Executive Disorder: Alex Pretti Shooting, DHS Funding Bill & Rojava

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Speaker 1: Al Zone Media.
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Speaker 2: This is It could Happen here Executive Disorder, our weekly news cast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout, and Robert Evans. This episode, we're covering the week of January twenty first to January twenty eighth. Massive snowstorm across most of the country, at least the real parts of the country, which is the East coast in the south. Now and wow, there is a lot of snow. It makes me feel kind of like a penguin just walking off to the mountains by myself, weathering the weather. Finally, I feel akin to the President, who is now also a suicidal penguin.
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Speaker 3: At the wrong end of the globe.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, as soon as they start the remigration, they're going to be deporting penguins stuff.
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Speaker 3: Greenland.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's held in a military detention camp off of Greenland, now that we might own a tiny bit of our military base. Still very unclear what the details of that Greenland deal are.
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Speaker 5: No, he just wanted to be able to say he made a deal and I don't know if it's going to be any different than the status quo was before, but he'll claim victory and so will his supporters, and we'll all move.
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Speaker 6: On as we kind of already have.
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Speaker 5: Yep, there's too much other bullshit going on.
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Speaker 3: That is the motto for twenty twenty six.
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Speaker 2: Some of that bullshit is the third immigration enforcement related shooting in Minneapolis in just three weeks, James, do you want to start with that?
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Speaker 7: So, yeah, I was in Minneapolis. I was actually just in Minneapolis Airport when this happened. On Saturday of this week, Alex Pretty was shot by two CBP agents in Minneapolis Well. He was filming an immigration raid in which ICE agents attempted to pursue someone into a donut shop that seemed to have locked the doors. Pretty seemed to be trying to assist a woman who had been pushed to the ground by agents. When the agents grabbed him, maceed him, beat him, disarmed him, and then shot him several times. Pretty he was thirty seven. It was a Veterans Affairs ICY UNICE and when this confrontation with immigration agents began, he was legally carrying a sig P three twenty handgun concealed inside his waistband. I can go on and summarize the video for anyone who hasn't seen it. It's obviously quite distressing, so you know, if you're gonna watch it, just know that you're gonna see someone die. Video shows several agents beating Pretty. This one grabs a handgun from his inside waistband holster. Very quickly after this, ten shots are fired by at least two agents. You can hear at one point an agent shouting gun, gun, He's got a gun. Yeah, And then in the after mark, another video shows agents asking where is the gun? So it doesn't appear that the agent who cleared Pretty's gun informed the other agents that that had happened.
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Speaker 2: Though the agent that first fired at Pretty was standing right behind the agent that disarmed him and is literally like looking down at where the gun is being removed as he then seconds later starts shooting.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Pretty falls to the ground. Then more agents fire on his body as it lays flat on the ground.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 7: The CBP initial use of force review, which was sent to Congress today, suggested that on Wednesday, Yeah, this is Wednesday, the twenty eighth, two agents fired, so we know at least two agents fired right where it's not entirely clear. I don't think if all of these were CBP agents, but at least one of the agents who fired shots was an eight year CBP veteran. Then a range safety officer, Greg Bavina has declined to identify them because he said that would be doxing.
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Speaker 3: That's not what that word usually means.
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Speaker 6: No.
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Speaker 7: DHS has claimed that Pretty had two extra magazines on his person, but I haven't seen any evidence of that. What they provided was a photograph of a sig P three twenty with a red dot site and the slide lock backed clearly on the front seat of a vehicle with two charge courts next to it.
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Speaker 4: Right.
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Speaker 7: That's that's not normally how evidence is treated in a crime. That it's an unusual way to go about that put in. The DHS Secretary Christie Nome, has told reporters that Pretty attacked and impeded law enforcement and was brandishing his weapon.
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Speaker 3: Videos don't show that.
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Speaker 7: The only time that you see his weapon is when it is removed by the agent who takes it out of this waistband.
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Speaker 2: Pretty appears to be holding his black cell phone for the entirety of this interaction.
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Speaker 8: Yep.
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Speaker 7: And it's very clear that it's a cell phone, right CBP as inches obviously from the phone in his face. Yeah, there is no reasonable claim.
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Speaker 4: Now.
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Speaker 5: As a rule, throughout the interaction, there was never any confusion that would have led them to believe he had a gun in his hand or to be unaware that he had been disarmed. Yep, there's no argument for that. You can't make a case for that reasonably. People will do unreasably. I don't care.
