The Ben Shapiro Show - CHAOS IN MINNEAPOLIS: ICE Officer Shoots Minneapolis Driver

00:00:00.000 A controversial shooting by an ICE agent at a Minneapolis driver who may have been aiming her car at him.

00:00:06.000 We'll get into all the legal details.

00:00:08.000 And the left goes insane.

00:00:09.000 I mean, truly insane over ICE.

00:00:11.000 It's dangerous and it's wrong.

00:00:13.000 We'll get into all of that.

00:00:14.000 Also, President Trump makes a sort of strange executive order with regard to housing and another strange executive order with regard to military pay.

00:00:23.000 We'll get to all of that in a moment.

00:00:24.000 First, over the weekend, the U.S. military carried out a covert operation that captured a Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

00:00:30.000 No American casualties, no leaks.

00:00:32.000 The entire mission was over in just 88 minutes.

00:00:35.000 You want to know how that actually happened?

00:00:36.000 Watch as Mary Margaret Olihan takes you inside the intelligence, planning, and execution of a real U.S. military operation carried out under cover of darkness.

00:00:45.000 Sean should be joining the show later on to discuss.

00:00:47.000 From months of CIA tracking to cyber operations that shut down power and air defenses to helicopters delivering elite commandos into a fortified military base.

00:00:54.000 This is not speculation.

00:00:55.000 It's not punditry.

00:00:56.000 It's a minute-by-minute account of how modern warfare actually works.

00:01:00.000 How to take out a dictator in 88 minutes is now streaming at dailywire.com.

00:01:04.000 Check it out.

00:01:06.000 For more than 200 years, the United States military has lived by a very simple doctrine: we run the Western Hemisphere.

00:01:15.000 And on January 3rd, the United States military unambiguously reminded the world that they are still in charge.

00:01:26.000 This is Caracas, Venezuela, on the night that elite U.S. Special Forces team captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife in the riskiest operation since SEAL Team 6 killed Osama bin Laden.

00:01:38.000 The mission lasted 88 minutes.

00:01:40.000 It was widely considered flawless.

00:01:43.000 This was one of the most stunning, effective, and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history.

00:01:52.000 So, how did they do it?

00:01:58.000 Well, last night in Minneapolis, a terrible situation unfolded when a woman was shot under disputed circumstances.

00:02:05.000 We're going to go through the video.

00:02:06.000 We're going to determine whether this woman was shot justifiably or not by an ICE officer.

00:02:11.000 Basically, this all arose, according to the Wall Street Journal, during an ICE operation in Minneapolis.

00:02:18.000 That ICE operation was designed to go after Somali immigrants who were here illegally.

00:02:25.000 According to the New York Times, one day before a federal agent shot and killed a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis, federal immigration officers described their presence in Minneapolis as the largest operation to date.

00:02:35.000 The ICE effort there is part of a broader immigration crackdown that has swept cities across the country.

00:02:40.000 Of course, federal authorities had said a little bit earlier this week they would increase their presence in the Minneapolis region with about 2,000 federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security expected to participate.

00:02:51.000 The original immigration enforcement operation focused on Somalis with final deportation orders, meaning they were here illegally.

00:02:58.000 So, while an ICE operation was going on in Minneapolis, this woman, whose name was Renee Nicole Goode, 37-year-old woman, apparently blocked ICE officers with her car as they were pushing their vehicle that got stuck in the snow.

00:03:15.000 We're going to hear descriptions of varying degrees from the federal authorities, people like Department of Homeland Security head, Christine Ohm, the President of the United States, President Trump, and also the governor of Minnesota, the mayor of Minneapolis.

00:03:28.000 These accounts are really going to vary.

00:03:30.000 We do have several camera angles of the actual incident.

00:03:33.000 According to the Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara, the woman was blocking the roadway when a federal law enforcement officer approaches her on foot.

00:03:41.000 The vehicle either begins to drive off or is aimed at an officer in front of the car.

00:03:45.000 And that's really the question.

00:03:46.000 Two shots were fired before the vehicle crashed.

00:03:49.000 She was found with a gunshot wound to the head and pronounced dead at a local hospital.

00:03:54.000 The FBI says that it is investigating the incident.

00:03:57.000 So we're now going to go through the footage.

00:03:58.000 Of course, the footage is disturbing because whenever somebody is killed on camera, it's very disturbing stuff.

00:04:04.000 The big question here is, again, whether the officer in question had an objectively reasonable assessment that he was under imminent threat of serious physical violence.

00:04:16.000 And so what this has come down to is not the question of whether the woman in the car was intending to hit him with the car, right?

00:04:23.000 That is her intent.

00:04:25.000 Her intent is not relevant to the actual question at play here.

00:04:28.000 The question is whether the officer reasonably assessed that he was at physical risk of harm in this situation.

00:04:36.000 So here is the first video that came out.

00:04:39.000 You can see that there are a bunch of cars that are parked on the side of the roadway.

00:04:42.000 Apparently, this woman is in the car. 1.00

00:04:46.000 She seems to be waving certain vehicles through, telling people to go ahead.

00:04:49.000 And then a federal law enforcement officer gets out of a truck, walks up to the car, tells the woman to get out of the car. 0.99

00:04:57.000 She pulls back.

00:04:58.000 And then as she pulls ahead, there's an officer who is up in front of the car.

00:05:03.000 There's an officer to the front left of the car.

00:05:06.000 He appears to be basically on the bumper.

00:05:08.000 And as she pulls forward, he shoots through the windshield and kills her.

00:05:12.000 We're learning that you can hear the woman who's yelling in the video.

00:05:14.000 The woman who's yelling in the video is the wife of this other woman. 0.98

00:05:19.000 And she's standing outside and she's filming, which is something that some of these activists like to do, this sort of legal observer routine, which again is not an actual status in law.

00:05:30.000 This woman was shot twice, apparently in the head, and then the car speeds forward and crashes into a telephone pole.

00:05:38.000 So the question here is, again, whether this ICE officer was at risk of physical violence when this went down.

00:05:45.000 So that is the original full tape.

00:05:48.000 Some people watching the original full tape come to the conclusion that the officer wasn't really in physical risk of harm, that he's off sort of to the side and that he could have stepped out of the way or he should have perceived that she was attempting to avoid him.

00:06:01.000 And then the opposing case, which I think is the more legally reasonable and defensible case, is that it doesn't matter what she was intending to do, whether she was trying to drive around him or not.

00:06:12.000 If you drive a car at an officer in defiance of law, doesn't matter what you intended to do, if you're hitting an officer with your car, with the corner of the car, if the officer is in front of your car and you hit the gas, at that point, you've taken your life into your own hand.

00:06:27.000 And this is a legally justifiable homicide.

00:06:30.000 Here is another angle of the shooting.

00:06:32.000 This one is closer to the front of the car.

00:06:33.000 So the first angle is sort of from the back of the car.

00:06:36.000 So it's hard to see where the officer is in relation.

00:06:38.000 This one looks a lot more violent, right?

00:06:40.000 This angle seems a lot clearer.

00:06:42.000 And you can see that the car seems to push forward and nudge the officer or could have nailed the officer, depending on if the wheels had caught.

00:06:54.000 The slow motion of the incident makes that a little bit clearer as well.

00:06:59.000 The slow motion of the incident shows that the direction of the tire when the woman who was shot hit the gas is in fact at the officer.

00:07:08.000 So you can see the car is backing up.

00:07:10.000 The wheel is turned.

00:07:12.000 And there's another officer still in front of the car.

00:07:14.000 The wheel sort of doesn't catch because the roads are wet.

00:07:18.000 But when he shoots, when he pulls his gun, he doesn't pull his gun until the moment that she starts to move forward again.

00:07:25.000 He pulls his gun when he sees that she's pulling forward and the front left wheel is directed at the officer.

00:07:31.000 Then it turns and seems to avoid the officer.

00:07:34.000 So that is the tape.

00:07:36.000 On the legal side of this, the question is sort of what is the governing law?

