Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman are furious, and they’re not trying to hide it. They dig into the killing of Alex Preti, a VA nurse who rushed in to help someone who’d been pepper sprayed, got tackled, disarmed, and ended up shot to death while the cameras rolled. Then came the part that makes it feel even darker: the immediate scramble to flip the story, smear the victim, and sell the public an alternate version of reality.
They talk about what “they heard ‘gun’” is turning into, a magic word that apparently wipes out training, restraint, and consequences. And they get into the bigger trap people are stuck in right now: waiting for guardrails, waiting for Democrats, waiting for a system that keeps proving it won’t protect anyone. If this is “law enforcement,” why does it keep looking like an occupying force, and why is everyone being told to just accept it?
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I'm hanging in there, but this is another one of those episodes that we have to deal with stuff that we predicted, sadly.
It's another one of those episodes, an absolutely infuriating fucking episode.
Everybody, we'll get to the discussion.
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Nick, so this last Saturday, we're recording on Monday, January 26th.
On Saturday, 37-year-old Alex Predi, a Veterans Affairs nurse, was attempting to help a fellow protester who had been pepper sprayed.
And ICE border officials grabbed him, wrestled him to the ground, grabbed a gun that he had a permit to carry legally, took it away from him, and then shot him an estimated 10 times, killing him, murdering him.
There's a lot to talk about here.
I assume you are with me.
You are shocked.
You are pissed off, ready for this bullshit to be over.
I certainly, I mean, again, what does it mean to be over?
I think it's another interesting question, which we can touch upon a little bit later.
But as far as what happened to Alex Predi, I think that the most shocking thing to me ends up being the response by the administration, like writ large, that is, you know, a gaslight nation.
I don't know what it's a gaslightocracy.
I'm not sure what we call this because it's not strong enough, but the idea that they would have, I mean, how many angles have you seen?
Four or five, probably?
Unfortunately, yeah.
And like when we see this in HD footage and then have somebody try and tell us the exact opposite of what happened is really what's, you know, this is reserved for the kind of behavior of a very few, you know, countries in this, in this, in the globe that are fascists.
And so the idea that they would try and make this out to be some sort of assassin, some sort of domestic terrorist who is, you know, trying to murder ICE agents is so preposterous on its face.
And I think it's just, it's enough that like the Predi family had better sue them for slander.
No, they should.
And I, you know, Nick, I have had the privilege and the pleasure to know a lot of nurses over the course of my life.
And these are people who take a job that doesn't particularly pay all that well.
And often it's because they are called to help people.
And one of the things I want to say before I say what I'm about to say, I resent that living in this country at this point means having to watch multiple murders, having to say, oh, let me look at this angle to see a fellow neighbor and concerned person executed, shot to death, murdered.
I resent having to live in that country.
And the idea that this person ran over to help a stranger to help somebody who's in distress and these motherfuckers grabbed him to keep him from helping her, wrestled him to the ground, took his gun, and then shot him dead.
I hope that the people are responsible.
I'm not going to hold my breath hoping that they'll be held legally accountable.
Hopefully they will be.
Hopefully maybe justice will be done.
But yes, the response, every time that I think that we can't reach a new low with these assholes, we keep reaching it.
They have not just created the conditions to murder these people.
They have then murdered them and slandered them because they can't stop.
They can't even have basic human decency to say, oh, God, this is awful and this is tragic.
And they'll say a little bit of it here and there at the margins now that the anger is growing.
And we'll get to more of that in a second.
But no, they deserve absolutely to be sued for this.
So much to go through.
You know, they're investigating.
Freddie and his family.
They're trying to find things they can smear him with in his deep past.
I'm seeing reports of that now.
We know that that was happening with Good from a couple of weeks ago in her car where they shot her when we had mass resignations in the Minnesota Department of Justice office because they wouldn't do a regular investigation into what happened with the shooter of her.
And then they were trying to then change this around and make it seem like she was some domestic terrorist.
Exactly what's going on now.
You know, the actual, you know, if you're going to watch this, let us go to this.
What they're going to say, and I know I might have, this might be insensitive because we talked about this in the last one where I said with Renee Goode, they're going to say that the car contacted the guy and that is it.
All bets are off at that point.
He's allowed to shoot whatever he can, which is not true, right?
It's not the legal standard in training.
And what they're going to say now in this one is, is they heard the word gun yelled and that was it.
Gun means I get to fire anywhere I want to, anyhow I want to, and then have no consequences.
That's what they're going to try and argue.
And it's probably the reason why they're trying to frame this the way they are now.
It's not really working.
I don't think a lot of people are believing what they're saying, but it's a severe cover your ass moment there where, or let me ask you this.
Do they really like believe it?
Do you think that they believe that the guy was violently resisting the ISOs?
No, I think where we're at now, I've seen enough of where cops try and cover up when they've murdered people.
Right.
And they panic and they're really terrified of the consequences of what they've done in the moment.