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Speaker 7: The allegation that he attacked members repeated by FBI Director Cash Patel in the interview he gave to Fox News.
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Speaker 3: I'm going to give a little video of Nomes claim.
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Speaker 9: This individual impeded the law enforcement officers and attacked them. State the facts as they unfolded on the street today. We were doing a targeted operation against an illegal criminal, and this individual came with a weapon and dozens of rounds of ammunition and attacked them. And these agents took action to defend their lives and to defend the lives of the people around them, and it acted according to their.
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Speaker 3: CPP.
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Speaker 7: Commander at Large potentially no longer Commander at Large, Gregory Bavino claimed that Pretty had assaulted federal agents, and throughout a press conference at Baveno, Gave referred to Pretty as a suspect and the people who killed him as victims. Lavina also claimed that Pretty planned to quote, massacre law enforcement.
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Speaker 10: Was he simply walking by and just happened to walk into a law enforcement situation and try to direct traffic and stand in the middle of the road and then assault, delay and obstruct law enforcement? Or was he there for a reason? Did he fall victim to that violent and heated rhetoric by a mayor Fry, a governor Waltz. Look, Dan, they're trying to portray board of all agents and Ice agents as Gestapo, Nazi and many other words. Did this individual fall victim as many others have that type of heated rhetoric.
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Speaker 8: I want to stay focused on this incident right now, because what you were saying is that he went there to try to stop this law enforcement operation. All of the video that we have seen shows him documenting it with his cell phone, which is a lawful thing to do. And the only time he seemed to interact with law enforcement is when they went after him, when he was trying to help an individual who law enforcement pushed down. So where do you have the evidence to show that he was trying to impede that that law enforcement operation.
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Speaker 10: Sure, Dana, First, he was there in the scene. He was in the scene actively impeding and assaulting law enforcement to the place that's not illegal.
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Speaker 8: He wasn't impeding it. He was filming it, which is a legal thing to do in the United States.
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Speaker 10: And Dana, let's let's don't freeze frame adjudicate this now. He was there for a reason, and that reason was to impede law enforcement. To you here, and here's a good point, Dana, is the fact that de escalation techniques were utilized during this action. Those de escalation techniques, whether it was physically trying to remove them from that law enforcement scene, that active law enforcement scene in which law enforcement.
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Speaker 7: I wanted to include a little bit more there because I feel like that's one of the few times we've seen him not just able to deliver.
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Speaker 5: His right where someone's pushed a little Yeah exactly.
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Speaker 6: Yeah. Well, and there's a thing in the video that I think is really effective where you know, you can hear him lying about the video and then the video is playing next to it, and you can just see what is happening, and then he's just saying shit.
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Speaker 7: Yeah, it's a good piece of a television news go. So that's not the worst piece I've seen. Yea, him saying they used the escalation techniques as you watch, half a dozen guys makes him in the face and then beat him.
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Speaker 6: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Is.
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Speaker 7: I mean, there's this line I think a lot about in chapter seven of nineteen eighty four, which was the party told you not to believe your eyes and ears. It was their final most important command. I mean, I don't if they sayn't that, then I don't know what he is.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean yeah, they don't even try to convincingly lie at this point.
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Speaker 5: Like they just keep to the narrative that has been set at the top.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 5: Well not even in this case at the top. It was kind of set at like the upper middle ycause the top has been backing off from this narrative at least a little bit.
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Speaker 2: We'll get to the kind of back and forth in a sack. But I mean it's very clear from this that they just consider blowing a whistle to be impeded, like that's that's all the justification that they need.
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Speaker 3: Stay considered his presence there.
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Speaker 6: As long as you are physically presence there.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, anything you do that they don't like is assaulting an officer at this point, Yes.
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Speaker 6: It's kind of a minor point.
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Speaker 2: But also his pronunciation of gestapo.
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Speaker 3: He does that every time.
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Speaker 6: It's like, dude, we can we know, we know. Yeah, it's like he's wearing that coat.
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Speaker 2: He's wearing the come on and yeah, no, it's it's it's it's pretty insane.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 5: I love the articles that are like, no, he's just wearing traditional old style military coat. It's not a stuff foker guys.
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Speaker 7: Come on, man, I've seen a lot of Border patrol agents, guys.