00:07:41.000 According to Andy McCarthy, writing for National Review, he says if it is reasonable to construe the woman's action as a deliberate attempt to mow down an ICE agent with the speeding of vehicle, the use of force was justified.

00:07:52.000 But even if the woman was mainly trying to get away, which it looks like to him, and again, I think that you can make that case, she was still engaged in an actionable assault on a federal officer, which is a felony under section 111 of the federal penal code.

00:08:07.000 Now, not just that.

00:08:09.000 The agent's life was jeopardized because she might not have intended to run him over, but she wasn't trying to avoid running him over if that was necessary to escape, perhaps.

00:08:18.000 The responsive use of force would be reasonable.

00:08:21.000 The Fourth Amendment, the settled Fourth Amendment law, is that a police officer can use deadly force against a fleeing suspect if he has a good faith belief the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to that officer or other officers.

00:08:36.000 So McCarthy says he believes the driver was in the act of committing a dangerous assault when the agent opened fire in the first place.

00:08:43.000 The driver's reckless operation of the vehicle, coupled with the fact that she was heedless of harming armed law enforcement agents as they were carrying out their official duties, underscores that it was reasonable to believe she posed a serious threat to that agent and others.

00:08:55.000 Now, from a federal standpoint, a lot of this is not particularly relevant because, again, the Trump Justice Department is not going to prosecute this officer.

00:09:03.000 President Trump put out a statement last night on Truth Social saying, quote, I've just viewed the clip of the event, which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

00:09:10.000 It is a horrible thing to watch.

00:09:12.000 The woman screaming was obviously a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing, and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer who seems to have shot her in self-defense.

00:09:22.000 Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital.

00:09:27.000 Now, again, because the president's statement, when it comes to it's hard to believe that he's alive, recovering in the hospital.

00:09:35.000 And you can see on the tape that the officer who does the shooting walks away from the incident.

00:09:39.000 So presumably he visited the hospital as a precautionary incident.

00:09:44.000 But again, it's very hard to watch the tape and come away with the conclusion that it's hard to believe that the officer is alive, meaning sort of clipped by the car as she drives.

00:09:54.000 And again, that doesn't change the legal question as to whether the shooting is justifiable, but overstatement in any direction here tends to lead to an increase in sentiment, which is quite bad.

00:10:06.000 So people who are claiming, for example, that this woman was just purely murdered, which we'll see is what the entire left is claiming, that this ICE officer out of nowhere pulled the gun, shot the lady for no reason.

00:10:17.000 That is going to lead to violence.

00:10:19.000 It will lead to riots.

00:10:20.000 It will lead to future attacks on ICE officers.

00:10:24.000 On the other side, if you make the claim that this woman was directing the car, like trying to run the guy over pretty clearly from the tape, that is not super clear from the tape.

00:10:36.000 And overstatement in that direction is going to lead to people saying, well, that's a lie, which means that the officer is lying, that the law enforcement is lying, that ICE is lying, and that it was a murder.

00:10:47.000 So reactionary ping-ponging here is not helpful.

00:10:49.000 Following the facts and looking at the tape is helpful.

00:10:52.000 And you can make your own judgment.

00:10:53.000 The tape is available for everyone.

00:10:54.000 I've given you my judgment, which is that I can't judge her intent, whether she was attempting to clip the officer or harm the officer or run over the officer or move out of the way of the officer, but that's irrelevant.

00:11:05.000 The only question is whether the officer reasonably perceived on an objective level that she was in the process of an imminent assault on him.

00:11:13.000 And that seems fairly clear-cut on a legal level.

00:11:16.000 Again, the legal level is not the same as sort of your gut-level visceral reaction to the tape.

00:11:20.000 There are some people who have the gut-level visceral reaction.

00:11:23.000 This is a crazy lady who is not just protesting ICE. 1.00

00:11:26.000 She's obstructing ICE and she was trying to kill the officer. 0.88

00:11:28.000 There's some people who have that visceral reaction.

00:11:30.000 There's some people who have the visceral reaction that she's attempting to avoid the officer and the officer decided to use excessive force and shoot her.

00:11:38.000 But as to the question of legal culpability and what officers have to do in the moment, you have a split second as an officer to determine whether she is trying to mow you down with the car or whether she's trying to quote unquote avoid you.

00:11:51.000 Either way, she's engaged in an assault on a police officer using a motor vehicle, which has the capacity for deadly force.

00:12:00.000 And so if you're an officer, you can't risk that.

00:12:02.000 As a general rule, you cannot risk that somebody is, you're in front of the car, right?

00:12:07.000 You're on the front left of the car, and the wheel is turned at you.

00:12:12.000 And it's possible in the next millisecond that the wheel is going to turn away from you.

00:12:17.000 What are you supposed to do?

00:12:18.000 That's always the question for the officer.

00:12:20.000 It's easy because we have the tape to look in retrospect and see that the wheel turns again, or it's easy to see that he gets nudged by the car.

00:12:29.000 But again, I would urge everybody to use less charged language around the actual facts of the situation because, again, I think people can look at this and it's a Rorschach test.

00:12:39.000 Anyway, the president says the situation is being studied in its entirety.

00:12:42.000 The reason these incidents are happening is because the radical left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our law enforcement officers and ICE agents on a daily basis.

00:12:49.000 They're just trying to do the job of making America safe.

00:12:51.000 We need to stand by and protect our law enforcement officers from this radical left movement of violence and hate.

00:12:55.000 That last part is totally right.

00:12:57.000 The environment that has been created by the left around ICE doing basic operations like arresting people and deporting them for overstaying their visas and being in the country illegally.

00:13:07.000 The language that's been used about ICE, that they are terrorists, that ICE is the Gestapo.

00:13:12.000 This sort of language leads to a permission structure specifically designed to increase ire at ICE agents and to undermine their capacity to fulfill the law in non-dangerous environments.

00:13:25.000 That is why people are out trying to physically obstruct ICE officers from doing their job.

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00:14:41.000 So when you look at the environment that has been created thanks to the left around ICE, around ICE operations, it is honestly kind of shocking that you don't see assaults on ICE officers more often.

00:14:52.000 And when you have more confrontations, this is just basic logic.

00:14:56.000 When you have more confrontations between civilians and officers that are very fraught in nature, it is far more likely that something terrible like what happened in Minneapolis is going to happen.

00:15:06.000 And you can see it in the immediate aftermath.

00:15:08.000 Immediately after this, there is footage of a protester reaching for an ICE agent's gun.

00:15:13.000 Here's some of that footage.

00:15:21.000 You can see the protester reaching out to attempt to grab the gun from the ICE agent.

00:15:27.000 This is immediately afterward and gets hit in the face with a sort of gas canister there.

00:15:35.000 Meanwhile, there's afterward, there's chaos on the street.

00:15:38.000 Here's more footage from the street immediately afterward.

00:15:45.000 You see, again, people getting very pushy with the ICE agents, physical confrontations with ICE agents.

00:15:52.000 In this sort of environment, is it particularly shocking if God forbid somebody gets shot?

00:15:59.000 The more you have these sorts of situations, the more you have these confrontations that are spurred on by, again, political actors claiming basic law enforcement function is somehow an act of evil, you're going to end up with more contentious operations, more contentious confrontations.

00:16:15.000 Minneapolis protesters were burning the American flag in the immediate aftermath of this event, of course.

00:16:22.000 Well, where you're at right now, we're seeing the images on the screen.

00:16:25.000 There's that flag you were talking about being burned here.

00:16:27.000 What kind of things are they shouting?

00:16:29.000 The crowd that's out there.

00:16:30.000 I know they're obviously not happy.

00:16:32.000 ICE is there.

00:16:33.000 They've been talking about that.

00:16:34.000 What are they saying?

00:16:35.000 You know, what's the energy like where you are right now?

00:16:38.000 So that's one reason why I'm not getting too close so I can hear all of you because it is loud out here.

00:16:45.000 It's profanities.

00:16:46.000 A lot of profanities against ICE.

00:16:48.000 Joining us on the line direct from Minneapolis is Breca Stoll.

00:16:51.000 She's a daily wire reporter.

00:16:52.000 She's been on the ground. 0.84

00:16:53.000 Breca, thanks so much for taking the time.

