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Alex Wagner: Hi everyone, it has been one week since an ICE agent killed Renée Nicole Good, a Minneapolis wife and mother who was blocking ICE officers with her car and was then shot in the face before an ICE Agent called her a fucking bitch. The entire episode was shocking, as was the response from the Trump administration.

[clip of Kristi Noem]: If you look at what the definition of domestic terrorism is, it completely fits the situation on the ground.

Alex Wagner: That is DHS Secretary Kristi Noem with CNN’s Jake Tapper. Noem used that term domestic terrorism the day the shooting happened and she has doubled down on it ever since. But that classification was just the tip of the iceberg. The Justice Department is now trying to investigate Good’s widow, Becky, for her potential ties to activist groups while it’s at the same time impeding efforts to investigate the officer who shot Renée Good. Six federal prosecutors in Minnesota have resigned in protest of the decision to characterize Good’s shooting as an assault on a federal officer, including the acting US attorney for the state of Minnesota, a man who was appointed by Trump just last year. But those folks seem to be in the minority. Conservatives have largely fallen in line behind Trump, saying that Good’s killing was justified and that Good deserved what happened to her.

[news clip]: I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it’s a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe against our law enforcement officers. / The fact is that Renée Good was interfering with police activity. / This is a woman who was in severe crisis. She lived a very sad and very chaotic life.

Alex Wagner: Polling from Data For Progress shows that 68% of Republicans believe that the ICE agent was justified in shooting Renée Good, which means that a not insignificant part of this country has watched Renée Good’s murder and is okay with it. And that begs the question. Are we living in parallel realities? I’m Alex Wagner, and this week on Runaway Country, how have seemingly lawless masked gunmen become the law itself? And what happens to the country now? How long until ICE identifies the, quote, “domestic terrorists,” not just in their family’s Hondas, but on social media, by their yard signs, and in their text messages? Is what’s happening in Minneapolis and Portland and elsewhere desensitizing us to the fact that we are increasingly living in a militarized state, where the enemy of the country is anyone who disagrees with President Trump.

[clip of Donald Trump]: I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroyed our country, by the way, totally destroying our country. The towns, the villages, they’re being inundated. But I don’t think they’re the problem in terms of election day. I think that the bigger problems are the people from within. We have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they are the big, and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by national guard or, if really necessary, by the military.

Alex Wagner: That was Trump talking to Fox’s Maria Bartiromo back in 2024, less than a month before he won the election. But he has kept it warm since then. Here he is in September, addressing U.S. Military leaders.

[clip of Donald Trump]: And I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, National Guard, but military.

Alex Wagner: This is brute force strongman shit at its most elemental. To better understand where we are headed here, I’m speaking with my friend Tim Miller, the bulwark’s boy wonder about what all this looks like from where he sits down in red state America. But before we get into that, I wanted to talk to someone who might offer some firsthand perspective on the other side of this. Someone who knows law enforcement from the inside as the former head of a big city police department. Police Chief Michel Moore was an officer with the LA Police Department for over four decades, and he led the department from 2018 to 2024. I wanted to talk to Michel to understand what he thinks of the situation, how law enforcement sees this playing out, how anyone could possibly look at these videos and see that action as justified, and what he makes of the government’s approach to the quote, “enemy from within.” Here’s our conversation. Let’s just start at the beginning, which is when you saw the videotape of Renée Goode being shot, what was your reaction?

Chief Michel Moore: Well, I think as all of us, we saw this terrible loss of life of a woman who was engaged in some type of action against ICE and against their enforcement and apparently held up some beliefs in opposition to what they were doing and then her actions of attempting to flee and an ICE official being, ICE officer being in front of that vehicle resulting in that deadly use of force. It was just, it was. It was heartbreaking to see it. It was worrisome in the sense of the tactics that she employed, the dangers that she presented to those officers and the community, and also the loss of life over such an engagement. And so, and then later to learn that, you know, circumstances like this, the officer who was involved in this had been involved in a similar incident.

Alex Wagner: Yeah.

Chief Michel Moore: Caused me even more concerns, not so much on the officer’s part, but on the part of ICE and their senior officials as to what they’re doing to protect their people, to give them the training and the guidance so that these type of volatile encounters are reduced and are minimized. You can’t eliminate it entirely.

Alex Wagner: When you talk about like what she was doing to escalate or make the situation dangerous, it seems to me like there are a number, if you dive into the sort of internet version of all this, there’s there are lot of these apprehensions or confrontations that happen when people are in their cars. Part of that is because we have this kind of unprecedented dragnet that is occurring on in American streets and cities all over the country. That’s sort of, it feels random, at least to those of us outside of ICE and the federal government, where agents are kind of just patrolling areas where they think undocumented migrants may live, and it all feels kind of haphazard. Given that, right, that the sort of randomness is almost built into this, like what protocols would you imagine should be in place on the ICE side? To, I guess mitigate the chaos, what feels like an incredibly chaotic situation by nature.

Chief Michel Moore: So, you know, those of us in law enforcement, our task is to anticipate and when we understand that we’re gonna be engaged in enforcement actions is to plan, ensure we have the proper tools, the proper resources, that we have contingencies. And our effort is obviously the reverence for life, the use of the minimal amount of use of force, if any. You know, for us, our responsibilities in local law enforcement and holding sacred the trust that’s been given to us and exercising. The authority that the public has given to law enforcement is to do so in a manner that is thoughtful, that recognizes and respects the constitutional rights of everyone, that finds ways of accomplishing a mission with the least amount of force, with the greatest protection for our own personnel, as well as those that we encounter and the community. The tactics that are being used here, as you said, they do appear to be randomized. They appear to a net, a sweep, rather than a planned and strategic manner that can be done in a much more thoughtful way.

