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Jane Coaston: It’s Friday, January 30th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show watching President Donald Trump tell Americans under 35 looking to buy a home sucks to suck, at his Thursday cabinet meeting. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Existing housing, people that own their homes, we’re going to keep them wealthy. We’re going keep those prices up. We’re not going to destroy the value of their homes so that somebody that didn’t work very hard can buy a home. 

Jane Coaston: By somebody that didn’t work very hard. He means you. And there’s more. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to driving housing prices up for people that own their homes. And they can be sure that’s what’s going to happen. 

Jane Coaston: The Affordability President. [music break] On today’s show, President Trump hopes for change, Iranian regime change, and activists are asking Americans to ice out the economy, work, and school today to protest ongoing immigration and customs enforcement operations. But let’s start with the Senate. Senate Democrats were ready to shut down the government tonight in order to get much needed reforms to ICE and Border Patrol, but they didn’t need to. On Thursday, according to the New York Times, Senate Democrats struck a deal with Republicans and the White House to pass five bills that would fund most of the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year. The Department of Homeland Security, however, will only be funded for two weeks while they negotiate some guardrails for ICE. The breakthrough came after the Senate failed to pass the massive spending package with all six bills on Thursday. Every Senate Democrat and eight Senate Republicans voted against it. And though those Republican votes might be surprising, the Democratic votes shouldn’t be after this video, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer posted on Twitter Tuesday. 

[clip of Chuck Schumer] Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller are fucking liars. Any administration that allows them to continue in office is rotten to its core. 

Jane Coaston: On the one hand, Chuck Schumer’s swearing is a little cringe. On the other hand, Chuck Schumer is completely correct. As we mentioned on yesterday’s show, Senate Democrats have specific demands for DHS agents. And now, as President Trump’s poll numbers decline and more and more Americans believe ICE is going way too far, the administration is seemingly on board with making some changes. Huh. So what happens now? I spoke with Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine on Thursday just before Senate Democrats announced their deal. We discussed the reforms they’re demanding and whether or not Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should be put out to pasture. Senator Kaine, welcome to What a Day! 

Tim Kaine: Hey Jane, glad to be with you. 

Jane Coaston: Tell me, in your words, what are Democrats fighting for right now? 

Tim Kaine: We’re fighting for massive reforms to the abuses within DHS agencies, especially ICE and CBP. We believe that the appropriators have negotiated solid funding deals for other areas of government, Pentagon, education, healthcare, et cetera. And so we’ve demanded that our Republican colleagues split those bills away from the Homeland Security bills, let us pass them, and then enter into a sort of high stakes, high pressure and prompt negotiation about reforms within DHS to curb the serious abuses we’re seeing all over the country. 

Jane Coaston: Specifically, Senator Schumer said, masks off, body cameras on, stop warrantless searches and arrests, and adopt a universal code of conduct for use of force. Do you think that’s enough to stop the kinds of abuses we’ve seen in Minneapolis and Los Angeles and elsewhere? 

Tim Kaine: Jane, the way I understand it is that there’s sort of three big pillars and within each pillar there’s multiple pieces. So the masks off, body cameras on, that incorporates a bill that I have about no masks. It’s got some other provisions. There’s a general accountability pillar that says, hey, look, why should federal law enforcement agents be subject to fewer standards with respect to training, accountability, being placed on leave if they’re involved in an officer shooting. Let’s do a bunch of stuff in that space to even out the accountability for these rogue operations. But then the one that I’m most interested in is sort of this, just the stop the roving patrols. And that would be no entry of homes without judicial warrants. It would be, no immigration enforcement activities that are not coordinated with state or local law enforcement. On that one, you know, I was a mayor and had a police force, governor of Virginia State Police. The last thing you want is folks showing up who you don’t really know who they are. They haven’t told you what they’re doing and they’re coming in and doing law enforcement activities without coordinating them with you or getting your approval. I think a number of these abuses would be dramatically reduced if there was a requirement that they had to be done with the approval of and in coordination with local and state law enforcement. 

Jane Coaston: How is the White House reacting to these demands? 