00:16:54.000 Really appreciate it.

00:16:57.000 Thanks, Ben.

00:16:59.000 So what's your experience been like over there over the course of the last 24 hours or so?

00:17:05.000 Okay, so we landed yesterday night.

00:17:07.000 We checked out the scene of the shooting.

00:17:11.000 They had protesters there.

00:17:12.000 That was about 1 a.m.

00:17:13.000 They were still there.

00:17:14.000 This morning that they were mobilizing at 7 a.m.

00:17:17.000 That's where we are right now outside of an ICE headquarter facility.

00:17:22.000 We've seen two tear gases being sprayed so far.

00:17:25.000 More looks like it's coming.

00:17:26.000 I've seen an increase in intake of goggles.

00:17:29.000 It is very hostile.

00:17:32.000 So when you're looking at the protesters behind you, what are the sorts of things they're chanting?

00:17:36.000 What sorts of things are they saying?

00:17:39.000 They're saying insults.

00:17:41.000 I've noticed older people are saying weaker insults.

00:17:44.000 One guy said, are you watching?

00:17:46.000 Did you spend this morning watching Saturday cartoons?

00:17:48.000 Didn't make much sense.

00:17:50.000 Younger people are saying more violent things like quit their job.

00:17:54.000 They're using cursing language.

00:17:57.000 I don't know what's going to happen.

00:17:59.000 They seem to be egging on the looks like border control ICE people outside of the facility.

00:18:04.000 And so we're just monitoring all of that.

00:18:07.000 Have you seen any physical confrontations between the people there and the ICE officers thus far?

00:18:11.000 Or is it mostly taunting?

00:18:14.000 I saw one confrontation.

00:18:16.000 It was between a woman and looks like an ICE officer. 1.00

00:18:19.000 She was interrogating him about why he would choose this job.

00:18:23.000 She said that his line of work wasn't actually work.

00:18:25.000 He said, I'm just doing my job.

00:18:28.000 Now it's the only line of confrontation where I saw an ICE agent potentially engaging back.

00:18:33.000 And so far, just mostly screaming and definitely seeing a community organizers organizing these crowds.

00:18:40.000 They want people visible at all points of entry to this.

00:18:44.000 And so they're watching their numbers.

00:18:45.000 I don't know if it's for visibility or what they're doing, but definitely people in the crowds mobilizing with a purpose.

00:18:52.000 How many people are out there, Breca, in total?

00:18:54.000 How many people have you seen kind of coming and going?

00:18:58.000 I'm seeing hundreds of people here.

00:18:59.000 It looks like more are just coming in.

00:19:03.000 Definitely would say hundreds that demographic, I'm seeing older people.

00:19:07.000 I'm seeing younger people.

00:19:08.000 We know schools canceled, expecting to get more younger people out here as the day goes on.

00:19:15.000 But yeah, I would say hundreds and definitely increasing.

00:19:20.000 Have you heard from any of the law enforcement on the ground over there about the possibility, the expectation that things may get violent later on in the day?

00:19:28.000 I haven't heard.

00:19:30.000 Last night, when we were walking by the scene of the shooting, I heard one woman talk about how Donald Trump wants to make an example out of Minneapolis and it's important to keep this protest nonviolent.

00:19:42.000 This seems like a different type of crowd today.

00:19:44.000 I just think with the increase of goggles and just the uptick and language to the ICE officers, something could happen.

00:19:53.000 Well, that is our reporter on the ground, Breca Stoll in Minneapolis.

00:19:57.000 Really appreciate the time.

00:19:57.000 Keep safe out there.

00:20:00.000 Thank you.

00:20:01.000 Meanwhile, protesters were gathering at the Minneapolis Federal Courthouse and chanting that ICE should leave.

00:20:21.000 You can see them cracking windows on the courthouse, attacking the courthouse.

00:20:25.000 And this sort of activity has been a long time in coming.

00:20:27.000 And of course, we have seen multiple assaults on ICE officers over the course of the last year, up to and including an attempted shooting at ICE facilities, people attempting to ram ICE officers with their cars.

00:20:38.000 The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association put out a statement saying, quote, the Minneapolis, saying, quote, the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association stands firmly behind law enforcement officers, accountability under the law, and the safety of every Minnesota community.

00:20:52.000 Irresponsible, reckless rhetoric from political leaders attacking law enforcement has real and dangerous consequences for officers on the street.

00:20:59.000 When officers are vilified, demonized, or used as political props, it fuels hostility, emboldens bad actors, and puts lives directly at risk.

00:21:05.000 MPPOA calls on leaders to stop the inflammatory language and respect the legal and investigative process.

00:21:12.000 And again, that is just obviously true.

00:21:15.000 When you over and over and over again suggest that ICE is the Gestapo, it is not a gigantic surprise when people go out there and start treating ICE like they are, in fact, the Gestapo.

00:21:24.000 The Department of Homeland Security put out its own statement explaining the incident.

00:21:29.000 It said, quote, today, ICE officers in Minneapolis were conducting targeted operations when rioters began blocking ICE officers.

00:21:35.000 And one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them, an act of domestic terrorism.

00:21:42.000 An ICE officer fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public fired defensive shots.

00:21:47.000 He used his training and saved his own life and that of his fellow officers.

00:21:50.000 The alleged perpetrator was hit and is deceased.

00:21:52.000 The ICE officers who were hurt are expected to make full recoveries.

00:21:54.000 This is the direct consequence of constant attacks and demonization of our officers by sanctuary politicians who fuel and encourage rampant assaults on our law enforcement.

00:22:02.000 We're facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them and an 8,000% increase in death threats.

00:22:07.000 This is an evolving situation.

00:22:08.000 We'll give the public more information as soon as it becomes available.

00:22:12.000 And again, I think that the last part of this statement about the ramping up of the rhetoric, that obviously has consequences.

00:22:18.000 I've said before, you're only responsible for someone else's violence if you tell them to commit the violence.

00:22:22.000 However, you are responsible for increasing the temperature beneath a boiling pot of water if you continue to turn up the flames.

00:22:30.000 And that's something the left has been doing.

00:22:32.000 As I said before about President Trump's statement, the description by DHS, if people find that to be at odds with the tape that they are looking at, quote, one of these violent riders weaponized her vehicle attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them, an act of domestic terrorism.

00:22:48.000 You know, if people see the tape and believe that's overstated, it doesn't help your case.

00:22:52.000 Christy Noam, who's the head of the Department of Homeland Security, said something similar yesterday.

00:22:58.000 It was an act of domestic terrorism.

00:23:00.000 What happened was our ICE officers were out in an enforcement action.

00:23:04.000 They got stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis.

00:23:08.000 They were attempting to push out their vehicle and a woman attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle.

00:23:16.000 An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively shot to protect himself and the people around him.

00:23:24.000 And my understanding is that she was hit and is deceased.

00:23:28.000 We're continuing to gather more information, but this goes to show the assaults that our ICE officers and our law enforcement are under every single day.

00:23:36.000 These vehicle rammings are domestic acts of terrorism.

00:23:40.000 We're working with the Department of Justice to prosecute them as such.

00:23:43.000 We will continue to protect our ICE officers.

00:23:48.000 Now, again, the attempt to label her a domestic terrorist as opposed to saying that what the officer did is justified under the law, which seems to be the case.

00:23:57.000 Again, there are two separate questions that are now being conflated.

00:23:59.000 And that lack of clarity is what's allowing for the argument to happen.

00:24:04.000 So what was her intent?

00:24:06.000 Again, the woman who was shot, what was her intent? in hitting the gas? 0.85

00:24:10.000 Was it to run over the officer or was it to escape the situation?

00:24:12.000 I don't know her intent.

00:24:13.000 I don't know what was in her head.

00:24:15.000 All I can do is assess based on the tape what the officer's response could or should have been.

00:24:21.000 And the question is, was it reasonable for him to assume that he was under an immediate threat of deadly assault?

00:24:28.000 And the answer there is pretty clearly and obviously yes.

00:24:30.000 Her intent is not the key question here.