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Speaker 5: No one else wears that coat. He picked that coat because of how it looks.
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Speaker 7: Ye, to my knowledge, that's not a uniform piece for the Border patrol.
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Speaker 5: Oh and he's never been in the military. Yeah you know what he is and is a secret police unit anyway. Sorry, yeah, no, I think it's it's worth eating that one. I want to talk about this ACLU lawsuit, right So, in sworn testimonies, which are part of this ongoing lawsuit, multiple witnesses said pretty did not brandish or draw his handgun.
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Speaker 3: Quote.
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Speaker 7: I have read a statement from DHS about what happened, and it is wrong. The man did not approach the agents with a gun. He approached him with a camera. He was just trying to help a woman get up, and they took him to the ground.
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Speaker 3: One set. Another witness, a doctor, was prevented from performing CPR. Quote.
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Speaker 7: None of the ICE agents who were near the victim were performing CPR, they said. Agents did mind did the physician's license, which evidently they did not have right. They just ran out of their house in their pajamas. Their testimony continues, quote, I could tell the victim was in critical condition. I insisted the ICE agents let me assess him. They appeared to be operating. Und the assumption that these people ICE, some of them were CVP. I should just say that. They also noted that agents quote appeared to be counting his bullet wounds. Yeah, Jesus, there is video that shows him doing bizarre things to his remains that are not within the remit of trauma care or first to aid in my experience in training, which is pretty significant when it comes to like this exact scenario.
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Speaker 2: The documents that released today, so that they placed the chess seals on him.
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Speaker 7: They were placing chess seals on him. Yeah, that might explain it. It looks like they're sort of pulling up on his shirt.
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Speaker 2: I mean, this whole again, this whole incident is very very clearly documented.
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Speaker 3: With video multiple angles.
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Speaker 2: After the shooting, an agent is like on top of his body, screaming for scissors to cut off his clothing. Yeah, and then later they placed chess seals. According to that document that was released to Congress.
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Speaker 7: Yeah, we have not to carry sciss in your first day kit when you're outraualmushes, but mine equivalent, I guess.
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Speaker 5: I mean, these guys don't know what they were doing.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's the thing, right.
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Speaker 7: Bavina also noted in his press conference that the agents were still at work, but they had been redeployed for their safety. Outside of the Twin Cities. Following the shooting, a vigil was held and there were protests, including some armed presents. In the protests, Minneapolis Police Department attempted to hold the space, both to keep the vigil away and the earlier that day they had refused to leave when told to do so by federal police. Later that night, they deployed extensive lesleithor munitions to clear the vigil.
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Speaker 2: Let's go on ad break and then return to discuss the back and forth characterization of the shooting from Trump's cabinet.
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Speaker 6: We are back.
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Speaker 2: The day after the shooting, Cash Pattel went on Fox News to say that it is against the law to bring a firearm to a protest.
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Speaker 3: Nope, here's a clip.
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Speaker 11: I guess Christy said, you cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protests that you want. It's that simple. You don't have that right to break the law and incite violent That's wrong.
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Speaker 2: In Minnesota, it is not against the law for permit holders to carry I firearm well attending a protest. And it's arguable whether what Prattie was doing is even a quote unquote attending a protest. These sorts of spontaneous mobilizations against ICE are not like a formalized we are protesting in this location at this point. It's not a protest rally. Its community mobilizations. The term of protest is going to be applied a little bit loosely.
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Speaker 6: Now.
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Speaker 2: The DJs statement three hours after the shooting made this claim quote, this looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement unquote. This is the phrase that Bavino said verbato at the press conference on Saturday following the shooting. Miller said something similar on Twitter as he was tweeting at Democrat politicians. Quote, it would be assassin tried to murder federal law enforcement and a domestic terrorist tried to assassinate federal law enforcement. Christyome also had a press conference the day of the shooting where she said, quote, when you perpetuate violence against a government because of ideological reasons and for reasons to resist and perpetuate violence, that is the definition of domestic terrorism. This individual, who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act domestic terrorism unquote. But by Monday, the White House began softly backtracking previous detests claims about the shooting. Press Secretary Carolyn Levit so that she has not heard President Trump characterized pretty as a domestic terrorist. That same day, Fox and Friends asked DOJ attorney Todd Blanche about whether Preddy committed domestic terrorism, and he replied, like this, with.