Alex Wagner: You mentioned the phrase reverence for life, and I have to ask you, at the end of this video, we hear a ICE agent say, fucking bitch, pardon my language. Does that speak to you about a, does that signal a reverence for life? I mean, what was your thinking when you heard that?

Chief Michel Moore: Oh it can be being personally involved where someone has forced your hand and had you resort to a level of force or an action to protect yourself or someone else, it can cause a resentment and an angered response and a pushback of, you know, why did they make me do this? I can also understand that people may look at that as if he was already preset to be engaged in this violent encounter. There’s questions relative to his background where he was dragged by ISIS reports for 100 yards attempting a vehicle stop of some type and the trauma and the fear and the concern that he and his family and others had about whether he would survive that encounter. And now he’s months later in a similar situation and he resorts to what is the most important and critical decision that every officer prays that they never have to make which is a resort to the use of deadly force And it cause it can cause an anger or resentment. So it’s the reverence for human life, that reaction can be in part to the fact that how dare you make me do this. Why are you driving a car at me? I’m attempting to stop now one can be and one is critical of attempting a vehicle stop in that manner.

Alex Wagner: I mean, there are people that are just trying to videotape these ICE arrests that are getting punched in the face or dragged away by ICE. Now, that’s not violent protest.

Chief Michel Moore: And I’m not attempting to excuse that at all. In fact, that’s wrong. And we’ve seen this in local, I’ve seen it as a chief, where officers, their emotions get caught up. They lack either their own presence of mind or their supervision, where they act out. And they need to be held accountable for that. One of the key functions that we see in demonstrations and public protest is the need to rotate your people in and out. They’re human beings. And they can get frustrated, they can get fatigued, and they can have a short temper. These ICE officials, I mean, some of these individuals probably have been working day in, day out for countless hours and are running on empty. That, again, is not the public’s fault. And that, again is ICE and their DHS’s responsibility as senior executives is to recognize these behaviors and not to justify them or in justifying them by saying. Our people are tired, they’re scared, they’re resorting this because they’re worried about getting home.

Alex Wagner: Just from the citizen side, it doesn’t seem like there’s any interest in deescalating this. And calling, you know, you talk about how people can find themselves caught up with the zeal, which I would maybe characterize as a real, they’re appalled by what’s happening in their neighborhoods. They’re appaled by what happening to their community members. And they’re trying to save their country as they see it, right? And they’re being called domestic terrorists by the head of the Department of Homeland Security and, you know, by the President of the United States. And I just wonder, how’s that gonna [laughs] tone anything down? You know?

Chief Michel Moore: I don’t disagree with you, the rhetoric on both, if we take sides, is that this shouldn’t be binary. We’re a country of many opinions, ideas, thoughts, and it’s one that has welcomed debate and welcomed dialogue and disputes. As we have this grand experiment that has existed now in our 250th year, it’s never been smooth. But we do have people in very responsible positions today that I’m disappointed in. And this is on both sides. We’re adding fuel to the fire rather than identifying a strategy going forward that allows this public discord to occur. We need to – it’s almost pastoral. You want to take a moment and say we need to take deep breath, all of us, and find a way to not serve the rhetoric. And of course, in social media and in the flashing matters, we want the zinger.

Alex Wagner: Yeah, well, I mean, a woman was killed. A mother was killed, like, so I just, I’m with you on the, the sort of zingerfication of, of our, our national discourse, but the acting U.S. Attorney who was appointed by Donald Trump last year has resigned because the feds have decided, or his office is facing pressure to investigate Renée Good’s killing as an assault on a federal officer.

Chief Michel Moore: I will tell you that to me that is encouraging.

Alex Wagner: W-why?

Chief Michel Moore: Because it is showing resistance to what people believe is unjust.

Alex Wagner: Yeah.

Chief Michel Moore: And what I would worry, because take that same scenario. I, an acting U.S. Attorney appointed by President Trump, would acquiesce to this. But instead, he and others have opposed it, and opposed it in the strongest terms, by submitting their resignation. The public should look at that as signs of encouragement, not to press farther on the pedal, not to de- legitimize their resistance to this by using violence against police officers or ICE officers, but by continuing to demonstrate a resolve to hold principles.

Alex Wagner: I think that ICE would probably appreciate your equanimity in this conversation, but the reality is that the chief of police in Minnesota, local law enforcement all over the country, both on and off the record, has expressed their horror at what is happening here. And that, I think, is reflected in the choice of the federal investigators to cut out the Minnesota Police Department, or the local police in Minnesota on this investigation. How did that decision sit with you?

Chief Michel Moore: So let me, yeah, so let me respond to that. I know Chief O’Hara Bryan and I are friends. I’ve listened to many of his remarks. I’ve not heard him use the word horror. You have, perhaps, or perhaps you’ve characterized it as that. I join with him in the fact that the means of which ICE is going about their work is unnecessary and is in part responsible for the reactions that is happening. And I think there’s tactics that are being used that is prompting people. To act out. And as he said, and I agree, when you conduct vehicle stops in a manner which I’ve seen, where they’re just walking up on rushing, bum rushing cars and grabbing doors and opening and trying to drag people out of cars that are perhaps still engaged and in gear and so forth, there’s no good that’s going to come out of that. That’s just out of a thousand cycles. It’s going go bad. And it did in this instance and went very bad to the tragic loss of a life. I think that the uniqueness of this I’ve not heard in my time. In LAPD for years, for us to be boxed out of an investigation entirely. For the local district attorney, state’s attorney, to have no access is not the right path. It’s wrong. It’s only going to fuel conspiracy theorists and people. It’s going to solidify their position that whatever comes out of that report, well, That’s just them backing the presence. Initial remarks or DHS or anyone else that decided to jump in this and totally vindicate.