00:24:34.000 And so when you have the left jumping to her intent was to escape and you have the right jumping to her intent was to kill the officer and her intent is not the question.

00:24:41.000 Then what you end up with is an argument about the thing that doesn't matter when we should be talking about the thing that does matter.

00:24:46.000 When you ramp up the rhetoric such that people want to impede ICE officers in doing their basic police function.

00:24:54.000 And then when activity takes place that clearly is threatening enough on an objective level to justify a law enforcement officer discharging his weapon at the person, something has gone wrong and that needs to stop.

00:25:08.000 And arguing over her intent is utterly irrelevant when it comes to should, for example, the officer be prosecuted or did he do anything wrong on a legal level, which is the question.

00:25:19.000 Tom Homan, by the way, I think got this right, the borders are, he said, listen, the investigation is going to play out.

00:25:25.000 It'd be unprofessional to comment on what I think happened in that situation.

00:25:30.000 Let the investigation play out and hold people accountable based on the investigation.

00:25:35.000 I think many members of the public are calling for the same thing.

00:25:39.000 And so they're confused.

00:25:40.000 Maybe you can help me understand how the Department of Homeland Security could conclude so swiftly that this is a, quote, act of domestic terrorism, that this woman, quote, weaponized her vehicle.

00:25:51.000 By the very same standard you describe, this investigation is just getting started.

00:25:56.000 That's the question for Homeland Security.

00:25:57.000 I'm the borders are.

00:25:59.000 Well, I can tell you what I've seen on my airplane right here, looking at numerous videos, seeing numerous social media posts, statements from the Homeland Security, statements from Secretary Noam.

00:26:09.000 But as a law enforcement officer, what good is it to do right now to me pre-judge the facts of what happened today without giving law enforcement professionals, whether it's the FBI or the local police there, give them time to look at all the videos, talk to all the witnesses, talk to the officers, and make an educated decision on what occurred today?

00:26:09.000 I'll leave it at that.

00:26:32.000 Tom Homan, that is the right take.

00:26:33.000 And I wish that everybody would take that take, right?

00:26:36.000 The take that we should let the process move forward because that's how the process works.

00:26:40.000 And also just on a sort of dispositive level, it would be nearly impossible and wrong, by the way, to prosecute an officer in a situation in which you pretty clearly objectively assessed that there was a reasonable risk to his life.

00:26:53.000 Now, again, we've just talked about the Trump administration response.

00:26:56.000 The left's response to this is unhinged, insane, nuts, totally nuts.

00:27:01.000 So Mayor Jacob Frye, who was one of the people who led to the outburst of violence in 2020 over the death of George Floyd, put out a statement, quote, I'm aware of a shooting involving an ICE agent at 34th Street in Portland.

00:27:13.000 The presence of federal immigration enforcement agents is causing chaos in our city.

00:27:17.000 We're demanding ICE to leave the city immediately.

00:27:19.000 We stand rock solid with our immigrant and refugee communities.

00:27:22.000 Insane, insane and ridiculous.

00:27:25.000 Ridiculous.

00:27:26.000 Federal law enforcement can't do its job because you have incentivized people to obstruct them.

00:27:31.000 And your solution is the feds need to leave.

00:27:33.000 ICE needs to leave.

00:27:35.000 Obstructing federal law enforcement in the enforcement of law is a crime.

00:27:39.000 It is a crime.

00:27:41.000 Mayor Jacob Fry is a disaster area.

00:27:43.000 He's been a disaster area for years.

00:27:46.000 It got worse, by the way.

00:27:47.000 He did a press conference and was telling ICE to get the F out of Minneapolis.

00:27:53.000 And I have a message for ICE.

00:27:57.000 To ICE, get the out of Minneapolis. 0.60

00:28:02.000 We do not want you here.

00:28:04.000 Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing exactly the opposite.

00:28:12.000 People are being hurt.

00:28:14.000 Families are being ripped apart.

00:28:16.000 Long-term Minneapolis residents that have contributed so greatly to our city, to our culture, to our economy are being terrorized.

00:28:25.000 And now somebody is dead.

00:28:29.000 This is insane.

00:28:30.000 This is insane.

00:28:31.000 He's an insane person.

00:28:32.000 What he is saying here is crazy.

00:28:34.000 You guys keep saying over and over and over again that ICE agents are the bad guys.

00:28:37.000 And then people attack ICE agents.

00:28:38.000 We've had apparently over 100 ramming incidents over the course of the last year in which people have tried to run over ICE agents or hit them with their cars.

00:28:46.000 And Jacob Fry is saying that the problem here is ICE doing its job, doing its job.

00:28:52.000 That is nuts.

00:28:54.000 Again, stopping people, incenting people from allowing law enforcement to do its job.

00:29:00.000 That is borderline criminal activity.

00:29:03.000 I mean, Fry is, again, familiar with helping to initiate criminal activity given his role in the 2020 riots.

00:29:10.000 Here he was at that same press conference suggesting that ICE causes chaos and distress.

00:29:14.000 Now, it seems to me that ICE's job is to enforce the law.

00:29:18.000 Obstructing the law is what causes chaos and distress.

00:29:24.000 They are not here to cause safety in this city.

00:29:30.000 What they are doing is not to provide safety in America.

00:29:34.000 What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust.

00:29:39.000 They're ripping families apart.

00:29:41.000 They're sowing chaos on our streets.

00:29:44.000 And in this case, quite literally killing people.

00:29:50.000 It's crazy.

00:29:50.000 This is crazy.

00:29:51.000 And it's going to get more ICE officers killed.

00:29:52.000 And by the way, people who assault ICE officers and assault federal law enforcement.

00:29:56.000 I mean, he is creating an incentive structure that justifies violence against law enforcement.

00:30:00.000 That is what that is right there.

00:30:02.000 And it's not just Jacob Fry.

00:30:03.000 It's also the ridiculous, corrupt governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, who came out in the aftermath of all of this and talked about the patriotic duty to protest, which is a wink-wink nod nod at people who have been getting up in the faces of ICE agents.

00:30:20.000 I want Minnesotans to hear this from me.

00:30:23.000 The desire to get out and protest and to speak up to this administration of how wrong this is, that is a patriotic duty at this point in time.

00:30:34.000 It's a patriotic duty at this point in time.

00:30:36.000 Not only that, he says that he is going to somehow activate the Minnesota National Guard to protect Minnesotans from ICE.

00:30:44.000 Okay, well, that's not legal.

00:30:47.000 Using state law enforcement to obstruct federal law enforcement is, in fact, kind of textbook definition of insurrection.

00:30:55.000 I'm not sure what else to call that.

00:30:57.000 Here is the guy who is almost vice president of the United States.

00:31:01.000 My primary responsibility as governor is the protection of the people of Minnesota.

00:31:06.000 And you can be assured whether it's the state patrol or whether it's the National Guard, their deployment is there to protect Minnesotans from whatever it is, if it's an act of nature, if it's a global pandemic, or in this case, if it is a rogue federal agent.

00:31:26.000 So I'm just wondering, how do you propose to use the National Guard to stop quote-unquote rogue federal agents, especially when that federal agent appears to have acted within the boundaries of the law?

00:31:38.000 Waltz then suggested to Minnesotans that the move must be made to stop President Trump from invoking the Insurrection Act.

00:31:45.000 So he's saying, don't riot because if you do, then Trump's going to send in more force, which is true.

00:31:51.000 But it's funny he doesn't say don't riot because it's bad to riot.

00:31:53.000 He says, don't riot because it might lead President Trump to do the legal thing.

00:31:58.000 Minnesotans, don't take the bait. 0.99

00:32:01.000 Do not take the bait.

00:32:02.000 Do not allow them to deploy federal troops into here.

00:32:06.000 Do not allow them to invoke the Insurrection Act.

00:32:08.000 Do not allow them to declare martial law.

00:32:11.000 Do not allow them to lie about the security and the decency of this state.

00:32:16.000 And let's let this investigation play itself out.

00:32:21.000 Okay, well, again, let the investigation play itself out is a far cry from you need to go protest right now.