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Speaker 12: All your respects ser My question is more pointed, do you believe your colleagues may have gone farther? You are an attorney at DOJ eighteen us CO twenty three thirty one. It has a legal definition of domestic terrorism, and it doesn't appear to most of the country that have watched the available video. And we'll see if there's bodycam video. I'd love to know if that's going to come out, if there was such a thing, but it does not appear to have met that definition of domestic terrorism. So I'm just sort of wondering how you in the DOJ are viewing whether your colleagues may have gone too far.
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Speaker 13: Look, don't I don't think anybody thinks that they were comparing what happened on Saturday to the legal definition of domestic terrorism. What we saw was a very violent altercation, and I am not going to prejudge the facts. You're right, there's a bunch of video that's out there. There's a bunch of video that we haven't seen yet, in the minutes leading up to what happened and in what happened afterwards. And you're right to the extent there's bodycam or other videos that witnesses are still providing to us, So I'm not describing it as anything except for a tragedy.
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Speaker 2: That's pretty pretty wild. Two days after Christina tried to literally give a definition of domestic terrorism at a press conference and then dooj Attorney's just claiming, no, it's not the real legal definition of domestic terrorism. Yeah, this word is just a rhetorical tool for the administration to deploy at Well.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, we just were using it because we killed a guy and we wanted to shut down discussion.
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Speaker 6: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 7: And when we didn't stick landing because there were multiple angles on video, now we got to find something else.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, and we just did this, like how many weeks ago was the No.
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Speaker 2: I mean, this whole incident shows how vital documenting interactions like this can be, and how much public opinion is something that is not just fully fully dictated by administration statements, like they tried to deploy a narrative which, after enough circulated documented footage contradicted public opinion of this incident formed in pretty strong opposition to the administration's claims.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, this has penetrated into a lot of places that are under ordinary circumstances either extremely apolitical or very conservative. Yeah, I am trying to remember, honestly, the last event that I saw between this and twenty twenty, and like the George Floyd uprising that had this kind of penetration into mainstream on political society. I remember one of the biggest things that I saw was this moment of oh, actually, this specific shooting has gone to a point where it's reaching people who normally would never hear about this stuff. Was There's an NFL commentary named Kurt Warner who used to be very famous quarterback. The only thing he ever talks about is quarterback play in football. This is the only thing he ever does. I'm not one hundred percent sure about this, but when I looked back, I couldn't find him saying anything about George Floyd. And Kurt Warner came out and gave a statement about how this shooting was a horror and that the administration was lying about it. And you saw this sort of rattling through again very very conservative sports circles, which again this NFL circle specifically where this kind of stuff never really penetrates. This weekends, you know, as as this sort of murder was happening, the NFC and AFC Championship games were going on in the sort of immediate wake of this. And these for people who don't follow FOOTBA at all, these are the after the Super Bowl. These are this is the semifinals. The winner of these two games goes to the Super Bowl. These are the second most important games of the entire NFL season, and fans at both of these games booed the national anthem, a thing I have never heard of before at a this is a football game. Yeah, that's wild. Yeah, right, like the beginning of most football games, there's a bunch of troops holding the flag and people. They didn't do this in twenty twenty. They were booing the national anthem. So one of these games was being played in Denver and the other one was being played in Seattle, And in the game in Seattle, the Fox broadcast kept cutting out the national anthem because people kept chanting fuck Ice, So they would just literally be cutting the audio anytime that happened. And this just kept happening to the entire course of this. I have never seen anything like this breakthrough into sports like this. It's been breaking into There's a whole bunch of story about just random groups on a reddit, we're sort of breaking through into where you're getting statements from like, oh god, I wish I remember who on Blue Guys saw this from, but the person who runs the subreddit where that's like playing your cat's butt like bongo drums.
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Speaker 5: This. Yeah, I'm glad they finally spoke up. Honestly, you know.
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Speaker 7: We've all been waiting, but like I saw this in spaces where we're like like climbing forums or climbing subreddits, like.
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Speaker 5: No, because they just shot a nurse in the head.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 6: This is the second time they did it. And the thing to me that I think is really significant about this happening at NFL games, Right, one of the two teams that was playing in the game in Denver is the New England Patriots. Right, the New England Patriots are famously very very close to Trump as an organization, their owner is very close to Trump. So I had remembered a story from last year about so the Patriots have a jet that is the Patriots Jet that they fly all their players around in that is has giant letters the Patriots on it, that is technically run through a charter company. But you know, I remember last year there's a story about how their jet was doing flights to Guantanamo Bay.