Like, I don't, I honestly, I don't think that these assholes like consciously were like, I'm going to murder this person, right?
And I'm going to take enjoyment out of it.
They panicked because of the situation that they shouldn't have been in.
They panicked in a situation that shouldn't have ever have happened.
By the way, the guy who did this, I think he had eight years of experience in this agency.
The guy who killed Renee Good, I believe 10 years.
Just for the record, for everyone who's like, oh, these people aren't getting enough training.
These people have had training upon training upon training.
It is a problem of law enforcement, a problem of white supremacy, a problem of inequality of power.
I think that what happens is then the story starts to change after the murder has happened.
It doesn't change the fact that they murdered him.
It doesn't change the fact that they did this.
Nick, first of all, before we ever thought about doing this show, like I would be at protest where assholes would be showing up with AR-15 strapped to their backs.
I would be going in in between having major, major incursions between right-wing protesters wearing AR-15s.
I would then go in to get a drink of water or use a bathroom or maybe, I don't know, grab a sandwich and be in line next to people who had four guns visible on them.
Those people were never murdered.
Those people were never shot.
Those people were never even bothered.
In fact, the police, and I want to remind everybody, Kyle Rittenhouse, who murdered people, was then given water and told how grateful the police were for him to be there.
The whole point is that this situation is an existential moment in this country.
And no, I do not think that they went out thinking that they were going to murder somebody, but they did it.
And now they've tried to retroact it however they possibly can to help themselves sleep at night and hopefully avoid legal consequences.
So if that's the case, right?
If these guys are, you know, veterans who have a lot of training and a lot of experience.
Uh, and and it.
And if by that respect then it was like an unfortunate incident of an accident whatever, well then we have to rewind a few frames to go to the point where they this whole thing started, where the guy is standing there innocently just filming, and then is basically like trying to sort of protect this woman who has no business being shoved and assaulted by these cops.
And there just doesn't seem to be any kind of de-escalation at all in any of this.
And if you talk to law enforcement, like the cops, the police departments, they would not have done this.
They would have said, you know, inform them that if you do not back down, we will, you'll be arrested.
They have a whole protocol that they do here and we, time and again.
This is not the only two people who have been shot, by the way, but this is just a long list.
I believe this is the dozenth person since december, if i'm not incorrect right, and so you know, that is where we start to get into the big problem here.
Now let me ask you this, because you know how I am about.
You know Zapruder film stuff did was the first shot from Pretty's gun, the guy who disarmed him.
That i'm not sure of, and people have like, looked at it to make sure of where it was taking place or whatever, but I I don't know.
I I haven't spent enough time to to actually break.
I don't know either necessarily, but it looks.
You know, there's something compelling to this notion that now you have a combo thing which I didn't mention earlier, which was the yelling of gun and then a sound of the gun off.
Um, but again, that's not as I understand.
The training is, you don't just yell gun, you need to then acknowledge I have control of the gun, which is what he didn't do when he should have, because he had already taken at least a step with the gun in his hand.
Um, did you see the gun in the guy's hand?
You've seen that part, right?
Yeah, i've seen that.
I don't handle guns whatever.
It looks to me like the guy doesn't necessarily know how he's supposed to be handling the gun.
He took his gun and then they murdered him.
That's what I know.
So you know, and who knows?
You know, and it was more than one uh person firing.
So this is so if the one guy is a 10-year vet or five-year, whatever it is, who knows about the other guys as well who uh, you know, and was he, could he still have survived that and they didn't administer aid again like they didn't do for for Renee Good um it's it's um, this is really really uh, the problem that we keep saying is going to happen, which is you'll have local law enforcement and federal law enforcement clashing, having a showdown right at some point.
That, I think, is going to happen.
That would take a Democratic official who would actually have a spine okay, so you don't.
That would.
That would take a Democratic governor or mayor to actually do something, as opposed to hold a press conference asking nicely for ice to get out.
That that would take an actual confrontation, which we're not getting, and this was reported or framed in the NEW YORK Times.
I want to give them a little bit credit for the idea that when you watch good and when you watch pretty uh behaving, they're behaving under the auspices of what a normal situation would be and the normal Enforcement would handle these things, right?
Where they're de-escalating, they're not posing any kind of threat, and they'll assume, okay, like these people are trained and they know how to behave and how they act.
And that's not what's going on.
And so the next question you have to ask yourselves is: okay, is this like a mandated thing from above?
Where if they hear enough times that there isn't any accountability for them and they're immune, we've heard from the vice president that they're immune and from Steven Miller.
If you're going through it to prepare yourself for the, when just before these things are going to happen, I'm about to push this lady down, whatever.
There's a checklist, right?
Okay, what am I going to do here?
How's this going to work?
I think that checklist does not preclude them, you know, at this point in their minds from just shooting people.
Yeah, but you're thinking about it from a logical standpoint, and they're not.