Alex Wagner: Do you worry, given the reporting we have about how quickly ICE agents are being recruited, the lack of background checks, just, are you worried about who’s actually making these arrests? Are you worried about the training?

Chief Michel Moore: I absolutely believe that what’s needed is cooler heads, wiser thoughts, decisions by leadership within ICE to change their tactics. They can achieve the removal, the identification and removal of those criminals that are in our country unlawfully. But the manner in which they’re doing it is creating this unnecessary harm. It’s undermining the public’s confidence and by extension, it’s undermining public’s in local law enforcement, it’s putting local law enforcement and ICE officials in peril. And they should change their course, period. A law enforcement official has, on their responsibility, regardless of tenure, they know the difference between right and wrong. And they know what their sworn duty is. And yet, we also know the human tendency is is that they’re also socialized by the culture of the agency and the time in which they’re working. So if you, or as that agency is growing by leaps and bounds, thousands and thousands of new agents, the rush to acquire those absolutely needs to be carefully watched. LAPD, when we’ve had a rush to hire in decades past, we’ve picked up some bad apples. We picked up a lot of good people, a lot solid, dedicated professionals, but we also had some people get through that should not have because of the rush. Similarly, once they come in and they’re training and the expectations, if the environment around them is very… It’s very conducive to just don’t worry about the rules, we’re just going to go out and do what we want to do. You undermine that culture of discipline, of professionalism, of reverence for life, and for their duty just to uphold your sworn duty. And so those are all concerns. We have them as law enforcement leaders, we have it as an American, and we’re not point of no return.

Alex Wagner: Former chief of the LAPD, Michel Moore. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I really appreciate your time, sir.

Chief Michel Moore: Thank you.

Alex Wagner: So that was a lot. When we come back, I will sift through all of this with the Bulwark’s Tim Miller.

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Alex Wagner: This is one of those moments, Tim.

Tim Miller: Yeah.

Alex Wagner: Where I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone. Like I don’t have a handle on this one at all.

Tim Miller: Just grasping for other people out there who are like, you are also touching ground with me, right?

Alex Wagner: Right. It’s like, are we on earth one or on the real earth one, earth two divide seems pretty concretized in this moment. Like I do not, I do know how you look at what unfolded in Minneapolis and you look at that video from all those different angles and you see anything other than a woman who is enraged by what’s happening in her community and like doing the best she can to stand up to that. And, and is like. I guess overwhelmed, there’s some scuffle. It doesn’t feel like she’s out there trying to murder ICE officers and then is shot by someone. Clearly there are people that genuinely believe Renée Good was a domestic terrorist and want these ICE crackdowns to continue.

Tim Miller: You just can’t tell me this guy was really in danger. Maybe he thought he was in danger because he wasn’t paying attention because he was distracted because he’s like moving his cell phone from his right hand to his left. Maybe thought he is in danger because he is triggered because he had been whatever run over dragged in a couple months before. Those are at least plausible things to say, right? Like in the moment he got confused and thought he’s in danger or he had PTSD and thought he was in danger. I don’t know if I buy those, but like that’s at least. You know, something that is a plausible explanation for this. The idea that he’s like, that he was aware of his circumstances, that he is acting in an appropriate manner, and that he genuinely thought he was in danger, and he genuinely that the response to that would be to shoot three times, including twice after the car had already been past him. And I just, I don’t know how the evidence gets you anywhere near that. I mean, I just wanted to add to it. Nobody ever brings up, I like to bring it up. It’s like, there were other agents there, right? Like if it was that dire of a situation, if we’re in that kind of crisis situation and you think they’d be worried for their colleague and they might have taken their weapon out or gone to draw their weapon or aimed it at the tire or whatever you’re supposed to do, you know. They didn’t do that, right? Because he wasn’t in danger. I think we’ve just seen the video. I say this tongue in cheek, but it’s, but I, just because it’s I feel like it’s very true. I’ve never been a cop. I’ve ever been a law enforcement agent. I’ve been a soldier, but I have been in a parking lot where people are trying to drive out and not paying attention and are looking at their phone. And I know what I you know we’ve all been in that situation somebody’s not paying attention you kind of jump out of the way of the car and maybe you know I’ve smacked the side of a car before but like pay attention bro like that’s you don’t take out your gun and fire three times you don’t murder somebody and like that’s the thing and and i just I just it pains me that people are like trying to find rationalizations for this especially after we saw the video of how she behaving before, and the whole thing is very, it’s, it’s You know, it’s it’s enraging. It’s sad. And like, ugh. You know.

Alex Wagner: I mean, I think to your broader point about like the vengeful spirit being part of us, I was listening to your excellent podcast with Sarah and JVL, the Next Level, where you guys were contemplating whether the country actually, part of the rationalization is because the country sort of wants authoritarianism.

Tim Miller: Or parts of it do.

Alex Wagner: They’re a party that it’s like, it’s desirous of this kind of sick relationship between citizenry and leader. And you guys were kind of tossing back and forth around like the idea of like, whether this is like the beginning of the end [laughs] and also whether we should expect more of this, right? Because Trump is in a weakened state and is a cornered animal and is going to be lashing out and doing ever more dangerous, reckless things. And in this situation has absolutely thrown kerosene on the fire by calling Renée Good, a domestic terrorist and kicking local police, you know, things are awry when like local police are becoming like are siding with activists.

Tim Miller: Right. Yeah, that’s what Mayor Frey was like when I—

Alex Wagner: Exactly.

Tim Miller: You know, he said that several times, like the cops here, which obviously after George Floyd, it’s a pretty tenuous relationship with the community. It’s now like the community’s looking to the local police, you’re like, guys, ladies, help us here.

Alex Wagner: Exactly.