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Speaker 5: Sure that makes sense for the Patriots yet, yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, right. This is the kind of organizations that we're dealing with here, right. And while I was looking into the story about the Patriots jet being used to do things to move apparently not detainees to g but apparently just military people on supplies, which they do a lot, I found a completely unrelated story about a different Patriots jet in during the Biden administration doing deportation flights to Hunduras. And this isn't considered an ideological thing. Oh, that's just funny, Like this is the kind of conservatism you're dealing Yeah, you know, And I mean this is technically it's the contractors you're doing this, but you know, it's it's the plan with the Patriots logo on it. And they were doing deportation flights under Biden like four years three or four years ago. And now people are booing the national anthem enchanting fuck ice. A lot of the stuff that we've talked about and we're going to talk about about the way the Trump administration has been backing off of this is because they have been forced to watch the entire country go, holy shit, you just murdered this guy and then lied about it. You just executed him in the street, yeah, and light about it.
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Speaker 13: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: I think the lying and you can just see them.
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Speaker 6: And this is also the second time they've done this in a couple of weeks.
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Speaker 2: Like the lying thing is, like I think for a lot of people, that's the really insulting thing. It's obviously a tragedy to have someone be killed by federal law enforcement like this. Yeah, but it's just the blatantness of the lying, I think is what really activated people here.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, because this is for years they've skirted by on the situations like the written house thing where you can kind of see what happens, but depending on what you bring into it ideologically, that can look like two different things, right, depending on where whether you think those protesters are dangerous or not or whatever like that. That's a video that like everyone saw the same video and took something different out of it. Yeah, that's not the case with this video, or really with the Renee Good video for most people, and it's really jarring for them, most people who were not political, because that's what we're talking about is like the sheer number of people who do not normally wait into this stuff or were making a comment. They would see one of these videos that is much more like if you're just kind of coming in and watching it, it's kind of unclear what's happening, and they would go, oh, it's another big com I'm just not going to get involved with it. People are arguing about what this is. Let them argue, I'm going to go on with my life. This is very clear what's happening, very clear that they're lying, and it's just upsetting. It's deeply upsetting to even people who don't normally think about this shit.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, and I think part of that too is also you know, there were a lot of people who didn't get involved with the Renee Good shooting because you know, even then people were still like, oh, well, maybe it's complicated. But once you've seen the second shooting in two weeks, where the line from the administration is exactly the same and you have video images again, Yeah, that's how you get someone like Kurt Warner, who is a faith family football guy. He's very open about being a Christian, is very open about he doesn't talk about politics, but he's very obviously conservative in a way that he doesn't think is political. Yeah, and he looks at this and goes, holy shit, they murdered this guy and the government's lying about it. And that's a kind of breakthrough moment in all of this.
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Speaker 7: I've seen a lot of stuff from like folks in the gun community, like who you wouldn't normally expect to be critical of the Trump administration being critical, Yeah, because the Trump administration has come out with just like insane they're repeating like anti Second Amendment talking points.
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Speaker 5: Yep.
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Speaker 7: I also saw his name is Tony Thomas, but he was previously the commander of Special Operations Command, right, has been sharing and unfortunately AI quote unquote enhanced photo of the shooting.
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Speaker 11: God.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, that I need to talk a little bit about there, but please continue.
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Speaker 7: Yeah, it's remarkable that you've got someone whose job has been killing people for the United States government, right, who've retired to a role in an investment back. It doesn't normally make statements in public about immigration policy, but like, again, this one is kind of broken containment, right, Like they saw the police shoot a man in the back multiple times in broad daylight from multiple angles, and Yeah, this one's been really hard for them, just been.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 6: One of the things that you know, when you talk about sort of Reddit as a sighte of this, right, one of the things on the front page a Reddit for a while that day was just a thing from like r slash pics where it's a picture of a frame in this shooting and then it's a picture of a Nazi officer with a gun to the back of the head of a prisoner they're about to shoot, and it's almost identical frame for frame, And that's the kind of thing that's just going around on like the front page of Reddit.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, part of what I think is happening here is they got very convinced that their ability to kind of just brute force their own reality over what actually happened, and m maybe they gambled too hard.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, So much of this story is like the ultimate conservative nightmare of the government, like physically disarming you, executing you, and that sequence of events is I think also in part what has created this pretty consistent turnaway from the Trump administrations and the DHS. It's like initial statement on what happened here, which the administrations themselves have started to roll back on after the public rejected this claim that they kept making on him being like a terrorist, him intending to mastercre law enforcement, all these things that they have no way to actually prove. On Tuesday, Stephen Miller told CNN that they are quote evaluating why the CBP team may not have been following White House approved protocol and that the initial statement from DHS following the shooting was quote based on reports from CBP on the ground unquote. On Wednesday, the DHS spokespersent TRITICHA McLoughlin repeated this claim on Fox Business.