Like, I don't think it's because they've been told that there won't be consequences.
I think that's part of it.
I think the larger aspect is that they believe and have been told and have lived in an environment in which they believe that they are an occupying army, that they are dealing with a threat that is coming to kill them.
At every given moment, they are getting ready to be shot, getting ready to be murdered, getting ready to be attacked.
And so, as a result, and by the way, it's the same thing.
We're talking about ICE, we're talking about Border Patrol, we're talking about federal agents.
Nick, this is not an isolated problem.
This is American law enforcement.
It's the exact same thing with the thin blue line bullshit that we've dealt with for years.
There's a reason why police have murdered people.
Also, by the way, I have to say again, we're now talking about them murdering white people in cold blood, giving the same excuses that they have given for black and brown people when they murder them in cold blood.
The problem isn't just ICE, it's not just this administration.
The larger issue is that we have a literal war between the powerful and the rest of us, and that these people are the interlocutors.
They're the ones who are in the middle between the two, keeping us away from the powerful.
And as a result, they are hyped up to murder people.
So, if someone says gun, they're going to shoot that person.
Like, regardless of where the gun is, if it's been secured or if it's being pointed at them or not, they believe that they are in an existential war.
And as a result, they're treating this like warfare.
This is not law enforcement, it's warfare on American streets.
Yeah.
Well said.
And so it's awful.
No, that's the whole point.
That's why this has to stop.
There's no reforming this.
There's no pulling this back.
Like, this is the type of shit that there have to be tribunals.
This is the type of shit where people have to go to prison.
And quite frankly, it's the type of shit where people are going to have to die.
Yeah.
And that's that was, and that's sort of the point.
And the tragedy of these two murderers is that, yes, they were under the assumption that, like, okay, they're going to be tackled and then arrested and thrown into a car like they've seen.
That's, that's what happens in a free and open society.
You know, they shouldn't have been in the first place.
Treason on American Streets00:15:05
And that's all, all bets are off at this point now.
Well, I don't think, I don't think Predi goes to a protest with his legal firearm if he believes that.
Okay.
Well, that's interesting.
Okay.
Like, why would he?
I mean, quite frankly, and that's the whole point is, and I don't want to be the Second Amendment guy because we've had these conversations for years now.
Why do we have a Second Amendment in this country, Nick?
Well, they'll tell you because they want to be able to battle against a tyrannical government.
Because they want to fight a battle against a tyrannical government, correct?
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, here we are.
Yeah.
Here we are.
Yeah.
And by the way, like, I'm not even, he didn't pull his gun on them.
No.
He didn't brandish his firearm.
He knew that he needed it to be out there.
And you know what?
Like, regardless, and people are going to get all squeamish about it, but like, this is what it's supposed to be about.
Right.
That's interesting.
I hear you.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I don't even know where we've left off on this because this is so awful.
It's awful.
It's really fucking awful.
And I'm irate.
I am so pissed off.
And I just, I don't know what to say anymore.
You know, on Friday, or not on Friday.
Yeah, I guess it was on Friday now that we're looking at the time or who even knows time.
Minneapolis tried to have a boycott.
They said, you know, as long as ICE is going to be here and murdering our citizens, we're going to have a boycott.
I'm at the point, Nick.
I just think we need to shut it down.
I think we just need to shut this country down.
And it's not going to be good.
And it's not going to be simple.
And it's going to hurt.
But like, what are we going to do?
You want to talk about Charlie Brown with the football?
We're talking about whether or not the Democrats are going to shut down the government to keep from funding ICE.
Do you think that's going to happen?
I think that they, yeah, I think in this vote, they're not going to vote to get a DHS funding.
You think so?
Yeah.
Okay.
I hope we kick the football.
And by the way, but that also, and then in turn, there's a connection between that and the CR and like, and this government shutdown, right?
So you don't think there's going to be a government shutdown looming?
I have no idea what's going to happen, but what in the world over these past few years has told you the Democratic Party is going to do the right thing?
Well, they did have a shutdown, but guess what they learned from that?
Nothing.
Well, what they learned was that Trump becomes more unfettered.
They're like, shit, we could do even more shit now when the government's not up and down.
Okay, so what do we do if we don't shut this motherfucker down?
Are the Democrats going to help us?
There's no question.
They need to try and do whatever they can.
Now, here's the other problem is they funded ICE to such a degree already that it won't even matter if they cut off funding for a long time.
They gave ICE the funding of a nation.
Yeah.
Yes.
And by the way, like ICE didn't show up on January 20th, 2025.
Right.
This has been around for forever.
Also, by the way, you know why Democrats don't want to say abolish ICE?
Because they've helped create ICE and they want ICE.
They want control of ICE.
They don't want to stop this.
They want to make it less fascistic and less openly violent.
Like the Democratic Party is not going to fix this.
Tim Waltz can't even be bothered to save the people he's supposed to protect.
Can't.
He has no interest in doing it.