Tim Miller: Tell it.

Alex Wagner: I just wonder, you know… This is the stunning behavior on the part of DHS and the administration to not only, not even like express sympathy, not even express like that sort of benign middle ground of like, let’s wait till all the facts are out, but to say, we’re gonna double down on this and to basically give a license to ICE agents across the country to continue to behave like this. It’s not a fucking surprise that two people are shot in Portland the very next day. And the sense of despair and hopelessness and rage that that fuels within people who are, find what’s happening here appalling and abhorrent and undemocratic and un-American, like it just feels like we’re in this insanely escalatory moment of American politics with a complete madman at the captain’s wheel.

Tim Miller: We, they want the escalation. So that’s the part. And so I’ll do the bad part first. And then I have one like kind of caveat that, that it’s going to take a lot of pain to get there—

Alex Wagner: Well, we can talk about Joe Rogan, maybe that that’s a—

Tim Miller: Yeah, it’s kind of that crowd, yeah, okay. So here’s the cat, but before we get to the cat. They want an escalation. The snuff videos that they’ve been putting out for a while show, I think we can say for 100% certainty not guessing, because they’ve basically said it, that they want people to self-deport. They want to scare immigrants. So that we know that. That’s part of their strategy. They want to scare and menace immigrants so that people leave on their own. I think they have not said this is clearly, but I think that we can infer with pretty high level of confidence that they want to protesters to escalate and they want confrontation so they can grab more power, right? Whether that’s a rationale for the insurrection act or for some other step short of that, that allows them to crack down more and consolidate their the power that they have politically but also the security state has. Um, I, I just, they’re, they’ve done nothing to make you think otherwise, right? That they’re not interested at all in deescalating or that whatever, like they’re not, like they want, they want to escalate because they want use that as pretext for continuing to, to expand their power grab. So, and then the other dark part of that, which you referenced at the beginning that we were talking about with Sarah and JVL on, on, The Bulwark was like, I do think some, there’s some percentage of the right that wants that. And we don’t know what the number is. I think JVL is the darkest of us. He was positing like 80% of the Trump voters want authoritarianism.

Alex Wagner: Yeah, 80% percent of the Trump voters. Maybe we clarify.

Tim Miller: Yeah, maybe it’s not that high. It’s a significant group. But I just, I think it is important enough for us to look at it clearly. I think this is a problem that is far greater on the right as far as people who really crave kind of, I want state power against my foes. I want other people punished. I’m going to side on the half of the jackbooted thugs. Um, but I, I think that that like the abuser mentality, there’s like a little bit of that everywhere. Like some of the left, I see this sometimes, people are very excited for crackdowns on MAGA folks, you can imagine I’ve been on some shows where people are already thirsting a little bit for getting back in power in 2029 and giving them back, you know?

Alex Wagner: Totally that says get get what you got like fuck off this you wanted to do this to us try the shoe on the other foot.

Tim Miller: Yeah, and so some of that’s rational, and they’re—

Alex Wagner: Well rational, but maybe not advised. Not advised, probably.

Tim Miller: Yeah, exactly, yeah. Prudent in the name of democracy. In some cases, not advised in others. Right, yeah, so I think that that is just, we do have to sit with that. And that’s tough, but to the Joe Rogan point, my caveat to that is like, America does have kind of like a don’t tread on me libertarian spirit that gets us in trouble sometimes. That I do think that there is a subset, and we’re seeing this in the data now, of Trump voters even who are like, nope, I actually meant the don’t tread on me on the flag. I didn’t mean tread on my daddy. [laughs] Like this was not like tread on like when I when I put that flag up I was full I that’s what I meant I didn’t mean no to go tread on my neighbor daddy um and so that’s a smaller contingent I think than we would have hoped we’re coming to realize but potentially a big enough contingent to cause them some political problems.

Alex Wagner: Okay, let’s play this Joe Rogan. This is Joe Rogan doing his Joe Rogan thing where he like makes the internet explode because he says something critical of Trump. So this is what he said yesterday.

[clip of Joe Rogan]: It’s also very ugly to watch someone shoot a U.S. Citizen, especially a woman, in the face where it’s like, I’m not that guy, I don’t know what he thought, and again, this is a guy who had almost been run over, but it just looked horrific to me. When people say it’s justifiable because the car hit him, it seemed like she was kind of turning the car away.

Alex Wagner: So Joe, this is not the first time Joe Rogan has dipped his toes into the immigration debate. He has come out and been critical of Trump’s immigration dragnets and said, like, they’re not arresting the worst of the worst. They’re arresting gardeners and construction workers. Does it matter? I mean, he didn’t it didn’t stop anything. I don’t feel like I mean I think it’s not a bad thing for the body politic that you have powerful voices like his coming out and being critical. But I just wonder how much stock we should put into this being the beginning of the tip of the spear of the resistance.

Tim Miller: Oh, I don’t know if it’s the tip of the street or the resistance. And you know, always you get into this sort of dialogue and it’s like, well, do we want to be allies with them? And he also said some bad things. And I think the first hour of that, I didn’t actually listen to this podcast, but we have a—

Alex Wagner: It’s long.

Tim Miller: I have a nerd, yeah, I’ve a nerd that, that does, that does 2X Joe Rogan.

Alex Wagner: Very dehumanizing.

Tim Miller: Yeah, that’s a dehumanizing job. Um, but, uh, and he’ll just like, kind of let me know what happened. So that when I’m talking about it, I’m not misrepresenting. And he’s like, the first hour of this podcast before Joe Rogan says some bad things about ICE, some things that we would find appealing, he, he does like a vaccine and I er [laughs] you know what I mean? He does like weird health talk for like an hour.

Alex Wagner: Yeah.