00:26:50
Speaker 5: A Secretary Nome accused Alex Prette of being a domestic terrorist.
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Speaker 9: Is the administration standing by that language?
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Speaker 14: So initial statements were made after reports from CBP on the ground that was a very chaotic scene. We know that our ice law enforcement are facing rampant violence against them, a highly coordinated campaign. So that is why this investigation is so important so we can get accurate facts to the American people.
00:27:19
Speaker 2: Trump has denied that Preddi was acting as an assassin and has called the shooting a quote unquote very unfortunate incident, But he has continued to say that Preddy should not have been carrying a gun.
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Speaker 6: Quote. You can't have guns. You can't walk in with guns, you just can't unquote.
00:27:37
Speaker 7: Yeah, the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus has been pretty impressive. Yeah, I'll say that, Like generally, right, like, especially organized gun owner groups in the United States tend to align very heavily with conservative politics. They have been like reinforcing that what pretty was doing was in no way legal. It should no way need to you being killed.
00:27:56
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:27:57
Speaker 2: As of Wednesday, we do know now that the Border Patrol agents involved in the killing of Alex Preddy have been placed on administrative leave. Around January twenty sixth, Trump struck some kind of deal with local officials, namely Mayor Frey and Governor Tim Walls. Local officials have said that quote unquote some federal agents would begin leaving Minnesota. Bonvino is expected to return to California, with The Atlantic reporting that he's been stripped of his quote unquote Commander at Large title and has been locked out of government social media accounts. Tom Homan has arrived in Minneapolis to take over immigration enforcement operations, and local Minnesota law enforcement have ramped up their policing of protests, especially outside of hotels where ICE and Border Patrol agents have been staying.
00:28:48
Speaker 6: And it's important to note as as you're seeing a lot of stories about sort of ICE pulling out of Minneapolis and you know, an administration roll back because of the sort of Bovino movement. Everyone that I have talked to in Minneapolis, and this is a fairly large number of people, have all told me that everything on the ground remains the same. The raids are continuing, and they want to make sure that everyone understands that the raids are continuing and that the same kinds of things that ICE in the Border Patrol have been doing up until this point are continuing to happen under I guess quote unquote new management.
00:29:22
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:29:23
Speaker 7: I think they may have withdrawn some Border Patrol agents, right, but the bulk of the people they deployed were actually ICE agents. They to my knowledge, have not been withdrawn home. And it is not exactly a like a liberal figure when it comes to deportation. To build it mildly, it might be like a change in the outward appearance that the practice of what's going.
00:29:43
Speaker 3: On that has not changed.
00:29:45
Speaker 2: Do we want to just have any kind of final discussion on that AI enhanced image that's been circulating.
00:29:52
Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, So I mean there's an AI enhanced image, and this is when I posted this. I've seen people comment that like, oh, it's more disinformation from the fascist. This is the opposite of that. Yeah, someone AI enhanced a still frame from the video because there's a question as to whether or not when one of the ICE agents disarmed Preddy, did he actit negligently discharge his firearm into the ground, and did that maybe spook them and cause the remaining chain of events. I don't think it's clear, And the video is not super clear as to whether or not the gun is firing. It's kind of grainy.
00:30:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't know that yet.
00:30:24
Speaker 5: So and like the new AI enhanced version, you literally see like a tongue of fire coming out of the barrel of the gun and then a full round of five to five six seems to be exiting.
00:30:37
Speaker 3: Well, like with the casing, let's just make shit up.
00:30:40
Speaker 5: It looks like it has the casing. It looks not like a firing gun looks And the text on this is this is from the AI info twitter account. An enhanced video of a man who disarmed Alex Preddy shows the show's gun allegedly misfiring. His ICE agent runs with it. Which has also been said to have spooked other agents into firing. AI video also enhances the visuals of the bullets. It would be clearly visit to the human eye.