He'll hold a press conference.
He'll say some shit, but that's just about it.
Amy Klovshar is like, we need ICE out of Minnesota.
Where do you want him to go?
Where do you want him to go?
And there's almost twice as many ICE agents as there are cops in Minneapolis itself.
Okay.
So where is all this going?
The Democratic Party isn't going to fix it.
And by the way, a proud solidarity to the people who showed up at their hotel and tried to break in and ruin these people's lives.
Like, I'm to the point, I look at this, Nick.
I don't think there are any half measures left.
These people have, they've started a war against us.
I don't know what we're supposed to do outside of an economic boycott.
And that feels like the, that feels like the conservative option at this point.
Well, you know, and let's look at it from their point of view, because I don't think it's a hot take to say that this is the intent.
They want this, right?
They want murders.
They want unrest in the streets to more violence so they can do the insurrection act.
I think that's that seems pretty clear, right?
Certainly.
I don't know that I don't think that it's as clear-cut as it's a plan.
We'll do A, it will lead to B.
Okay, fair enough.
But at the same time, let them do it.
What's the difference?
Right.
Well, the one thing that's incompetent about that, if that really was the goal, and if you hear Bobino, when you hear Noam talking about how they're framing this, it seems clear to me that, yes, they want more of this to happen.
But what's the calculation here is that they get a lot more unrest.
Like they're looking for, you know, there's no, it's not a coincidence that they're in Minneapolis of all places doing this and causing this, right?
This is where George Floyd happened.
This is where a lot of Somalians live, you know, Waltz lives.
And so all these things converge, but because it's so cold, they're not going to get the kind of numbers that would lead to protests that would then allow them to use the Insurrection Act.
Not yet.
Have you looked at Minneapolis lately?
Yeah.
It's filled with protesters.
I'm just saying it's not what it would be like if it was warmer.
That's fine.
But I just, we need to have this conversation.
I think it's important for people to hear it.
What in the world?
Like they invaded your city.
They invaded your city and took your neighbors.
Was anything going on in Los Angeles when they did that?
We had protests, but we were not before they came.
Was anything going on?
No.
Okay, it all happened after they got there, right?
Yeah.
Oh, I see.
Yeah.
Was anything going on in Chicago before they showed up in Chicago?
No, unrest?
No, absolutely not.
Was anything going on in Minneapolis before they showed up?
No, there was like, there was like one murder in two years or a year, whatever it is.
Right.
And now they've murdered two people.
Yeah.
Right.
So what are we talking about here?
The idea that they have to have something happen before they declare the Insurrection Act.
Like this, this literally, here's the thing.
And I know where you're coming from with it.
And I know where people come from with it.
They keep saying we can't take this step or else they're going to declare the insurrection act.
They're living rent-free in your mind that if we push back too hard, the insurrection act is going to get declared.
So we can't push back too hard.
What is, can you help me understand that as your friend and as someone who's known you for a while?
Why is that what keeps getting in people's heads?
Because they're going to do what they're going to do regardless of what we do.
It's in the name because when you hear Insurrection Act, you're thinking, well, there needs to be some version of an insurrection then to invoke it.
And you're saying that there doesn't need to be in probably the same way as like when Democrats are worried about doing anything.
Labeled this.
And we always keep saying, they're going to label that anyway.
You might as well do the right thing.
And so this is the flip of that where it's like they're going to do the insurrection act, whether they have the insurrection or not.
Right.
I think that's like the little sticking point here where at that point, when I'm thinking insurrection act, I'm thinking, well, they need enough unrest in the streets to then invoke it, but maybe not.
So what, okay, take me down this, take, take me down this logical path.
If we're good boys and girls and we don't cause too much trouble for the dictatorial abusive daddy, eventually it's going to get better.
Is that where this is going?
Because two people were just murdered in cold blood within the past two weeks.
No, it turns into Nazi Germany.
So what are we doing?
At this point, I don't know what else to say.
I can offer analysis.
I can get into historical precedent.
I can do all of it.
What are we doing?
They're literally murdering people in broad daylight, getting away with it.
Like, what are we, why are we negotiating with ourselves away from actually addressing this?
Well, let me throw this out there.
There was a significant part of the population in Germany that was happy when the Nazi.
And if you look at, I mean, this is what I do, so you don't have to, or people listening don't have to.
I'm monitoring this shit.
That population exists in this country as well.
Absolutely.
It does.
Yes.
Yeah.
And it's the MAGA, whatever that basis.
And it's probably even, I shudder to think it's bigger a percentage than we think.
A chunk of Americans are ready for Trump's government to openly murder people without even a moment of reconsideration.
Right.
They're open to that.
They 100% are.
A portion of the American population wants to create an American Holocaust.
Right.
Period.
I completely agree.
You're right about that.
Yes.
So, but getting back to your question, so you're trying to wrap your head around why people won't understand that the Insurrection Act is just whenever they want to do it, they'll do it.
