Weekly Wrap | Mourning in Minneapolis, ICE Escalation & Journalists Under Attack

Welcome to another edition of the Weekly Wrap, Lincoln Square’s newsletter meant to catch you up on everything you might have missed during the week.

The Execution in Minneapolis: The Mourning After | Michaelangelo Signorile & Joe Sudbay Join Susan J. Demas

The country is still reeling from the shooting death of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. It was another life cut short as ICE has terrorized the American people. SiriusXM hosts Joe Sudbay and Michelangelo Signorile joined Lincoln Square Executive Editor Susan J. Demas to discuss the tragedy.

Susan J. Demas: I’m sure you’ve seen the statement of his (Alex Pretti) parents. I really admire that they were able to put this out, because if I was dealing with the loss of my child, I don’t think that I could be this composed. I thought it was utterly haunting that they were asking for their son to be remembered and not smeared, and that they had to put forth this statement because they’ve seen the playbook of Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem.

How do you expect things to be playing out over the next couple days?

Joe Sudbay: The community continues to show up. The community in Minneapolis and also around the country. There were thousands of people protesting in D.C. yesterday. [...] There’s two things you see from the Trump liars. One is, they’re lying about Alex. We see in the video they are lying. And I think one thing that’s a little different this time is the media is actually saying they’re lying. They’re basically calling out the lies.

The other thing is how convinced the right is that people who show up are paid protesters or this is some massive organizing effort. This is real. People really have feelings, and very strong feelings, about this. People do not like seeing their neighbors being terrorized. People do not like seeing their neighbors being killed.

See more of the discussion here.

State AGs Must Prosecute Stephen Miller & Kristi Noem | Stuart Stevens LIVE

A death squad. The modern Gestapo. Trump’s private police force. They’re all fitting names for what ICE and Border Patrol have become in Trump’s second term, and two of the main people responsible are Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem. Stuart Stevens went live to discuss why state attorneys general should prosecute them both.

Stuart Stevens: What Democrats need to do is show outrage and show that we will not accept a violation of law in America. Organized death squads that are being directed by Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem. These individuals need to be tried.

There’s not a state in the country in which it is legal to kidnap, human traffic, and murder. Which is what ICE is doing. A federal pardon is not going to get Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem out of jeopardy. There needs to be a coalition of state attorneys general, similar to the kind of coalition that came together and brought the great tobacco tort that finally got a huge settlement.

They need to decide where they’re going to prosecute, who’s going to prosecute them, and they need to get about the business of prosecuting. They need to start arresting these people. There’s no reason Stephen Miller can’t be arrested. This attorney general of a state issues a warrant for him – he goes to a grand jury, presents his evidence. There’s no reason Kristi Noem can’t be arrested.

This idea that JD Vance says they have total immunity? One of the tragedies here is that 99.9%, whatever the number is, of law enforcement in this country shows great professionalism, great restraint. When you get a bunch of masked thugs with dubious backgrounds and say that they can just go out and shoot civilians? No. Law enforcement goes to prison all the time in America. This isn’t a new thing. They are responsible and there’s a lot of former law enforcement officers sitting in prison right now because they violated the law.

See more of the discussion here.

Trump Wants Your Gun | The Strategy Session with Rick Wilson, Joe Trippi, & Ryan Wiggins

The day that Greg Bovino was allowed to leave Minneapolis and head back to California for retirement, an ICE officer told a bystander, “If you raise your voice, I’ll erase your voice.” Personnel changes don’t end the problem inside this corrupt institution. Rick Wilson and Joe Trippi were joined by Ryan Wiggins for this episode of The Strategy Session.

Rick Wilson: I made this list the other day that Trump had so far gone after the first, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the tenth, and the fourteenth amendments. I did not have them adding the second amendment as a target on my bingo card for this week’s apocalypse. But, I will be shocked if they don’t try to force Minnesotans to quarter troops from ICE in their homes to violate the Third Amendment.

[...]

These are people who are out of control. They just roll by people and pepper spray them. People who are not threatening them. Guys, if they’ll pepper spray you from the truck rolling by, if they’ll shoot you in the back eight times because you tried to save a woman they were kicking the shit out of, if they’ll shoot you because your wife sassed them while she was turning her car around in the street?

I wrote a piece this week about this, and it’s one of those things I don’t want to be right about. But, I believe we will eventually get an ICE mass casualty event where something will happen and they will open fire on civilians and they’ll kill more than one or two. They’ll go from killing us retail to killing us wholesale.

See more of the discussion here.

Inside ICE Watch with ‘Minnesota Guy’ Will Stancil

From the front lines of an attempted tyrannical takeover of Minneapolis, Will Stancil has been documenting ICE’s operations. He’s a lawyer and a policy analyst who is walking the walk to defend his city and he sat down with Susan J. Demas to discuss.

Susan J. Demas: Talk to us about how you came to the point where you decided, “This is something that I need to do. This is the way I feel I can help my community the best.”

Will Stancil: The day after Renee Good was shot, someone I know in the community sent me a link to one of the rapid response channels from my area. There are many, many rapid response channels. I want to be clear that I’m just doing what many other people are doing. I’m not leading this in any way. I’m just doing what thousands of my neighbors are doing.

Basically, someone reported some ICE vehicles near me, so I went to see them. It was a relatively violent deployment. They got out of the car, they shoved some people around. There was no police on site. Some local political leaders happened to be passing by, and they’re standing up front just looking helpless.

I think at that moment, I thought I needed to see what these guys are up to in my city. And after spending probably a day following, reporting, or responding to reported ICE sightings – what I started to see is that this works. They hate being followed. They hate being observed. And if you get behind them and you follow them or find them, they will often leave.

