arms because the United States announced that ICE agents were going to be part of the security detail of the American athletes going to Milan. And the people of Italy are freaking out because they all see the same images that we see of what's happening in Minneapolis. And they're terrified of that now happening on the streets of Milan. This is now how we are viewed. This is now how we are viewed around the world. Power takes many forms, right? It has many different dimensions. There's obviously military power, there's economic power, there's diplomatic power, there's cultural power, and there's moral power. And I'm with Will on this. We're not at the risk right now of losing any of our military power. I think we are still, and we keep showing that we are still the strongest military in the world. We are still the strongest economy in the world, even as our economy is shaken and gets weaker and weaker. But we are starting to lose people wanting to play with us when it comes to the economic partnerships. Our diplomatic power is waning, and our moral power is all but exhausted right now. So I do think we are in a very tenuous place. I agree with Will 100%. We don't just need allies, we need friends. Every time we have succeeded on the global stage, it has been in partnership with our friends, not just our allies. And if we start losing our friends because they can't trust us anymore, someday we do run the risk of being completely isolated and all alone when we need friends the most. All right. Well, Keith, thank you for the question. And honestly, keep the comments and questions coming. Key, if you ever have conversation with your partner where you said sometimes you agree, sometimes you don't, if it's something you don't agree on, you want to bring to the show, let us know how you both were landing on something, and we'd love to help you work it out. I already told you all about Substack. If you just want to send us a question like Key did, we are all ears. You can write us an email, record a voice memo, Keep it to around 30 seconds or so. Key, you did a great job. That was like 30 seconds. Send us your question at lrc at kcrw.org. That's lrc at kcrw.org. Just drop your first name, where you're calling from, and your question, and we might bring it on to the show. All right, we're going to leave it there and turn to our left, right, and center rants and raves. Will Swaim, I'll let you kick us off. I hope this isn't way too personal. We have our oldest son has lived in Europe, speaking of Europe, for about 16 years and is now here in the U.S. with his wife and two children. That means I have grandchildren, gentlemen. And though it feels like an absolute outrage that I will have to become accustomed to, I am really starting to like being called grandpa, even if it's mispronounced by an adorable two-year-old who has become my best friend. He speaks fluent German. I speak fluent English only. And my fluency is sometimes challenged, but we love each other. And I now know how to say the word, you know, I know what the word nine grandpa means. I think everybody here who has ever watched Hogan's Heroes knows what that would mean. So the two-year-old, nine, sounding like Sergeant Schultz. So grateful, so grateful that the circle of life continues, you know, for me. I just, I never anticipated this. thought I'd be dead by 30 because I was just such a classic punk rocker, you know, into death metal and all that sort of thing. And here I am with a sore neck and two grandchildren. I love it. I love that. And I'm just happy to know that you are beginning to enjoy being called grandpa because David and I are going to start calling you that all the time now. We are. In German. Yeah. It's pronounced, according to this two-year-old, it's pronounced Grimpa. Grimpa. Okay. Mo and I will practice and we'll start. Yeah. We're going to add that to your title when we bring you onto the show, Will. Grandpa Will? Is that? There you go. That'll work. Yeah. I love that. Thanks for sharing that. Mo? I, in recent weeks and months, have tried to stay away from politics when it comes to the rant and rave, but there was one story we didn't get to in the show that I just, I have to rant about, and that was late this week, we began to re-litigate the 2020 election once again. As the FBI raided the Fulton County, Georgia election office, 25 agents went in, took everything, every ballot, every voter roll, every piece of paper. They were accompanied by not just law enforcement. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, was there, which makes no sense at all. And they took everything to the point that the local officials in Georgia are now saying, we don't have access to the files. We can't secure them. We don't know what happens. They're now under control of the Trump administration. Same Donald Trump who literally called the Georgia Secretary of State six years ago and said, find me 11,780 votes. Now his administration, his allies have control over all the voter records. I'm done talking about 2020. But what really scares me is even after all of those things were all of the allegations were proven false time and time again. I don't know that this was about 2020. I worry that this is about 2026 and 2028. And trying to undermine those elections before they even take place. I'm glad you brought up that story. And I know it's going to be one that we keep talking about on the show as we approach 2026 and 2028. Thanks, Mo. I want to, I don't know if there's a rant or a rave. I've been spending a lot of time on the East Coast. Will, I know you're in California where you're not suffering through the snow and ridiculous cold that we have on the East Coast right now. I'm in Pennsylvania. It is snowy. It is frigid. But I want to rave about the warmth that I think this brings out in people sometimes. And I don't want to forget about how the cold can be incredibly dangerous, especially for unhoused people who are suffering and struggling to find a warm place. But just walking down the street, trudging through snow, it's like it's more likely that someone's going to smile at you and say hello as you walk by. Because there's something about like we're both suffering through this thing together, this pain of walking through this frigid cold and being bundled up and like almost tripping on ice. It's like, hey, hey, we're both suffering through this together. So how are you? Have a good day. It's like seeing, you know, neighbors out there helping their neighbors shovel their cars out and literally lend a helping hand. I don't know. There's something about the snow and cold that I think brings out warmth in people. And I think that is a beautiful thing. Although I know many people who are going through the cold and ice and also have lost power in many parts, especially of the south, are really going through it right now. So I'm ranting about the pain that people are feeling but raving about any warmth that the icy cold can bring out in all of us. All right. I am going to leave it there. Will, Mo, really appreciate you both. That was a really important conversation and more to come. The show, Left, Right, and Center, is produced by Markay Green. Our executive producer is Arnie Seipel. The show is recorded and mixed by Nick Lamponi. Big thanks to Jason Mundock here at So Good Studios in Lancaster, PA. this feels like a second home for me and I really appreciate it Jason Todd M. Simon composed our theme music for the show Left Right and Center is a co-production of KCRW and Fearless Media and we are distributed by PRX I'm David Green I will be back for more Left Right and Center next week and I hope you'll join us Download and subscribe at kcrw.com slash LRC, the KCRW app or wherever you find podcasts Left Right and Center is produced and distributed by KCRW From PRX.