What is it?
What is it that needs to happen for people who are still afraid that something like the Insurrection Act is going to be declared?
What is like he was on the ground?
He was on the ground, surrounded by agents who were pummeling him, and then they shot him 10 times.
He was blinded by chemicals that they sprayed in his face.
He was neutralized the second they got shot.
Absolutely.
A man, Nick, a man who was trying to help another person whose entire livelihood was based on treating veterans and honoring them when they died.
Like when Nicole Good, Renee Nicole Good was just a woman in a car, a mom in a car, and they shot her in the face.
Like when, when is the breakthrough going to happen?
Because I don't, I, I guess I keep hearing this talk about maybe it's the training or or it's it's the insurrection act and we don't want to do what Trump wants us to do.
Like at what point do you say this is unlawful?
We have to protect ourselves.
Like if it wasn't ice, I was saying this last night, Nick.
If you and I lived in a neighborhood, like, and it was the 19th century and bandits were showing up in our neighborhood with guns and stealing children and murdering people, you and I eventually would have a conversation where I said, we need to grab our guns.
Right.
Well, okay.
Or it's like Rashaman, where they hire the guy to come in and right.
So when does that happen?
I guess is my question.
At what point do we cross that Rubicon?
Because that's where I'm at.
And I don't know why people, I don't, I'm trying so hard.
And I know it has to do with the fact that I'm so pissed off about this and I'm so tired of this.
But that is my question is when do we cross that line?
Is the line crossing the same thing as what we saw with BLM and George Floyd?
Yes.
Yes.
I might have to go back to what I was saying before then.
Those all happened when the weather was much warmer.
I'm telling you, I think that people, you just won't have the kind of numbers, but you know, out there because it's zero, you know, it's below zero.
It is.
But there's always, if we're worried about insurrection acts or we're worried about playing into Trump's plan, like it's not going to happen.
Yeah.
And there are plenty of places that are warm enough to mass and have huge protests that are not doing it either.
And you're right.
I think what you're also expressing is the worry that we've already accepted what's going on.
A lot of people have.
A lot of people have.
I will say, first frustrated as I am, Nick, I'm seeing signals that people are tired of this.
And I, and, and one of the best signals is that people are tired of the Democratic Party.
You want to talk about a party that has earned the distrust and the hatred?
The Democratic Party is, period.
They, they have earned it and they have shown it.
I wouldn't, I wouldn't give you a nickel for this entire fucking party.
I really wouldn't.
I don't trust a single goddamn one of them.
I really, truly don't.
And then, like, I see that people aren't trusting them.
I see that people are getting frustrated and pissed off.
The people in Minneapolis are watching their neighbors get shot to death and then they're showing up and getting in these people's faces and standing in front of their tanks.
Like all of the solidarity in the world, I'm seeing people waking up to this, but I'm asking you, I feel within within you a hesitancy.
I feel a worry and a fear.
And I just want to talk about that.
Right.
It could very well be that it's just, it's working.
It's wearing people down.
We've seen it enough times now because you're right, this should be outrageous.
There should have been a march the next day on every street across America, you know?
And so why isn't there?
I mean, we're lacking the kind of sort of, I suppose, unification, not unification, organization.
You know, like for instance, some right winger uncovered the coordination in Minneapolis of how they're following ICE people around.
I don't know if you saw this on Signal.
And he's breathlessly like reporting on this, like this is some sort of violation or whatever.
And I'm looking at this going, wow, like this is really interesting.
This is great.
Like these are people, these are citizens who have decided that what are you talking about?
We're going to come together.
We're going to find out when these ICE cars are.
We're going to follow them.
We're going to blow our whistles.
We're going to harass.
We're going to have our protest.
Right.
And that is amazing to me.
And here's the guy on the other side.
It's like, who thinks this is like a treason, basically is how they're trying to describe this.
So, you know, and it was rooted in George Floyd, right?
When they, when that happened then, this is how they started to become, to build this community of people who wanted to fight back.
You know, we're going to need a lot more of that, I suppose, and more, you know, I agree.
More visual, not visual.
What's the word?
And we got to be a little bit careful what we say, but something more impactful, I suppose, would be what we need.
Well, on the right-wing side, they see everything as being astro-turfed and like created by billionaires, like George Soros or whatever.
And Nick, why is that?
Because the entirety of the right-wing ecosystem is propped up by billionaires.
That's the reason that they get the views and the ratings.
That's why they sell the books.
All of that is astro-turfed.
So obviously they're projecting their feelings about themselves onto everybody else.
Right.
Then comes this next part, which is, I've said this before, and I don't know how many times, but it bears repeating.
I'm in the organizing world.
Narrowing Window for Change00:04:17
I'm in the trenches trying to put together the pieces for a coalition or a movement.
I want to be honest with people.
I don't want to blow smoke up people's asses.
It's not there.
It's not there right now.
I thought we've talked about it, Nick.