00:32:28.000 Go out there.

00:32:28.000 Go protest.

00:32:29.000 It's a patriotic duty, according to Tim Walz.

00:32:31.000 And not only that, he's calling for protests all around the country.

00:32:33.000 They want to George Floyd this thing.

00:32:35.000 Here is Tim Walz, who presided over the first George Floyd riots.

00:32:38.000 And of course, his wife enjoyed, apparently.

00:32:41.000 She sat outside and smelled the burning tires, she famously suggested. 0.99

00:32:45.000 To Americans who are watching this, if you're in Portland or you're in L.A. or you're in Chicago or you're wherever they're coming next, stand with us.

00:32:56.000 Stand with us against this.

00:32:59.000 As always, the apotheosis of bad taste came in from left to field in order to really encapsulate the radical left's take on this situation.

00:33:08.000 I have to say, Jimmy Kimmel, man, dude never misses when it comes to missing.

00:33:13.000 It is pretty astonishing.

00:33:14.000 So last night, he decided to up the ante by suggesting, of course, that the president of the United States would like to murder you.

00:33:23.000 I know what they're doing.

00:33:24.000 They're trying out a new slogan.

00:33:26.000 Donald J. Trump is going to kill you.

00:33:30.000 It's pretty good, right?

00:33:34.000 This maniac.

00:33:36.000 He isn't just killing people overseas.

00:33:38.000 An ICE agent today shot and killed an unarmed 37-year-old woman during an ICE operation in Minneapolis.

00:33:45.000 They're there under the guise of protecting us.

00:33:50.000 Again, this is insane.

00:33:51.000 It's not just insane.

00:33:52.000 It actually is dangerous.

00:33:53.000 When you go around saying the president of the United States is legitimately trying to murder people, and then you link that to this ICE shooting, what you're doing is putting a target on the back of the people that you're talking about.

00:34:03.000 That is what you're doing, rhetorically speaking.

00:34:06.000 And, you know, this is going nowhere good.

00:34:08.000 It's going nowhere good.

00:34:09.000 Some of the congressional Democrats are out there making the most extraordinary claims.

00:34:13.000 Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, of course, can be counted on to make the most radical claims.

00:34:17.000 She is back to her ICE must be dismantled take.

00:34:22.000 And this has been a long time Democratic bugaboo.

00:34:25.000 And it's fascinating to watch the left retreat back to its most extreme version, that ICE is some sort of terrorist organization, that ICE must be destroyed.

00:34:33.000 Here is Alexander Ocasio-Cortez going after immigrations and customs enforcement.

00:34:38.000 What we have now seen and what we are seeing is that ICE is not just becoming an anti-immigrant force in this country.

00:34:44.000 It is becoming an anti-civilian paramilitary organization.

00:34:48.000 People are getting taken off of the streets for exercising their free speech rights.

00:34:55.000 It's an anti-civilian, paramilitary organization.

00:34:57.000 But why are people attacking it then?

00:34:58.000 Why are people attacking it?

00:35:00.000 I mean, maybe it's because you keep saying that over and over.

00:35:02.000 You're going to get people killed.

00:35:03.000 What's sad about this is that Jacob Fry predicted this back in December, like just a few weeks ago.

00:35:09.000 He suggested that someone was going to get seriously injured or killed.

00:35:12.000 And he's right, but that's because you guys keep lying about what ICE does.

00:35:16.000 You keep obstructing ICE operations.

00:35:18.000 You keep telling people to do so.

00:35:20.000 Here's Jacob Fry.

00:35:24.000 I am increasingly concerned because of the chaos that is being caused by these ICE agents that somebody is going to get seriously injured or killed.

00:35:37.000 Somebody is going to get seriously injured or killed.

00:35:41.000 And whether that is an ICE agent or a community member, we all know the Tinderbox that could explode because of it.

00:35:51.000 And well, maybe you should stop creating more Tinder for the Tinderbox.

00:35:56.000 That would probably be one of the solutions you might want to think about.

00:35:58.000 But again, this is what the left has created.

00:36:02.000 They've created a climate in which you are supposed to go and stop ICE agents from doing their basic law enforcement function.

00:36:09.000 And that leads exactly to these sorts of confused, confusing, difficult, and deadly situations.

00:36:15.000 That's what leads to all of this.

00:36:17.000 The left bears absolute culpability for raising the ante over and over and over again by calling law enforcement officers the enemy.

00:36:24.000 And I will say there is some irony to the fact, some dark irony to the fact that two days ago was January 6th, and all we heard about from members of Congress, Democrats, was that federal law enforcement are the best among us and must be protected.

00:36:37.000 And January 6th is proof that you should never assault an officer.

00:36:40.000 Obviously, I generally agree with that notion, but I agree with that consistently.

00:36:43.000 You also shouldn't do it when it comes to assaulting ICE officers or hitting the gas when an ICE officer is in front of your car, for example.

00:36:52.000 And now they've reverted right back to the type.

00:36:53.000 It turns out that federal law enforcement are the bad guys.

00:36:56.000 Federal law enforcement are the people who have to be stopped at all costs.

00:36:59.000 They're an anti-civilian, paramilitary organization, according to Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, possible presidential candidate for the Democrats in 2028.

00:37:09.000 This is insane.

00:37:10.000 People will get killed, and it will be ICE officers, and it will be people who attempt to impede ICE officers in their function of the law and try to hurt them.

00:37:18.000 Stop ramping it up.

00:37:20.000 Stop it.

00:37:20.000 Stop it right now.

00:37:22.000 Truly, it is bad stuff.

00:37:24.000 It is a true act of malicious horror to do what the left has been doing with regard to impeding ICE operations or other law enforcement operations and suggesting that the men and women of ICE are the enemy.

00:37:38.000 It's really, really bad.

00:37:39.000 And it leads to precisely this sort of situation.

00:37:42.000 Joining me online is Harmee Dillon.

00:37:44.000 She's Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice.

00:37:48.000 Harmee, thanks so much for taking the time.

00:37:50.000 Thanks for having me, Ben.

00:37:52.000 So I'm going to get to civil rights violations or possible civil rights violations in New York under Mayor Zorn Mamdani in just a second.

00:37:59.000 First, I do need to get your general legal opinion on what's going down in Minneapolis.

00:38:04.000 Obviously, this shooting that is under a lot of scrutiny by an ICE officer of a woman who appears to, at the very least, have attempted to assault an officer with a motor vehicle.

00:38:14.000 What's your take legally on the situation?

00:38:17.000 Well, the Civil Rights Division is charged with investigating these types of incidents.

00:38:21.000 And so given that it's under investigation right now, I can't really comment about it legally, but I think everyone can see with their own two eyes what has happened.

00:38:31.000 And this Department of Justice has stopped the Civil Rights Division's weaponization unfairly of the government against law enforcement officials and assuming that they're in the wrong.

00:38:42.000 So we'll objectively look at this and reach a conclusion as soon as all the evidence is in.

00:38:48.000 Well, on the other civil rights topic of the day, obviously, we're looking at what's going on in New York where C. Weaver, a tenant advocate who's been named to a big profile position in Zorn Mamtani's administration, she has in the past made multiple comments about whites taking advantage of property law, about how whites don't deserve to own private property.

00:39:09.000 What are you guys looking at to ensure that there is no violation of civil rights law in places like New York?

00:39:15.000 Well, this is one of many things I'm looking at in New York.

00:39:17.000 Zoran Mamdami has rolled back some executive orders relating to anti-Semitism and other issues.

00:39:24.000 What's alarming about this is that for years this person has advocated the Marxist viewpoint that the redistribution of property is appropriate and is explicitly along racial lines, which is clearly illegal in the United States.

00:39:38.000 And there are several federal statutes that I administer here, including the Fair Housing Act, there's an Equal Credit Act, and there's laws protecting the rights of veterans and our military in housing and so forth.

00:39:50.000 And so we will have a zero tolerance policy in this administration towards any kind of housing action that in any way discriminates against people on the basis of race or other protected characteristics.

00:40:00.000 And race includes being a white person in the United States.