Tim Miller: Before, you know, that’s like pro-RFK, pro-Bobby talk. So, you know, we don’t, we, we don’t have to be saint him, but I do think there is a genuine discomfort among a lot of people that were a pretty fucking key demographic and that whether it was like the like the Obama Bernie Trump—

Alex Wagner: Mm hmm.

Tim Miller: Bro crowd who like really exists. Maybe we talk about them a little too much, but they like, they’re pretty meaningful in close elections and are pretty meaningful about the future of where the country’s going, you know, because they’re influencing a generation of younger guys who are all going to be out there running for office themselves. And I think that most of them, Theo Von, Rogan, Tim Dillon, that crowd. They don’t, they just aren’t into the whole like cops fucking with people thing. And like you played that, that clip where he was like talking directly about Minnesota, there’s a, another clip later where he’s talking about a guy that he relies on is like, this is such a Joe Rogan thing. He’s like a Mexican ex-military guy who he goes to for cartel information. Anyway, he’s like.

Alex Wagner: His source.

Tim Miller: I was talking to this guy who I usually go to for cartel, information to talk about how the Democrats are wimps about the cartels and how we should bomb Mexico or whatever. And he’s like, the guy was telling me this story about this, this 20 year old who got sent back to Mexico, who, you know, was was brought to America when he was one month old. And he didn’t do anything. He got, he got sucked up in a raid and Rogan is like genuinely mad about this. He’s like the guy he’s saying to Rand Paul, I think is the guest. He’s saying, this guy doesn’t even speak Spanish and we kicked him out of the country back to his own, back to this other country, doesn’t know what to do. This is bad.

Alex Wagner: Did he just find this out that this is happening?

Tim Miller: I know, but it’s genuine, I guess is my point. And so that means that there’s a wedge there, that there is something that can be worked with. Not that it’s going to be whatever, not that he’s going be great either, you know.

Alex Wagner: Right.

Tim Miller: Not that we want Joe Rogan to be the president next, but that, you, know, there’s genuine wedge there where people in Trump’s coalition are like, no, this is not what I’m signed up for.

Alex Wagner: More of my conversation with Tim right after this quick break.

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Alex Wagner: I also want to draw everybody’s attention to an incredible piece of reporting in Pro Publica, where they talk about the use of chokeholds that are banned, that are not allowed in DHS policy manual or use of force manual. And then there are all the instances of ICE agents, videos of ICE Agents using chokehold on citizens and non-citizens alike. And there’s this one story of a 16-year-old kid who’s an American citizen whose father is being chased by ICE, whose father runs into a restaurant supply store. The kids trying to videotape the whole thing gets thrown to the ground by ICE. And is in chokehold and you see these stills of him and there’s this kid on the ground presumably screaming, they’re still photos, he’s in a chokehold, it looks barbaric, this is a restaurant supply store and right on the corner of the frame, there’s a guy with like a rolly cart of like merchandise. And you see him through the series of photos, just kind of pushing the cart, Looking, looking, scans kind of like that looks fucked up. And I get it, like sometimes when something horrible is unfolding in front of you, you don’t know how to react. But I do think the Renée Good thing exists in a special space because it is a white woman who is in a suburban part of Minnesota and is driving a Honda and it should promote national outcry and outrage. But like there is really horrible violent shit happening to brown people in this country regularly and in circumstances that you can’t even like. You can’t even like look the other way, but people are like, whether they’re actually in the frame of the photograph or whether we as a collective sort of citizenry or just kind of like, I just worry that the brutality of all this is getting normalized in a way that really makes me worried about what the next two or three years look like. Right? Like, right. And, and, and the fact that like, people think this is all warranted because they didn’t come to the country. Well, what happens when they start coming after you because they don’t like the yard signs and they think that you’re not like, you know, Trump’s out there saying the enemy from within. And I don’t mean to sound like a paranoid tinfoil hack conspiracist, but I genuinely worry that the rhetoric has gotten so violent, the actual practices are so barbaric, so violent so public, and people are just rolling the merch cart through the Home Depot.

Tim Miller: People are definitely rolling the merch cart through the Home Depot out there. I guess I would say, just anecdotally, I feel like I’ve just heard from like some of my non-political people in my life have woken up a little bit the past week or two. Again, just, just what anecdotes. I think that maybe that’s changing. Does it take a white woman with, you know, stuffies in her passenger seat and, you know, to make that happen? Maybe. Does that say something deeper that we should talk about?

Alex Wagner: Sure.

Tim Miller: Like, I just, I was mocking them. Like the Joe Rogan thing, it’s funny that he’s like. The fact that the guy doesn’t speak Spanish. You know, it was like this key argument point about why it was bad that we deported him back to his home country. Where it’s kind of like—

Alex Wagner: He might belong here. He might be one of us.

Tim Miller: Yeah, it’s like if he spoke Spanish, would it have been worse or better? Like, why does that, why is that meaningful? But I noticed this, I know, I’ve been trying to do these compilation videos of the worst behaviors of ICE. And I just, I was just thinking about this yesterday. There was like one video is coming from two perspectives and like, in one of the video, the person yelling like has like a really thick accent. And I was thinking to myself, I’m like, ah, maybe if we use the other one, that will feel a little less, you know what I mean? And that’s a bad, that’s probably a wrong, I think it’s just real. Like it’s a, a bad inst- like it’s an instinct that I, I wish we didn’t have, but I think that it’s reality, people need to be persuaded. And so I, I don’t know. I mean, I think that at some level we’ve seen some persuasion, the ISIS approval is down a lot. Um, but in the meantime, you know, every time I say, you know, I’m sure you get this too. Like every time, I was like, well, there’s some good signs, they’re getting less popular. They’re being pushed back in the, you know, over, I get emails and stuff, response from people. And it’s like, but it’s still horrible and they’re still, they’re never, you know, gonna be elections again. And I’m like, yeah, yeah, it’s gonna be fucking bad. He got elected and he’s got three more years left. So I think that there’s an unimaginable amount of dark stuff coming. But I think we can analytically also say that like this campaign is.