I told you about the things I was going to be looking for.
I expected labor unions to step up at this point, but labor precarity is so bad at this point that labor unions don't want to fuck with that.
They don't want to like have a mass walkout.
They don't want to have a labor struggle.
You know, you've got certain groups that are looking at 2028 for like a big strike, possibly.
They've got their plans.
They don't want to rush things and get out ahead of themselves.
And at the same time, Alex Predi, union member, union member, right?
Like they've hurt people that are in unions.
They've hurt people who are part of these causes.
I'm not saying anymore that we need to wait for the labor unions to start because they're not going to do it.
It's going to take small, asynchronous, wildcat individual strikes.
A group of people saying, you know what, I'm not going to work tomorrow.
And when the boss tries to fire them, another person goes in the office and says, you fire them, you lose me.
And then you go and you go and you go.
And it's scary because it's cold.
We need utilities.
We need to be able to pay our rent.
We're going to have to get to the point where if somebody's getting ready to be evicted, we step in and stop them from being evicted.
This is not going to just be confronting ICE agents in the street.
It's going to need something larger.
And the energy is there and the disgust is there.
The window is narrowing, though.
That's what frightens me is that the window is narrowing.
Yeah.
And that is all that is exactly or is very legitimate, a legitimate fear.
And that's how this has always gone, right?
In all these countries that have fallen into fascism and the state is always exactly what happens.
You know, eventually it does burn out.
You know, a lot of these countries ultimately do flip back around and get away from this, but it takes a long time.
It's probably related to the leader itself.
And when the leader goes away, that power also tends to, I know we've been talking about, well, what happens?
You know, I don't, between you and I, and I think you said this before, I don't think Trump has long, you know, and then the movement kind of doesn't sustain itself in theory.
But again, it could still take 10 years until you can get some semblance of democracy.
I don't, I don't know if that's true.
I don't know if the movement would weaken.
We can't keep waiting for him to die or for the 2026 midterms or the 2028 elections.
Nick, we haven't even talked about it.
Pam Bondi sent a letter to the state of Minnesota and said, we'll get ICE out of there if you give us all of your benefit information and your voter rolls.
Why would they want to do that?
Why would they want voter information in Minnesota if they didn't want to use it in midterms and an election?
Why the fuck would they have done that?
They have not hidden this stuff.
We can't just keep waiting around.
I agree.
And, you know, you know, they would have dangled, like, oh, we'll end this chaos if you give us these things.
And they wouldn't actually end the chaos if they gave us anyway.
And for what it's worth, the Secretary of State of Minnesota said, F you, we're not giving you voter roles.
And again, just to get into that, because if you're, if you are wondering what they're going to do with that information, you know, if people die, they might still be on the voter rolls for a while.
And so the voter rolls look like there's all these people that are dead.
But guess what?
They don't actually vote.
There is no ballot that they cast.
It's not part of the process.
But these Republican idiots, morons, will continue to say that this is the reason why these are fraudulent and why we must take over the election process of the state itself.
Again, that's an act of civil war, basically, when you start doing that shit.
Absolutely.
And it's just, Nick, going back to the idea of the idea that in a village where like bandits are coming and they're taking everything and they're murdering people, like we're sitting in this village and we know that they're going to come back.
We've seen them come over and over, almost to the point where we can predict the date that they're coming back.
We're running out of food.
We're running out of water.
At some point or another, you have to make a decision and you have to take a stand.
Otherwise, you just sort of make a deal with them and you sacrifice others and they just keep coming.
Stand Against Silence00:12:12
Right.
And I don't know.
I don't know what it's going to take for people in this country to make a stand.
And I don't know if they're going to, but I just, I cannot escape the feeling that we are, it feels like we're tiptoeing over a grave right now.
Right.
That's what, that's the frightening thing about this.
And I feel like we have a window that is very, very narrow and people are still in delusional denial about it.
And it's going to, it's going to doom us unless people recognize it.
Well, a year ago, we would have said, okay, what would it take to get to what you're asking for?
What to spark that?
And a year ago, we would have said, oh, if they would shoot a citizen in the streets in cold blood.
Nick, I told you, I told everybody last year that eventually ICE was going to murder somebody in cold blood and we were going to see it.
And it was going to be a flashpoint.
I said that multiple times.
Eventually, at some point, ICE was going to shoot somebody in cold blood.
We were going to see it.
And that would be a flashpoint.
We're now in the second cold blood shooting.
Right.
Within this one, this one more obvious than the first.
Yeah.
So here's the answer to that.
Is what my answer would be: an ICE agent getting shot would spark like their reaction and then that would do it or something like that.
that uh or um i i or or again local law enforcement standing off slash violence between local law enforcement and federal law enforcement i think that would do it but who's gonna call for that right waltz isn't this fry guy in in charge of minneapolis isn't gonna do it i mean you don't think okay i mean they've they've uh i guess their response isn't strong enough for you they've had some very strongly worded press conferences True.