00:40:05.000 So, Harmie, what sort of legal standard has to be met in order for you guys to look into action taken by the New York government?

00:40:11.000 Presumably, you'd imagine that the Mondani administration there will attempt to hide whatever anti-white agenda it has with regard to housing behind other sort of parchment barriers, an attempt to create so-called objective standards of law that only just happen to discriminate against white people.

00:40:28.000 What's the actual standard that has to be met legally in order for you guys to look at it?

00:40:31.000 That's a great question because now that we've eliminated our disparate impact framing of how we analyze the law, that actually directly implicates this.

00:40:41.000 So if someone is super tricky and like they tried to do in San Francisco and say, oh, well, if you're a descendant of a slave, you get to have reparations.

00:40:49.000 And that's kind of more objective than if you're black per se. 0.95

00:40:53.000 So in this case, I think that these statements that have been made are very helpful.

00:40:58.000 They're helpful evidence of intent.

00:41:00.000 And the standards are similar in Title VII, employment discrimination, as well as discrimination in housing.

00:41:06.000 Everyone's sorry, in education, people are familiar with students for fair admissions.

00:41:11.000 Ultimately, we're going to look at whether race is an impermissible criterion or national origin.

00:41:18.000 And you look at patterns and you look at how often decisions have been made that seem to be explicitly based on that, and you look at the outcomes.

00:41:26.000 And so now that they've openly announced their preferences and their policies, we'll be looking very carefully for any changes that appear to be proxy attempts to racially gerrymander or racially benefit particular classes at the expenses of others.

00:41:42.000 And I don't think it's going to be that hard to prove.

00:41:45.000 Well, that's Harmee Dillon. 0.53

00:41:46.000 She's Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the US Department of Justice.

00:41:48.000 Harmee, really appreciate the time.

00:41:50.000 Thank you so much.

00:41:51.000 Thanks for having me.

00:41:52.000 Well, meanwhile, Democrats across the country and in Congress are now talking about a government shutdown as a result of what just happened in Minneapolis.

00:41:59.000 Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who for some odd reason thinks he's going to run for president, put out a statement: Democrats cannot vote for a Department of Homeland Security budget that doesn't restrain the growing lawlessness of this agency.

00:42:10.000 Representative Famila Dryapol of Washington, one of the most radical members of the Democratic coterie, said, We can't just keep authorizing money for these illegal killers.

00:42:18.000 That's what they are, this rogue force.

00:42:20.000 Representative Delio Ramirez, another one of the radicals, said, Statements and letters are not enough.

00:42:24.000 The appropriations process and CR expiring January 31st is our opportunity.

00:42:30.000 Apparently, Representative Rocana of California says we need to arrest that ICE agent for an excessive use of power.

00:42:36.000 And we should be opposing the hundreds of billions of dollars going to a lawless agency.

00:42:40.000 So, Democrats are not going to cool this down.

00:42:42.000 They're going to up the ante.

00:42:44.000 Meanwhile, on a political level, I don't understand this, frankly.

00:42:47.000 I don't.

00:42:48.000 Regardless of whether you like the operations that President Trump has been having ICE carry out or not, the idea of defund ICE is basically defund the police for the border.

00:42:57.000 It's not going to be popular just on a raw political level.

00:42:59.000 It's unbelievably stupid.

00:43:00.000 But Democrats seem to be repeatedly taking stupid political positions in pursuit of credibility with their radical base, I suppose.

00:43:10.000 Roy Teixeira, who is not a Republican, he was a Democrat, and he has sort of turned to the moderate middle.

00:43:18.000 He has a piece over at the New York Times talking about the dangers for Democrats in winking and nodding at the kind of fraud that was going on in Minnesota, some of which is what prompted a lot of the federal crackdown in terms of law enforcement and ICE's use in Minnesota.

00:43:33.000 Techera says, before announcing that he would no longer seek re-election, Tim Walz admitted some fraud happened on his watch, but deflected, saying Republicans are appealing to racism and xenophobia.

00:43:43.000 Mr. Walls' departure indicates this is no more effective than Democrats' response to welfare fraud accusations in the Reagan era.

00:43:49.000 Americans detest people getting something for nothing, the very essence of fraud. 0.79

00:43:54.000 As the party that typically wants more and more generous social programs, Democrats have a special responsibility to ensure that these programs are clean as a whistle and reward only those who work hard and play by the rules.

00:44:04.000 The first response of Democrats to instances like Minnesota fraud findings should not be to criticize the other side for attacking them and wave the bloody shirt of racism against Trump, but rather to stress the seriousness of the problem and how it will not be tolerated.

00:44:17.000 Failing that, Democrats are likely to find themselves once again in a Republican fraud trap.

00:44:22.000 As more examples of fraud come to light, both in Minnesota and elsewhere, Democrats will find themselves continually backfooted by Republican accusations of negligence, if not outright complicity.

00:44:32.000 And he's right about all of this.

00:44:33.000 But again, it must be a play to, again, cater to the base.

00:44:37.000 Meanwhile, Minneapolis gets more and more radical.

00:44:40.000 According to Luke Roziak reporting for the Daily Wire, progressives on Minneapolis' city council used the council's first meeting of the year to install members of the Democratic Socialists of America as both the majority and minority leader, seemingly installing a one-party state designed to ice out representation for the council's moderate minority.

00:44:59.000 A woman named Aisha Chugtai will be the majority leader, saying her role would be to identify uncontroversial ideas the rest of the body largely agreed with.

00:45:07.000 The minority leader would be tasked with convincing everybody else to accept those controversial ideas.

00:45:12.000 So one-party state over in Minneapolis, more and more radicalism.

00:45:18.000 Insane.

00:45:19.000 Speaking of the fraud, Caroline Levitt over at the White House yesterday said all hands are on deck with regard to investigating and prosecuting fraud in Minnesota.

00:45:29.000 So with all of that, rest assured, this is an all-hands-on-deck effort from the entire administration to get to the bottom of this and ensure that the ripping off of taxpayers in the state of Minnesota, and it won't just be Minnesota, it'll be any state across this country where fraud has taken place and we are protecting law-abiding, taxpaying American citizens.

00:45:49.000 Again, this is a winning issue for Republicans, and it's amazing the Democrats have decided that just because Trump is doing a thing, they must now do the opposite.

00:45:56.000 Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who's up to his neck in a lot of this welfare fraud, he says this is just, it's all politics.

00:46:03.000 It's not serious.

00:46:05.000 One of the claims is that there has been hundreds of millions of dollars, but now there are some estimates that there could be $9 billion or more.

00:46:12.000 And Noam is just suggesting they took hundreds of people off the street who were involved in fraud.

00:46:18.000 Are you confident your office has done enough?

00:46:23.000 Of course we've done enough, and we're doing more every single day.

00:46:27.000 This is a political matter.

00:46:29.000 This is not a serious thing.

00:46:32.000 Oh, really?

00:46:33.000 It's not a serious thing?

00:46:34.000 Pretty incredible.

00:46:36.000 By the way, when we talk about how welfare fraud and immigration are linked, unfortunately, that is a reality.

00:46:42.000 When you have a lot of people who come into the country and they are dirt poor and they do not have any intention of assimilating, they end up disproportionately on government programs, on the government dime. 0.98

00:46:54.000 And if you have more people on the government dime, more of those people are likely to commit some form of fraud.

00:47:00.000 This is just sort of basic logic here.

00:47:03.000 Representative James Comer, he says 75% of the Somali population in the United States is on a form of welfare.

00:47:11.000 For four years under Joe Biden, they were trying to rush as many future Democrat voters into America as possible.

00:47:17.000 And with this particular community, the Somali community, it appears over 75%, 75%, Maria, of the Somali population in America is on full welfare benefits. 0.81

00:47:29.000 You know, the argument to letting people into the United States has always been, we need workers, we need workers. 0.99

00:47:35.000 For whatever reason, this particular community, which is a major flank in the Democrat Party, a major part of their Democrat banks, they are milking the system.

00:47:47.000 Okay, so again, that is going to be tied into politics, no doubt.