Alex Wagner: Failing?

Tim Miller: Yeah. Well, I don’t know if it’s failing, but it’s showing, it’s presenting some opportunities for opponents, I guess, you now politically.

Alex Wagner: You know, I think the thing that disturbs me the most about this moment is it’s like after Trump won, I was like, oh, I guess we are a more racist country than I really realized. It’s not that I thought we were in a post-racial society. I’m not John fucking Roberts, right? But after Obama was like oh shit, this is a snapback. But now it’s something, it’s a completely different piece where I’m like, wait, wait a second. It’s not like Harvard professors were out there shooting anti-vaxxers. Do you know what I mean? Like it is not as if like I get it liberal elites out of touch the economy etc But the distilled hatred that we have seen in this moment. She was a lesbian. She was she’s a domestic terrorist She didn’t deserve like the I hate using this because I feel like it feeds into every stereotype of liberals, but the other rising of this person, right? The massage the dark misogyny. It’s like where the fuck did this come from? Where did this comes from? Like what did the left do to earn this? Over the course of the last two decades. Do you have a thesis? Like, was it just all Skip Gates? I mean, that’s what Ben Shapiro thinks, the beer summit that really made the right feel ostracized. It’s just that fucking Obama talking about race and, you know, giving the race speech, like that warranted this?

Tim Miller: No, well, and Ben Shapiro’s behind it did, apparently.

Alex Wagner: I guess.

Tim Miller: I think some of this stuff is dormant and just existing. And I feel like you have these conversations and people are complicated. People have various levels of kind of racist animus in themselves or hatred of other people. And it kind of, you can feed the parts of you that have hate or feed the part of you that wanna have grace, and that’s just, that’s human. So I think that Trump has fed a lot of people’s hatreds and so I think that’s part of it, you know, and I think that people have, it feels good to all of a sudden be like, oh wait, I can say what I really think about this right now. You know, I could make that comment that I was self-censoring and I was, and I’m blaming the libs that I self- censored. You know like the thing that I always say about all this is I was like, you could have said pussy and what was the two words you want to say pussy and retard? I was the guy that was complaining about that to the FTs. Like I could say it again. I’m like. You could have said it last year. I don’t, you know, nobody was stopping you.

Alex Wagner: This is all about pussy and retard, great.

Tim Miller: Yeah, there are no cops out there.

Alex Wagner: Mistakes have been made. What?

Tim Miller: So anyway, that was part of it. I do think that some of it though is, and I think this is, there are elements of this that are totally crazy and people need to get over it and there are other elements of it that are legit. But just like, I think people felt like the culture was getting away from them, right? And that like they were not, you know, and that like people besides them were getting awarded and honored. And this is just, this is a kind of stupid thing that comes to mind, but I just. Dang, I’m blanking out. I’m bad. I like I’m better actress names. This is a gay problem. This I should be better—

Alex Wagner: This is not a gay thing. Are you kidding? The gays love the actresses.

Tim Miller: I I know this is a gay weakness that I have.

Alex Wagner: Oh a gay weakness yes.

Tim Miller: I should be better at this the one from from One Battle After Another the Black one that just won—

Alex Wagner: Chase Infiniti? Teyana Taylor?

Tim Miller: Yeah. Teyana Taylor. Thank you. Teyana Taylor, uh, Teyana Taylor gives a speech yesterday and I saw like social media posts from one of the social MAGA guys. It was like, Oh great. The 400th Black woman to win an award. Congratulations. You’ve really won a, you’ve really broken the glass ceiling. You know what I mean? That kind of thing. But I think that that is what the feeling was is that like they’re, they don’t, they can’t get awards anymore because they don’t want to give them to like white guys, you know, whether that’s crazy—

Alex Wagner: Poor Timothee Chalamet. Can’t get fucking any acclaim. For playing fucking ping pong.

Tim Miller: Don’t you love Timothee Chalamet in it?

Alex Wagner: I love Timothee Chalamet, but I’m just saying, like, yeah.

Tim Miller: Yeah, white guys still do okay, Leo did fine.

Alex Wagner: Leo did okay. They’re all okay. Sean Penn is there smoking a fucking cigarette at the Golden Globes in the audience, like they’re okay. They get a pass.

Tim Miller: So yeah, I just I think that there’s like a combination of all that like loss of power, feeling like, you know, things are being taken away from them.

Alex Wagner: That isn’t going away though.

Tim Miller: No.

Alex Wagner: Part of the reason they were losing power is because they just weren’t competitive. Wake up and smell the fucking coffee. If you wanna fucking win, you gotta be good. And for the first time, we were looking at the playing field and we were like, oh yeah, actually, maybe the woman is maybe more qualified for this position here. Maybe the person of color actually deserves this job. And it was like, well, wait a fucking second. The system was rigged for me and we better re-rig it because otherwise I’m fucking mad and I’m gonna shoot everybody. None of that hostage-taking society shit works, I think, generally, as far as a democracy. But anyway.

Tim Miller: I think they feel like though, just being candid, I think they feel they have clawed it back. I mean, like, I don’t know. I think if you ask a lot of MAGA folks, like what have been the big successes of this Trump, they would talk about getting rid of DEI and the border. Like, that’s what they’d say. It’s not like, oh, my 401k is a lot better, or oh, we’ve advanced freedom or cut a lot red tape or whatever other, other traditional Republican things you could think of.

Alex Wagner: Yes, they’ve made it difficult to hire.