Right.
So by the way, it's the most the Democratic Party has had to offer is strongly worded press conferences that God is.
It would need to be, I'm going to kind of concrete some science with this stuff.
It would need to be ISIS now driving through on the way to a neighborhood and they are stopped by a phalanx of police cars and the mayor and standing in the middle of the street saying, you are not coming at it.
You're not driving another inch.
Do you believe for a second that the police force would necessarily do that?
If my mayor, if I'm on a police force and my mayor and the police chief, right, and you know, together said, you know, I don't know.
I don't know.
And now remember, but it hasn't happened and it's not happening.
It hasn't happened and it's not happening.
Okay.
I mean, if like the big capital I, you know, if the mayor and the police chief, you know, sure.
I would like to think that they could maybe muster up that presence of, you know, a police conference.
I would love in my mind to make my imagination real, but I haven't seen anything that shows that that's going to happen.
Right.
Right.
And so you're right.
Nothing has indicated they would be willing to do that.
Nick, what Democrat can you tell me right now has regularly said, and I'm not even talking about AOC.
AOC is an outlier.
Yeah.
What Democrat has regularly said the phrase abolish ICE?
Because they have run away from abolish ICE the same way they ran away from defund the police.
And I don't think that that's a surprise.
All they say, we need to get, we need to move Trump's ICE out of here.
Why are you saying Trump's ICE?
Because you want ICE, right?
Oh, we really need to retrain these people, reform these people.
Who can even say abolish ICE as opposed to actually even take a stand?
They can't even say the words.
So are you willing to sort of basically say that this is, they're just being politically expedient.
They're able to say a couple things that are whatever and knowing that Fry and Walls won't even won't back it up at all.
It's all.
What has Walls done?
He said, oh, we're going to have investigations into these shootings.
By the way, you brought this up when we covered the Renee Nicole Good shooting.
Where did we see her car?
Yeah, on a flatbed driving down the highway.
And by the way, for how long did the FBI show up and say, oh, we're in control of this.
You guys don't have to worry about it.
We still don't even know about the investigation around Predi.
We don't know anything about this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What we do know is that the fucking local law enforcement has had to file a court order to get access to the investigation and to be able to investigate this.
No one's ever heard of this before, where a murder takes place in a municipality and they can't, the local law enforcement can't investigate it without having to go to a judge.
There's nothing here that is going to support standard operating procedure.
Yeah.
And I know that's what people keep waiting for.
People keep waiting for, they're like, ah, something, someone will fix this.
Someone somewhere, some tripwire, some guardrail, somebody will fix this.
And they can't.
They can't.
They can't do it.
And they're not willing to do it.
And this is not a situation.
Like, this is where all these places, the tension starts working against each other until something breaks.
And it's not going to be the fascists that break when they're fighting the status quo and all of the institutions.
The institutions will break because they want to work with the fascist.
They want that to work.
And so that leaves one group of people, us.
That's it.
And I don't want to do it.
I don't want to go.
I don't want to get shot.
I know you don't want to get shot.
I don't want to get around.
They're taking pictures of people and telling them that they're being designated as domestic terrorists because they simply shouted at ICE agents and taped them.
Like, do you think that was a joke?
No.
No, that was exactly what they meant.
That's exactly what they meant.
And we know.
They're kidnapping children and using them as bait.
At what point do we say that no one's coming to save us?
Right.
And by the way, the threats that Bovino is throwing out there, and it looks like they're sidelining him, right?
Is what the idea is.
They're going to bring in.
I mean, they're sending in Tom Holman.
It looks like he's going to be in quote unquote in charge of this.
I mean, I don't know.
And Christy Noah is going to end up probably being the first one to be sacrificed.
I don't know if they're going to sacrifice anybody ever, but maybe.
I mean, they're building a case for her impeachment, and there will be votes, lots of votes in Congress for it, which will be something.
And, you know, Trump is already, Trump is starting to walk back.
You know, he's afraid of, you know, he won't call him a domestic terrorist like the other ones or assassins.
So there's already some movement there where at some point he's going to be like, I don't like this.
It doesn't look good for me.
You know, we'll fire somebody.
But the worst part about that is when Christy Noam goes away, I shudder to think who's going to take her place.
Who even knows?
Right.
And I don't.
Listen, if we ever see somebody actually impeached in our lifetimes, I would be shocked.
And if you're wondering why there isn't more, it's like when Bovino says stuff like, you know, he's openly threatening free speech when people are like, if they call federal agents kidnappers or Gestapo, he says there's going to be consequences.
Sure.
Obviously, with the context of what we're seeing, and we already saw some of the other agents say you learned from what happened with Renee Good, like they're already out there.
That's their, that's their baseline mindset.
I mean, the only thing, the only consequence you should face from screaming Gestapo at these guys is laryngitis.
That's it.
That's exactly right.
That's it.
Yes.