Tim Kaine: Jane, it’s interesting, you know, obviously they’re lying, they’re doing things that are awful. Um. They immediately jump to trashing anybody who peacefully protests, lying about people when they’re getting shot in the back. And that was their MO, but they see it turning on them. The American public is furious about this. And this is the picture that is going around the world, not about who Donald Trump’s America is, but who America is. And that is really, really causing some serious angst in the White House and among Republicans here on the Hill. So they were pretty much stonewalling us a few days ago. We’re not gonna do these reforms. Even within the last 24 hours, we see there’s a change. They’re agreeing, as of right now, to splitting off the five bills that don’t deal with DHS and letting them go forward, and Democrats worked well on the negotiations and feel good about the bills, and they agree that reforms need to be made. And I think we’ll know within a week how serious the White House is. It does seem that they’re serious in wanting to get into this discussion. They know they need to. Will they go far enough? We don’t know. We need to press and make sure that they do. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, I think it’s pretty telling that you went from Vice President J.D. Vance saying that ICE officers had quote, absolute immunity to suddenly like, oh, we’re happy to work with you on this issue. And you can see that. 

Tim Kaine: Yup. 

Jane Coaston: Fox News had a poll saying that 59% of voters think ICE is too aggressive, up 10% since July. What do you think this tells us about the kind of back and forth we’ve been having on this issue, and especially with regard to DHS? 

Tim Kaine: I think the American public was worried about immigration and especially unlawful immigration and people who are unlawfully committing crimes, and they kind of had in their mind the right way to do that is border security. I don’t think they ever envisioned these roving patrols, hassling people, asking for their papers, prove you are a U.S. Citizen. This internal enforcement of the country is not about border control and it’s not even about violent criminals. It’s just hassling people with Brown or Black skin or who speak with an accent, and people are seeing it. And they’re seeing it in Virginia, where one out of eight or nine Virginians is an immigrant. And a lot of people know folks who are getting hassled who are American citizens, who are lawful permanent residents. We’re seeing immigrant communities feeling so terrorized that they don’t want to come out to church events, they’re worried about coming to their daycare center. And this is happening in communities before ICE and CBP show up, this broad climate of fear. A lot of Americans are saying, wait a minute, we were worried about the border, we wanted a secure border. This is not what we wanted. 

Jane Coaston: You’ve gotten some Republican support for blocking this package. And I think your colleague, Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul has been the most boisterous on this issue, especially on the issue of an American citizen with a legal gun permit being shot in the back. Have you had any private conversations with your Republican colleagues about federal agents’ actions? Are they also concerned? 

Tim Kaine: Yeah, Jane, they are. Um. Rand has been publicly outspoken. Others like Thom Tillis, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, John Kennedy, who might not be the one you would normally think would speak on this, he’s spoken to some degree, saying, hey, look, we got to we got to rein this in. Um. And then I’ve also had private discussions with others. There are others who are part of the Appropriations Committee working on these bills who acknowledge there’s a need to do something. Now, again, something could be something entirely insufficient, or it could be something meaningful. And what we have to do as Democrats, but more than as Democrats, just, you know, patriotic Americans who believe this nation is a nation of immigrants, and that’s always been a strength of our nation, we got to make sure that enforcement against illegal immigration needs to be done right. So we have to produce a package of reforms that will curb these abuses that will restrain um rogue actions, and then put that before the public. And if we think it’s sufficient, the burden’s on us to explain why. But if it’s not sufficient, I’m going to be a no, and I suspect most of my Democratic colleagues will be as well. 

Jane Coaston: We’ve heard from border czar, Tom Homan, that the administration plans to pull some agents from Minneapolis. Agents have also been told not to engage with agitators, according to Reuters. Do you think this is a real sign that Trump is retreating in Minnesota? I mean, we’re also seeing that Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth is sending in–

Tim Kaine: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: –more of a military installation. What’s your interpretation of what’s happening in Minnesota. 

Tim Kaine: I see no evidence yet that I think would convince me that the administration is going to do the right thing unless they’re forced to. And when I say forced to, we’re not going to accept a promise. We’re not gonna accept an administrative action. We’re gonna accept Kristi Noem’s head on a platter. We’re not going to accept, you know, withdrawal of troops from Minnesota as good faith because as soon as we accept it, they’ll put the troops in Milwaukee. They’d put in Steve Miller as the DHS guy rather than Kristi Noem. There’s nothing the administration can do that is gonna earn trust at this point. We have to have legislative language that is passed as a law, that is signed by the president. And frankly, even then, we think the president’s team will probably violate the law, but if we write it tightly enough, we will see what is happening in courts all over this country, which is the courts will rebuff the Trump actions that are illegal when they try to break the laws. 