Tim Miller: Yeah. And we’ve shut down all of the influx of brown and black people coming from other countries. And I think that they would see those as successes.

Alex Wagner: Yes. And I think the sort of pernicious gains are those where it’s like, they’ve actually made it harder for people on only on quote unquote “merit,” who are people of color or women to get jobs before fear of the institution hiring them may be seen as engaging in affirmative action. I mean, like it’s so farkakte, but we, I have hope that there will be some kind of correction after all this, because again, I genuinely believe, crazy though it is, that women and people of color and whatever, people who have not traditionally been in like the C-suite actually deserve to be there on their own accord and we will move towards a more balanced and equitable society, Donald Trump be damned. Do you think, Tim, I asked this in a week. [overlapping chatter] Well, I just do. I mean, I have to as a woman who’s like half brown, like, yeah. I think it matters, and I will say my conversation with LAPD police chief, Michel Moore, not the film director for everybody who hasn’t listened to that part of this podcast yet, he does have criticism for ICE. And you interviewed the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, who really clearly expresses solidarity with the police department. The police department seems firmly rooted against ICE and federal overreach here. The state is suing the federal government for its involvement. I think the engagement of the police, in a way that they traditionally are not, in moments like this on the side of. Activists and people who are decrying ICE’s actions is meaningful for a movement that literally has bumper stickers about backing the blue, right? Like the blue don’t back what the fuck ICE is doing and everybody, like I think as much as Joe Rogan matters, I think the involvement of like police folks looking in this and saying this is, and not just Renée Good, but all of the ICE stuff is so chaotic. It’s so dissonant. It’s so transparently awful and it’s unfolding everywhere. In communities that are not used to this kind of stuff. I think that actually might be, maybe for me, I think, that’s an incredibly significant development.

Tim Miller: Yeah, I’ve heard from cops and retired cops and stuff that are like, we don’t wear masks. They’re mad about the masks too. I don’t wearing masks. Their whole rationale is like, oh, you have to wear a mask because you might get doxed. You don’t think that other cops in history have been doxed? You don’t think that bad guys, criminals in a community have tried to menace? Police officers or their families or people around them to try to intimidate them. It’s like, have you ever watched a fucking cop show or a documentary or like, what are, what do you talk, you know, so like regular cops to do, do the job, right? I think, do think you’re mad. Jacob Frey, you know, was positioning the Minneapolis police force as that. I’m not there. You know, I don’t know what the real feeling is of the five, six hundred police officers in Minneapolis.

Alex Wagner: Who are grossly outnumbered, vastly outnumber by ICE agents.

Tim Miller: Hopefully they are hopefully how Mayor Frey.

Alex Wagner: Characterized it.

Tim Miller: Characterized it is correct. Hopefully it is, but I’m glad he’s doing it that way because I agree with you. I just think it’s important, right? It’s important to broaden out as much as possible the opposition to this. And, and, you know, demonstrate this is not some like, not what they want to paint it at. Like they can, they can not gaslight the country into thinking like, this is like a bunch of anarchic progressives that want to burn everything down, you know, against people that want law and order. Like that’s not what, that’s those, that is a winning frame for the administration. Right?

Alex Wagner: It’s crazy to me that we’re talking about this. There’s even the presumption that this is an anarchic revolution being led by people like Jerome Powell, the Fed chair, Senator Mark Kelly, a military veteran, and a mom in Minneapolis in a Honda. This is not what anarchy looks like. This is what citizen led resistance to autocracy looks like. More from Tim in just a second. But first, the situation in Iran is escalating, and it is very, very alarming. Iranians have taken to the streets repeatedly over the past 17 years to protest the authoritarian government. But right now, the demonstrations are appearing to be the largest yet, and the regime is cracking down with brutal force. To understand how the country got there and what Trump is threatening to do in response, tune into Crooked’s foreign policy podcast, Pods Save the World. This week hosts Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes unpack the latest out of Iran, Venezuela, and the growing threats to Mexico and Cuba. Plus, they sit down with Jason Rezaian, an Iranian-American journalist who was wrongfully detained in Iran 10 years ago. Tune in to Pod Save the World wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube.

[AD BREAK]

Alex Wagner: I do want to get your thoughts on like the sort of resistance movement being led by the Fed chair, by being led, by someone like Mark Kelly, who is not a firebrand at all, who is like a consummate moderate and, and like sort of whether there’s a new playbook being developed, right? It’s Kelly’s launching a lawsuit, Jerome Powell, like goes to the internet and makes a statement and you just kind of how you’re thinking about those things in a week where it seems like. The ramp up to full blown dictatorship is inexorable.

Tim Miller: Yeah, I’ve kind of a broader thought about this. I’m in the home, you guys, I’m a real progressive resistance turf right now. Okay. It’s Crooked and stuff. So I’m speaking, I was speaking to the resistance. I have a broader kind of point about this, we can talk about this next if you want. But I think that a lot of people in this that are within the coalition arguing about what to do, like there’s feels like there is this, and maybe I can see this clearly as somebody who came as an outsider, but there’s this like vestigial war from like Bernie people versus Hillary people that is like still happening about like, well, the moderates don’t know how to fight or the progressives don’t, or the progressive are screwing us up with or whatever. And I just think that anybody who is stuck in that is, like, not seeing clearly what’s happening right now, because I think that, like across the ideological divide, you see examples of Democrats who, like understand what the moment is and how to push back against this. And across the idealogical divide, do you see ones that don’t. And like, I think just as some examples, like AOC is awesome about Minneapolis and her gaggles that she does in her own way, but she’s been very clear. You know, that’s one. Chris Murphy’s been very good. Like some random house members who might not hear of like Pat Ryan is like super good. And then, and then you mentioned like Jerome Powell and Mark Kelly, not like the vanguards of progressivism or, you know, not people that have probably been to a lot of protests in their life. And they are recognizing that this is an authoritarian power grab and that you’ve got to have backbone and stand up to it and speak clearly and not like mince words and I just and I think that’s good and and to me that’s how I kind of see the dynamics right now. There was my colleague Lauren Egan. Has like a newsletter that covers the Democrats called the opposition for The Bulwark and and and like within the senate caucus right now there’s like an internal debate about like whether these this next budget round to fight ICE or not and whether like this that’s an appropriate fight for them and like Chris Murphy mentioned is like one of the ones it’s like yeah like we can’t fund any we can vote for anything that funds this stuff. And there are Democrats across the ideological divide within the, it’s maybe a little bit more of a generational thing, but not entirely, who are kind of like, well, you know, we got to use the, we’re going to go through the right process and we’ve got to, and this isn’t the moment to do, you know? Like all these excuses.