Maybe a headache in the morning.
Yeah.
I mean, that's your free speech.
You're allowed to yell anything you want at them.
And that's what your free speech is allowed to do.
And they're supposed to be trained.
And again, like we said earlier, a lot of the people out there are just sort of operating under standard operating procedures, thinking that like, oh, these are professionals and they understand how to make what they're supposed to do and how it's supposed to act.
And I, and it's like, I can't even sleep well at all, just having this, you know, the notion.
You know what it is?
It's not even like the horror of seeing Freddy being shot like he was and the one angle, which is like you can really see everything.
It's, it could be the horror that like what you're describing is that everyone is kind of like shrugging at this point.
I don't think most people are.
I think most people are pissed off to the point of wanting to take action, but no one will tell them what to do.
Yeah.
Okay.
Like if it did, listen, Nick, if, God, it wouldn't be Chuck Schumer because no one trusts him.
If I'm a random Democrat.
Yeah.
A random Democrat said, as long as Minneapolis is under siege by ICE, we are going to carry out a boycott.
And by the way, anybody who wants to join me, we're going to march into Minneapolis and we're going to show ICE what's what.
You know what?
People would do it.
Yeah.
People would do it.
The Narrows Bridge march.
Yes, we're going to do that.
We are going to confront these people.
If somebody did that, it would happen.
People are waiting on someone to tell them what to do.
And what's scary here, Nick, if we would have had, and again, as an organizer, I can tell you this, if the labor unions would have been prepared for this moment, if the nonprofits would have been prepared for this moment, and they would have said, hey, we're going to put together a massive collective action, people would do it right now.
But it's not there.
So none of them want to pull the trigger on this thing.
None of the Democrats want to put their ass on the line.
So it's left to people like me to say, let's shut this motherfucker down.
And I'm not sitting here telling you that this podcast is going to make it happen.
Send this to your friends.
Send it to your family members.
Let's get the call out there for it.
But at the same time, it's going to take asynchronous collective action, which is the most frightening type of collective action because it makes you much more vulnerable.
But it is not going to get better if we don't do it.
Well, you know, the kind of thing that you're describing to me is like the Edmund Pennas Bridge march that Martin Luther King led.
So my question to you would be, would that have, and if you remember, it's very similar, right?
Very similar was going on in Alabama.
And they knew by marching that they were in a costume beating the shit out of, right?
And that was their point.
They're going to get it on film and it was going to cause a shift, right?
So that would never have happened without Martin Luther King galvanizing that and leading that.
That's pretty cool.
There was a group of people who made that happen.
And because you brought this up, and I think it's fair that you brought this up, I do not want to lie to people.
And maybe that is, maybe that is a fault of mine because what I'm about to say is awful.
What I'm calling for is not bloodless.
I'm not calling for something that would be totally peaceful because if we tried to shut down the economic apparatus of this country and we confronted state power, they would hurt us.
They would.
They would.
They would hurt us to try and compel us.
It would not be easy.
It would not be safe.
It would be very, very hard and it would be very dangerous.
But again, at the same time, I say it, Nick.
What else are we supposed to do at this point?
It's the pure version of the Second Amendment.
That's really what the Second Amendment is for.
I mean, honestly.
Well, when it comes to Predi, I don't know what else to tell you.
He had a legal right to carry that gun.
He didn't brandish it.
He didn't break any laws.
I mean, and when it comes to whether or not people should, people, you have no idea, Nick, how many people have been writing me asking me if they should buy a gun.
You have no idea how many people have been asking me that.
And I don't have an answer.
That's a question for every household to figure out for themselves.
But I do want to highlight if everybody is asking, should they buy a firearm?
It should tell people something about where this country is.
Absolutely.
I mean, I agree.
And then what's weird is that this country is so large and so diverse and so spread out that like one person's everyday activities doesn't is anywhere near like, you know, I'm living in LA and it's a lot different than living in Minneapolis right now, for instance.
It's all that, that's what's also not galvanizing in terms of where you see the smaller countries that are much more concentrated and everyone's on top of each other.
It might even be easier to mount the kind of resistance that you're talking about.
And that's another thing that they're probably counting on is that it's all separate like that.
Where This Country Stands00:01:03
And you'll see Noam touting how, well, we're in Memphis and nobody is complaining about us there.
And it's like, we know why.
It's very clear why that's going on there or DC or anything like that.
And plus, I can guarantee you there is unrest in those cities as well.
There's going to be some people are going to clash with the police and ICE and some people are simply going to stop buying and stop working.
There are plenty of ways to do this, but it's got to start somewhere.
It just has to.
There's no way around it.
Somehow or another, this has to stop.
I don't know, Nick.
I'm so pissed and I'm so sad.
Yeah.
Alex Predi, real one, going out trying to help another person.
Just fucking awful.
All right.
That's going to do it for this edition of the McCray podcast.
We'll be back with the weekender on Friday.
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