Jane Coaston: You mentioned Kristi Noem, head of the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats are calling for her impeachment. Some Republicans even want her to resign. She’s not very popular. 

Tim Kaine: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: Right now for understandable reasons. 

Tim Kaine: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: Would you support impeaching her? 

Tim Kaine: Um. Look, if the House sends us and it starts there, that would be a relatively easy vote for me. I would not vote for her. Look, the administration, if they just want to think about their own standing with the American public, and frankly, their standing around the world, they’d do themselves a huge favor by ditching her, and Steve Miller for that matter. I don’t know that they will because Donald Trump likes sycophants who are just you know blindly loyal to him. But they’d do themselves a favor if they’d get rid of them. But we do we would have to say that wouldn’t be sufficient. You know Donald Trump sometimes doesn’t mind firing people, but if you fire somebody and put somebody as bad or worse in, that’s not really a reform. And that’s why we’ve got to see these reforms made as statutory actions that can be enforced in court. 

Jane Coaston: It seems to me that Trump and Republicans have rarely been willing to compromise with Democrats because so much of this is about performance. Like they want to perform–

Tim Kaine: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: Being strong and being very masculine or something. Are you concerned that that element here is going to make shutdowns more frequent? 

Tim Kaine: Well, I do think that that is a dynamic. That’s certainly a dynamic that you got to take into account with President Trump. He doesn’t like to look weak. He thinks backing down looks weak. At the same time, I’ll give President Trump this. I think he has his fine-tuned sensitivities as anybody on the planet is, wait, this isn’t helping me. This is hurting me. And because he doesn’t have many core principles, I mean, I think he can turn anything on a dime if he thinks he’s being hurt. He’s sensitive to his polling. He’s sensitive to the stock market and other economic indicators. When he suggested he was going to impose seized Greenland tariffs on nations that weren’t helping him seize Greenland and the market reacted negatively, he caved in a minute. So he’ll cave if he feels like something is hurting him. And then he’ll claim victory and or create a distraction and move it on to the next issue. The American public’s outrage about these immigration actions isn’t going away, Jane. I mean they haven’t been as intense in Virginia, but you know last week, we were on a recess week, so I was traveling around the state. People in my state are outraged by this. People are outraaged about it. Independents, Democrats, and increasing numbers of Republicans. Donald Trump understands that, and that’s the reason why they’ve switched positions so dramatically in the last 72 hours to suggest that they do want to negotiate so they can find a ladder to get off the ledge that they’re on. 

Jane Coaston: Americans, as you’ve mentioned, have been enraged by the Trump administration’s actions in Minnesota, and there’s a massive national strike planned for today. What is your message to Americans who want their voices heard? 

Tim Kaine: Do just what you’re doing, you know, do it peacefully, but do it because it’s interesting, Jane, you know 250 years of American democracy and we got to turn 2026 into a celebration, not a wake or a requiem. Our founders got an awful lot wrong. You know, I’m often looking at the Constitution at the things I like and at the thing I like I can’t believe they did this, but one of the things they got right is in the First Amendment. To guarantee right to people to peacefully assemble and petition government for redress of grievances, it showed that they didn’t think elections were enough. I mean, if elections were enough to preserve a democracy, you wouldn’t have had to guarantee that right. They knew elections weren’t enough and that people would have to be able to petition government for redresser grievances to have a functioning democracy. So I tell people all the time, get involved in elections close to you. And then also you know, pick the thing that you care about the most that Donald Trump is screwing up, and there is a group that’s working on that. If it’s civil liberties groups like the ACLU, if it’s the environment, groups like, you know, the NRDC, Sierra Club, LCV, you name it, reproductive rights, we could go down the list. You can feel disempowered because there’s so many issues and so many things that Trump’s doing that make you crazy, but focus on you know the races closest to you. And the cause closest to your heart. And there’s plenty that everybody can do. 

Jane Coaston: Senator Kaine, thank you so much for joining me. 