See more of the discussion here.

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Congresswoman Says ‘Hell No’ on ICE Funding & Kristi Noem ‘Must Go’ | Rep. Becca Balint Joins Susan J. Demas

Congresswoman Becca Balint (D-VT) joined Susan J. Demas to discuss the breaking news that Don Lemon was arrested for his work as a journalist during protests in Minneapolis. First amendment rights are under attack while ICE seeks more funding.

Susan J. Demas: We all woke up to the news that federal authorities have arrested Don Lemon, a long time journalist, for ICE protests and they are using the Ku Klux Klan Act. Meanwhile, no one has been arrested for the murders of Alex Pretti or Renee Good at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis.

What is your reaction to all of this, Congresswoman?

Rep. Becca Balint: I have many. First is, what is one of the clear dots that connect so many of these people being targeted by this administration. So many of them are people of color in this country and we saw it with members of Congress. We saw it with the president, how he goes after Rep. Omar, certainly after LaMonica MacGyver when she was trying to conduct oversight of an ICE facility.

He has shown us his racism over and over and over again. This is another example of that. Don Lemon was there as a member of the press. More and more, we need independent members of the press to be reporting.

It is absolutely chilling that they are not just going after our First Amendment rights, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech – going after our second and fourth amendments – but now, directly targeting the press. They believe that they will never be held to account. And it is so critically important that members of the press push back on this administration whenever they are in the room with him. This can’t stand. We can’t just go on and say ‘this is just how it is living in America today’. This doesn’t happen in free societies, having Don Lemon taken into federal custody.

See more of the discussion here.

MAGA Influencers Crash Out as Americans Condemn ICE | The Tim & April Show

The whataboutism from MAGA influencers over immigration enforcement and the right to bear arms hit a threshold after events in Minneapolis unfolded. Tim Whitaker & April Ajoy of The Tim & April Show discussed the meltdown in the MAGAverse.

April Ajoy: Even the NRA came out on Twitter and was like, “actually, people do have a right to bear arms and that’s a pretty dangerous precedent to set.” But they also blamed the escalating violence on Democrats and kind of downplayed what happened to Alex initially. Then they finally came out and said – and it’s wild to watch them go from “the second amendment is our god given right,” to “well, if he didn’t have a gun in his back pocket, he would have never been shot by these ICE agents.” Do you hear yourself?

I started seeing a very interesting trend and it all happened at once. I don’t know if they are in a group chat and they all send each other, “this is our angle,” but a bunch of people, including Allie Beth Stuckey, who is not a stranger to the show. She’s the ringleader of all this in my mind. She’s the one who kind of gets them all online.

So, instead of being upset that federal agents are killing American citizens in the street who are minding their business or trying to protect a woman, they’re getting mad at… other christians. Specifically people that they thought were on their side, right? People like conservative women, they’re getting mad at them or going on Instagram and saying “ICE shouldn’t kill American citizens.” And for condemning what ICE has been doing. That is where their outrage is supposed to be focused right now.

They’re desperately trying to make their echo chamber smaller by calling out all of these influencers and trying to convince people that you can’t trust them.

See more of the discussion here.

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ICE, Nobody Wants You Here | Comedian Lizz Winstead LIVE from Minneapolis

After finishing the ICE Out rally in Minneapolis on Jan. 23, Lizz Winstead – founder of Abortion Access Front and co-creator of The Daily Show – took the time to sit down with Lincoln Square executive editor Susan J. Demas to discuss her home state of Minnesota and what it is going through.

Susan J. Demas: Talk to us about the concerns about the midterms, because you have Pam Bondi who is saying if you want ICE to leave Minnesota, you have to hand over the voter rolls. It’s just clean extortion. Clearly, this is not just about terrorizing you and your neighbors. It’s also about elections.

Lizz Winstead: I feel like it’s mostly about elections, but you can’t say that and you have to create these other boogeymen, right? For Minnesota, Scott Simon, our Secretary of State, has been like, “hell no.” Keith Ellison, our Attorney General, has been like, “hell no.” And I just watched an interview with Tim Walz who said he’s never running again. I would not be surprised to see him doing some election integrity work and putting his focus that way in the private sector, because I think that’s important.

I think everybody needs to be incredibly worried because what are laws now? What are rules? What does anybody have to obey?

See more of the discussion here.

Republicans Sour on Trump | Behind the Numbers with Rick & Andrew Wilson

Trump is arresting journalists, allowing American cities to come under occupation of masked goon squads, and erasing American power abroad. He’s even losing support among Republicans. Rick and Andrew Wilson discuss, on this episode of Behind the Numbers.

Andrew Wilson: I think there’s a lot of context here that is really important. One of the reasons why they did this just now is to throw a bone to the MAGA media class. They were outraged that Greg Bovino was taken off the streets of Minneapolis. Trump needed to regain their favor by targeting someone they particularly hate. Of course, it’s no coincidence that Don Lemon is a black man.

Rick Wilson: I put my odds of arrest right now at somewhere around 60 percent because they’re running a program on me with Alex Jones and Roger Stone and the rest of these assholes right now.

Andrew Wilson: They will continue targeting journalists and public figures who are against Trump. This is currying favor with the base. This is a classic authoritarian trap, actually. He will continue to feed the base these ridiculous lies. There’s no justification.

Again, I know we’ve said this a million different ways, the things that the Trump administration has done, but there’s no justification for this. Not even remotely. There’s no remote possibility that Don Lemon’s arrest had anything to do with the rule of law or law and order. This is about silencing people who are speaking up – and he needed to throw a bone out to the MAGA influencers online because they are starting to grumble.

See more of the discussion here.