00:47:51.000 Meanwhile, Representative Brandon Gill of Texas questioned Minnesota officials in Congress yesterday, asking, why is it that so many Somali households are on welfare after 10 years of being in the country?

00:48:02.000 What percentage of Somali-headed households are on welfare in general?

00:48:05.000 I don't know.

00:48:06.000 It's 81%.

00:48:07.000 What about, let me just ask you, after 10 years of being in the United States, what percentage of Somali immigrant households continue to be on welfare?

00:48:16.000 I don't know.

00:48:18.000 The number is 78%.

00:48:20.000 So even after 10 years, 78% of Somali immigrant households continue to be on welfare.

00:48:28.000 Again, this is going to be, put aside the reality of the claim, which is true.

00:48:33.000 This is going to be a lucrative political issue for Republicans and Democrats taking the other side.

00:48:38.000 That's total political insanity, true political insanity.

00:48:41.000 And meanwhile, the Trump administration is trying to find some policy win with regard to affordability.

00:48:48.000 According to Politico, the White House is now drafting an executive order broadly targeted at addressing Americans' frustration with the cost of living, including a push to allow people to dip into their retirement and college savings account to afford down payments on homes.

00:49:00.000 The document, according to people familiar with the drafting, is expected to include an action previewed by President Trump on Wednesday that would move toward banning large investors from acquiring single-family homes.

00:49:11.000 Well, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said Senate Democrats tried to do this last year and Republicans blocked it.

00:49:17.000 Well, I mean, that's true.

00:49:19.000 It also happens not to be particularly good policy.

00:49:22.000 The attempt to stop corporations, major corporations from buying up single-family homes, it sounds fun and it sounds good and it will have literally zero impact on the cost of housing.

00:49:34.000 How do we know this?

00:49:35.000 Well, because we actually have evidence as to how many single-family homes are owned by gigantic corporations.

00:49:43.000 Some of it is rental stock, by the way.

00:49:46.000 So, you know, when you're asking, you know, a corporation buys a house and then flips it and then sells it again.

00:49:50.000 That's a different question from a corporation buys a home and then rents it.

00:49:53.000 If a corporation buys a home or creates a home and then rents it, that actually lowers the rents because it's increasing the supply of rental units.

00:50:01.000 As far as corporations buying houses and then reselling those same houses, typically this is done in areas with low regulation.

00:50:11.000 And it's typically done in areas where the price is already going up.

00:50:14.000 And it actually lowers the price because they then build new inventory.

00:50:19.000 So this is just bad policy.

00:50:21.000 The reality is that large institutional investors own about 2% of all single-family rental stock.

00:50:27.000 That's rental stock.

00:50:29.000 And again, when a giant corporation buys up a block of houses and converts them to rents, that just opened up a bunch of rental units, which lowers the price because you increase the supply.

00:50:41.000 Nearly all homes, nearly all homes generally are owned by people who are not institutional investors.

00:50:47.000 Most LLCs that buy homes are what you would call small businesses.

00:50:51.000 So somebody buying a second home or a guy on retirement who buys a second or third house to rent it out.

00:50:57.000 The areas where mega investors, places that own over 100 single-family homes or 1,000 single-family homes, have ramped up purchases, those generally include places like Atlanta, 11.4%, Memphis, 6.7%, Charlotte, 7%, Miami, 20%, Phoenix.

00:51:12.000 Every single one of those markets has seen either a flatlining or cooling in prices since 2023, the opposite of places like California or New York.

00:51:23.000 In fact, there is a paper that came out not all that long ago from a series of academics looking, this is the AEI Housing Center, looking at the impact of barring corporations from buying homes.

00:51:43.000 And what they conclude is the narrative that this is going to increase prices or create lack of inventory.

00:51:51.000 This narrative is not supported by empirical evidence.

00:51:53.000 The market share of institutional investors is less than 1% nationally, with 22 counties, 0.7% of counties, having a percentage as high as 5% to 10%.

00:52:03.000 Further, their emergence was not a cause, but rather a reaction to government regulatory failures.

00:52:08.000 Those failures include restrictions on home building that have resulted in a multi-million housing shortage, as well as the Federal Reserve's easy money and inflationary policies, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, that incentivized investors to ramp up home purchases.

00:52:22.000 The solution isn't to ban institutional investors, but to allow more housing to be built.

00:52:29.000 In fact, when you take a look again at the percentages, the vast, vast value, like nearly all people who own houses are families.

00:52:37.000 Very, very few institutional investors who are buying up gigantic blocks of housing.

00:52:44.000 As AEI says, it is true the nation faces a severe housing shortage, which we estimate to be around 6 million homes.

00:52:49.000 But this deficit is the result of decades of underbuilding, driven by restrictive land use and zoning regulations, discretionary approvals, and high regulatory costs.

00:52:57.000 For example, New York and particularly California have had home price to income ratios far above three, the level generally considered affordable for many decades.

00:53:05.000 Housing has been unaffordable in these states long before institutional investors entered the business after the great financial crisis.

00:53:13.000 Even if institutional investors were forced to sell all their holdings to the market, it would be a drop in the bucket given their small market share.

00:53:22.000 So, again, this is not going to result in the kind of actual lowering of prices that seems to be what the Trump administration is going for.

00:53:32.000 I understand that it's sort of a populist thing to do, but it's also a violation of basic property rights.

00:53:37.000 Meanwhile, the president of the United States has also apparently ordered a crackdown on defense industry stock buybacks.

00:53:44.000 He put out a statement on Truth Social saying he would limit executive pay to $5 million.

00:53:49.000 He said, quote, all U.S. defense contractors and the defense industry as a whole, beware.

00:53:54.000 While we make the best military equipment in the world, no other country is even close, defense contractors are currently issuing massive dividends to their shareholders and massive stock buybacks at the expense and detriment of investing in plants and equipment.

00:54:05.000 This situation will no longer be allowed or tolerated.

00:54:08.000 Okay, let's just be clear.

00:54:09.000 The reason that you do a stock buyback, typically speaking, is because you feel that your stock is undervalued on the open market.

00:54:14.000 So you take your available cash, you buy your stock up because you believe you're going to be able to reissue that stock later at a higher price.

00:54:22.000 That is why you do a stock buyback.

00:54:26.000 The notion that you should instead take that money and invest in equipment, the whole point is the market is not appreciating what you're doing.

00:54:33.000 And so when you go to stock buyback, you lower the amount of stock available.

00:54:36.000 That drives up the price of the stock.

00:54:37.000 You can then reissue the stock at a higher price and use that money to build the equipment, for example.

00:54:43.000 President Trump says also executive pay packages in the defense industry are exorbitant and unjustifiable given how slowly these companies are delivering vital equipment to our military and our allies.

00:54:53.000 Again, this sort of populist nonsense in which we say that executive pay packages are the real reason why businesses aren't running better.

00:55:00.000 I'd love to see one piece of empirical evidence for this.

00:55:04.000 Tyler Cowan has done excellent work pointing out that there is no correlation whatsoever between high pay packages for CEOs and inefficiency of the companies for which they work.

00:55:14.000 President Trump says defense companies are not producing our great military equipment rapidly enough and once produced, not maintaining it properly or quickly.

00:55:22.000 From this moment forward, these executives must build new and modern production plans, both for delivering and maintaining this important equipment and for building the latest models of future military equipment.

00:55:31.000 Until they do so, no executive should be allowed to make in excess of $5 million, which is a mere fraction of what they are making now.

00:55:37.000 Therefore, I will not permit dividends or stock buybacks for defense companies until such time as these problems are rectified.

00:55:44.000 Again, I'm not sure that there's no connection here.

00:55:46.000 There's no connection to stock buybacks, and we're not getting our military equipment fast enough.

00:55:51.000 Do an open bidding process and allow other companies to bid.

00:55:55.000 No more of the sort of crony capitalism that happens in the defense industry.

00:56:01.000 You want better defense contractors? 0.62

00:56:03.000 Well, they're ready to go.

00:56:04.000 I mean, there's a lot of money in that particular industry.

00:56:07.000 So this sort of command and control economics is typically not productive.