Tim Kaine: Jane, glad to be with you today. Take care. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine. More news is coming, but in the meantime, if you like the show, subscribe, leave a five-star review on Spotify and Apple podcasts, watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of Representative Ilhan Omar] The president’s rhetoric, the attacks from him since I’ve gotten into public office from the right wing has always been really to stop me from being in public service, to intimidate me, to make me want to quit, and my only message is it hasn’t worked thus far and it’s not going to work in the future. 

Jane Coaston: Minnesota Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar spoke out this week after she was attacked by a man who sprayed her with a foul-smelling liquid. Turns out it was a mixture of apple cider vinegar and water. Why did this happen, you wonder? Maybe it has to do with Trump talking about her constantly. Threats against members of Congress and the Capitol surged again in 2025. U.S. Capitol Police investigated nearly 15,000 concerning statements and behaviors. That’s an increase of 5,000 over the year before, and the third straight annual increase. The threats range from social media posts to direct targeting of lawmakers and their families. Capital police say they’re expanding partnerships and intelligence operations while urging leaders across parties to tone down violent political rhetoric, which is tough news for Donald Trump, who loves violent political rhetoric. For example, he accused Omar of staging the attack, but the Justice Department has filed federal charges against the man accused of attacking the representative, which, knowing this DOJ is actually somehow surprising, but also reassuring, I guess? Court documents say a close associate told investigators the suspect previously said someone, quote, “should kill the Minnesota Democrat.” ICE has ceased its enhanced operations in the state of Maine, according to Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins. Big emphasis on, according to Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins. Collins noted in a statement Thursday that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told her ICE’s enhanced activities there were over. Not the most trustworthy of sources, but big if true. Collins spoke with Maine’s WVOM radio Thursday about the update. 

[clip of Senator Susan Collins] I do want to assure everyone that the normal operations that ICE and Border Patrol do, which are important to public safety, will continue, but not this enhanced sweep, which was far too indiscriminate. 

Jane Coaston: Oh, Collins’s announcement comes after ICE launched an operation in the state it dubbed Catch of the Day. The agency said it arrested more than 200 people across Maine in less than a week. Sue, is that a win? President Trump is weighing options against Iran, including targeted strikes on security forces and leaders to, get this, inspire protesters, according to a new report by Reuters. Sources told Reuters that Trump wants to create conditions for, quote, “regime change” following a crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran earlier this month. The human rights activist news agency says at least 6,400 people have been killed in the conflict. And Trump wants them to get back out there because he will definitely do something this time. In response, the European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said Thursday the bloc agreed to list Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. Here’s Kallas talking to reporters ahead of that decision on Thursday. 

[clip of Kaja Kallas] This will put them on the same footing with Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Daesh. If you act as a terrorist, you should also be treated as a terrorist.

Jane Coaston: This all comes as a U.S. Aircraft carrier and three accompanying warships arrived in the Middle East earlier this week. U. S. Central Command said on social media Monday the carrier is there quote, “to promote regional security and stability.” Sure. As tensions involving federal immigration enforcement continue to ramp up, Americans are not backing down. Activists are organizing a national shutdown today in protest of ongoing ICE operations because enough is enough! Today’s strike comes on the heels of last week’s demonstrations in Minneapolis, where thousands of people rallied against federal immigration enforcement in the state. The national shutdown organizers wrote online, quote, “the people of the Twin Cities have shown the way for the whole country. To stop ICE’s reign of terror, we need to shut it down.” They’re encouraging people across the country to join a day of no school, no work, and no shopping. If you wanna get involved, there are plenty of Ice Out of Everywhere protests nationwide this weekend. And that’s the news. That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, make Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tell us his favorite Nicki Minaj songs, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how at Thursday’s cabinet meeting, Bessent, who has pretended to be both an ordinary farmer and a person who has attended a protest, stretched the bounds of believability too far. 

[clip of Scott Bessent] Mr. President, it was an honor to host you, and as you said, the best rapper in the world, Nicki Minaj, at yesterday’s Trump Accounts Summit. 

Jane Coaston: Like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston, and really, Scott Bessent, are you a mixtape Nicki guy? You with the barbs? Which track is your favorite? Is this all hinging on her lines in Monster? [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Emily Fohr and Chris Allport. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Ethan Oberman, Greg Walters, and Matt Berg. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdock and Jordan Cantor. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]