Alex Wagner: It’s like they’re vis- Is it the vestigials tail? Like why we have tail bones is because we used to be lizards or whatever. [laughter] Right. It’s, like, the institution’s gone, dudes. The institution is gone. Protocol is gone, like you can just, you don’t need that tail. It’s not going to, it’s not gonna come back into use anytime soon.

Tim Miller: Yeah. So I don’t know. I just think that like, if you’re worried about protecting the institution of the senate, are you worried about focusing on focus group, you know, consultant talking points? Or if you are focused on like throwing spitballs, at, like, in the Ezra Klein versus populist left dispute. Yeah, it’s like, guys, like wake the fuck up. Stop. Like, none of that stuff is what matters right now. Like deal, find that, you know, do all that in 2029. So I just think that there are a few categories of people that cut across the resistance who are really demonstrating how to do it and then some who, like. I think they’re out to lunch on what we’re facing right now.

Alex Wagner: I did not think Jerome Powell was gonna be the one that was taken into—

Tim Miller: Me neither. It’s like, here we go. It’d be a fun little—

Alex Wagner: Or Mark Kelly was like, you’re going to fucking demote my military rank? I’m going to fuckin sue you. Bring it.

Tim Miller: It’d be a funny little graphic to have, like in those old magazines, like they did a cartoon where it’s like Jerome Powell, AOC [laughter] Chris Murphy, it’s doing it right, and then it’s like over here, that’s a weird grouping, but it is what it is.

Alex Wagner: Strange bedfellows, my friend. Well, I guess we’re ending on an up note.

Tim Miller: Okay.

Alex Wagner: Couldn’t we just say that this is like, I’m a level of optimism that the fight continues, that they’re advocates coming from, not all heroes wear capes. Is that what we say in this moment?

Tim Miller: Yeah.

The darkness that lies within us perhaps can be, I don’t know, go back to the shadows in 2029. I don’t know, I worry about it though.

Tim Miller: It’s a long way away. I know. Look, it’s gonna be ugly, but uh, but yeah, I mean Jerome Powell. You asked me if the if the ICE if they’re losing that battle over ICE or if they and I I don’t know that’s ongoing. But drone pal won.

Alex Wagner: Yeah.

Tim Miller: You know what I mean? Like they can be pushed back. They can they can be brushed back. It’s just—

Alex Wagner: Yeah, as long as you’re the chair of the fucking Fed with 11 other countries having their banking representatives saying this is fucked up and your own treasury secretary being like, don’t do this.

Tim Miller: Fair, fair, but like Tim Cook is, you know, has more cash on hand than any CEO of any company in the history of the world.

Alex Wagner: Yep.

Tim Miller: They, they didn’t have to, like, we’ll see Jeff Bezos has a moment right now, right before we started taping this thing, I guess they have gone into Washington Post reporters—

Alex Wagner: They’ve gone to a Washington Post reporter’s home and, and seized a raided the reporter’s house because she has contacts inside the government, federal, uh, workers who are sources for her. And that is reason for the Trump administration to violate the first amendment.

Tim Miller: So we’ll see what Jeff Bezos does. So yeah, I mean, look, I mean, yeah, as Jerome Powell has some cover, but, uh, a lot of other people that have motes around them are not doing the right thing. And so it’s good to see that we have some people who are and are getting some points on the board. I’m going to take that. That’s a positive.

Alex Wagner: We’re gonna take that we’re gonna be started at the bottom and we rose distinctly to the lower middle. So we’re going to go there. That’s we’re in this we’re, gonna press this the stop button on this podcast Tim Miller. It is a pleasure and an honor to have you with us on Runaway Country. Uh, I appreciate you, man

Tim Miller: Great to be here. I’m now a little nervous to listen to the full interview with the L.A. Police chief, Michel Moore, but I’m gonna do it, so I’m looking forward to it.

Alex Wagner: You should it’s not all bad much like this set of analysis. It’s it’s mid. [laughter]

Tim Miller: It’s not mid good low mid mid to low mid. I’ll see you girl. [laughs]

Alex Wagner: Thanks, Tim. That is our show for this week. As always, if you have been impacted directly by the Trump administration or its policies, send us an email or a one minute voice note at runawaycountry@crooked.com and we may be in touch to feature your story. A huge thank you to everyone who has written in already. Last but not least, don’t forget to check out our show and our rapid response videos on our YouTube channel, Runaway Country with Alex Wagner. Runaway Country is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Alyona Minkovski. Our producer is Emma Illick-Frank. Production support from Megan Larson and Lacy Roberts. The show is mixed and edited by Charlotte Landes. Ben Hethcoat is our video producer and Matt DeGroot is our head of production. Audio support comes from Kyle Seglin. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Adriene Hill is our Head of News and Politics. Katie Long is our Executive Producer of Development. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writer’s Guild of America East.