00:56:11.000 President Trump also put a statement announcing Raytheon has to step up.

00:56:16.000 He said, I've been informed by the Department of War that defense contractor Raytheon has been the least responsive to the needs of the Department of War, the slowest in increasing volume, and the most aggressive spending on their shareholders rather than the needs and demands of the U.S. military.

00:56:28.000 Well, I mean, if you have a contract with Raytheon and Raytheon breaks the contract, you should go over to Lockheed.

00:56:34.000 Raytheon seems to think this is the Biden administration, and this is business as usual.

00:56:38.000 It's not.

00:56:38.000 Either Raytheon steps up and starts investing in more upfront investments like plants or equipment, or they will no longer be doing business with the Department of War.

00:56:45.000 Okay, that is the actual proper solution.

00:56:47.000 Okay, like this idea that you're going to somehow be able to pressure them into building new factories by lowering CEO pay is silly.

00:56:58.000 If Raytheon's doing a bad job, then you should shift the manufacture over to other defense contractors.

00:57:06.000 I mean, that is typically the way that this is done.

00:57:09.000 On the other hand, on the good hand, President Trump says we do need to increase our military budget, which is true.

00:57:15.000 We do need complete military superiority over all of our potential enemies.

00:57:19.000 He says, after long and difficult negotiations with senators, congressmen, secretaries, and other political representatives, I've determined that for the good of our country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times, our military budget for the year 2027 should not be $1 trillion, but rather $1.5 trillion.

00:57:33.000 This will allow us to build the dream military we have long been entitled to, and more importantly, that will keep us safe and secure regardless of foe.

00:57:41.000 And then he talks about how the tariffs are wonderful.

00:57:44.000 That is irrelevant to the real question here, which is, should we be upgrading our military radically?

00:57:49.000 And the answer is yes.

00:57:50.000 Joe Biden did a terrible job of upgrading our military.

00:57:53.000 Barack Obama did a far worse job even than Joe Biden of upgrading our military.

00:57:57.000 We definitely need bigger stockpiles.

00:57:58.000 We need a better production line.

00:58:00.000 All of that is true.

00:58:02.000 And so, yes, as a percentage of GDP, actually, the military spending of the United States has gone down over the course of the last decade or so.

00:58:09.000 And President Trump is right about all of this.

00:58:12.000 Joining me on the line is Mary Margaret Olahan, Daily Wire, White House correspondent and the host of How to Take Out a Dictator in 88 Minutes, which is a journalism documentary that is now streaming at dailywire.com.

00:58:23.000 It is the full-scale investigation into exactly how the operation to extradite Nicolas Maduro went down.

00:58:29.000 Mary Margaret, thanks so much for taking the time.

00:58:30.000 Really appreciate it.

00:58:33.000 Thanks for having me, Ben.

00:58:34.000 Great to be here.

00:58:36.000 So it's a major project.

00:58:37.000 How was this initiated in the first place?

00:58:42.000 So this is a video we wanted to do because we really wanted to take a closer look at how Trump's unprecedented raid in Venezuela went down.

00:58:50.000 Obviously, this was a day when we all awoke.

00:58:52.000 I awoke early in the morning and found that this had all already happened while we were sleeping.

00:58:57.000 And so our Daily Wire team jumped on it.

00:58:58.000 We were reporting all day long on this.

00:59:01.000 But we wanted to take a closer look and show people really what happened.

00:59:04.000 And so, our Daily Wire graphics team did a phenomenal job showing people, giving them a close-up look of these images, these graphics, helping them understand how this went down, such as what was the president doing when this happened?

00:59:16.000 Where was he?

00:59:17.000 He was at Mar-a-Lago.

00:59:18.000 They were watching it, as the president said, as if it were a movie.

00:59:21.000 They were watching as our military took this action and as our Delta Force operatives literally blew through doors at Maduro's compound in Venezuela to capture the president of Venezuela and bring him and his wife back to the United States.

00:59:36.000 So, we used many different sources for this, spoke to U.S. officials, talked to all of our different sources here in Washington to understand the full picture of what happened in Venezuela that night and to understand the true might of the United States military and the history that goes into our posturing when it comes to the Western Hemisphere.

00:59:55.000 So, this is a video I'm really excited about.

00:59:57.000 I think that we're going to do many more videos like this, and we love showing our audience and the rest of the world exactly what's going on when it comes to the U.S. military and the might of the American public.

01:00:12.000 Mary Margaret, how long was this operation in development?

01:00:15.000 Because obviously, this didn't materialize overnight.

01:00:19.000 So, we purposely explained that in less than the time that it takes to watch the Lion King, this operation unfolded.

01:00:27.000 There was about 88 minutes between the time that they arrived at Maduro's compound and the time that they had got him out over the ocean.

01:00:34.000 So, this is truly a historic operation.

01:00:38.000 I believe it's the riskiest of its kind since we went and took out Osama bin Laden. 0.98

01:00:43.000 These are major, major moves, and I believe they took place on the same day, the same anniversary, a very significant date.

01:00:50.000 And so, we wanted to show how many things happen in such a short period of time.

01:00:57.000 That 88 minutes, I believe it's our own Michael Knowles who first pointed out that figure on social media, and it really exploded out there, helping people understand just all the different moving parts that go into such an operation.

01:01:09.000 The Delta Force needing to know exactly where they were going, training in this compound in Kentucky, the very same style of compound that they went to and ultimately kidnapped or captured Maduro from at the end of the day.

01:01:21.000 The training that the Night Stalkers went through, the operatives that carried Delta Force there and took them away, all these different moving parts.

01:01:29.000 It was incredibly, incredibly skilled mission.

01:01:32.000 And the president says that no other country in the world could have carried it out in the way that we did.

01:01:37.000 That is certainly true.

01:01:38.000 You can check out all the details on the operation in an unprecedented fashion by watching How to Take Out a Dictator in 88 Minutes.

01:01:44.000 It's now streaming at dailywire.com.

01:01:46.000 Mary Margaret, thanks for your hard work on it and really appreciate the time.

01:01:51.000 Thank you so much, Ben.

01:01:53.000 All righty, folks, the show continues for our members right now.

01:01:55.000 In a moment, we'll get to the latest in Venezuela.

01:01:57.000 There's still a lot happening.

01:01:58.000 Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member.

01:02:00.000 And if you're not a member, become a member.

01:02:01.000 Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

01:02:04.000 Click that link in the description and join us.

01:02:08.000 What was it like, Marlon, to be alone with God?

01:02:16.000 Is that who you think I was alone with?

01:02:22.000 Marlin, I knew your father.

01:02:25.000 I am yet convinced that he was not of this world.

01:02:30.000 All men know of the great Taliesi.

01:02:33.000 You are my father.

01:02:35.000 The gods should war for my soul.

01:02:38.000 Princess Garris, savior of our people.

01:02:43.000 I know what the bull got offered you.

01:02:46.000 I was offered the same.

01:02:48.000 And there is a new power at work in the world.

01:02:51.000 I've seen it.

01:02:54.000 A god who sacrifices what he loves for us.

01:02:56.000 We are each given only one life, singer.

01:02:59.000 No.

01:03:00.000 We're given another.

01:03:04.000 I learned of Yezu the Christ, and I have become his follower.

01:03:08.000 He's waiting on a miracle, and I think you can give him one.

01:03:12.000 Trust in Yezu. 0.87

01:03:13.000 He is the only hope for men like us.

01:03:16.000 Fate of Britain never rests in the hands of the Great Light.

01:03:19.000 Great Light, Great Darkness.

01:03:22.000 Such things mattered to me then.

01:03:24.000 What matters to you now, Mistress of Lies?

01:03:28.000 You, nephew, the sword of the High King.

01:03:37.000 How many lives must be lost before you accept the power you were born to wield?

01:03:44.000 So clinging to the promises of a god who has abandoned you.

01:03:48.000 I cannot take up that sword again.

01:03:50.000 You know what you must do.

01:03:54.000 Great light, forgive me.

The Ben Shapiro Show - January 08, 2026

CHAOS IN MINNEAPOLIS: ICE Officer Shoots Minneapolis Driver

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