00:31:01
Speaker 6: It's like, I didn't hit shit, you had to fight you. You had the digital quivalent of a five year old scribbling on it.
00:31:07
Speaker 5: And you know, I don't know, Maybe I guess this could be them trying to be like, oh, it wasn't the federal agent's fault. It's those damn sig P three twenties that spooked everybody. Yeah, it's it's.
00:31:17
Speaker 3: Like number one.
00:31:18
Speaker 5: AI can't enhance, yeah things, nothing can enhance a photo that's not a thing that's real. You can't just like add details to a photo that weren't in in a way that's different from just photos shopping them in. And that's what AI did. Someone said, add visuals of a bullet, and they did, and it's bad. It looks like a fucking sparkler is stuck in the end of a handgun. Yeah, but yeah, it's just shit like this. That's just going to be everything, Like every clash, every murder, every controversial thing that happens, there's immediately going to be a bunch of different AI slot videos and analysis, and what scares me most or not even scares me. What I think is the biggest problem isn't even just the straight up disinfo video. It's the stuff where people are claiming, look, I did some research using this AI and it revealed this thing that isn't immediately visible to the naked eye, but this is clearly what really went on. Yeah, and how that's going to supercharge fucking conspiracy theories about stuff, and how the response when people are like, but the AI didn't enhance anything, will just be like, you're not smarter than an AI, you don't know, Like that's that's the kind of thing where it's just got to be annoying, Like the truth ecosystem is already so damaged. I certainly wouldn't say that this is going to definitely make everything worse, but it's going to make everything more annoying.
00:32:35
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:32:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think I've seen this image that you were talking about, but I've seen a whole bunch of other like AI enhanced images of the shooting. It's specifically like the moment where where or like around the time that the agents are firing into the back of pretty and it's mostly like AI sharpened images, but taken to such an extreme extent that literally one of the heads of the border patrol agents is just missing.
00:33:01
Speaker 5: You know what. I wouldn't call that enhanced, but I'd say it's an improvement.
00:33:06
Speaker 2: You have to like kind of like look for it because because of how much movement is in the night, of course, but I've seen I've seen this the AI hnts like like still from the Pink Jacket.
00:33:17
Speaker 6: Lady of the shooting.
00:33:20
Speaker 2: I've seen this image spread all around by people showing like how how like brutal this looks, and it you don't need to spread this AI sharpened version with the with that with the head missing, like there is like regular skills that maybe are a little bit more fuzzy, but they actually are are real. And you've seen a few other like AI altered images spreading around around this shooting. Specifically, there's been like AI altered images of Alex pretty that like slightly changes his like facial proportions that have been used at some like memorials have been have been spreading on the Internet, and that sort of stuff has been incredibly frustrating just to see the sort of proliferation of these of these AI images into like the news cycle.
00:34:04
Speaker 5: I shared the enhanced image.
00:34:06
Speaker 6: That looks really bad.
00:34:07
Speaker 5: It's really bad.
00:34:09
Speaker 6: That's like, that's like.
00:34:10
Speaker 3: Wow, I've not seen that.
00:34:11
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's like a kindergartender. It's unreal. You don't need to do this like that. People that have seen the footage knows what happened. You don't need to spread these fake images like public opinion is already formed on this.
00:34:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:34:21
Speaker 2: Well, we'll go on ad break again, but I think to close this section, I'll I'll play the short clip from the Minnesota timber Wolves game, which is which is a basketball game, I believe, Yeah, which they held a moment of silence for pretty and people chanted Towards the end, I'll shorten the moment of silence for the audience, but you can take a listen.
00:34:45
Speaker 4: Here are the traffic laws of Alex Purty that occurred yesterday in Minneapolis. We extend our love, support, and Heartfield's sympathies to Alex's family friend in our community during this difficult time. Please join in honoring the life and memory of Alex Pritty with a moment of silence.
00:35:26
Speaker 6: All right, we're back.
00:35:28
Speaker 2: After the shooting on Saturday, Chuck Schumer said that Senate Democrats would not be advancing a House approved appropriations bill with the currently included DHS funding Right now, the Senate is considering a six bill spending package that was narrowly approved by the House thanks to seven Democrats, and now Senate Deems are seeking to separate out the DHS bill and advance the five others. These six annual spending bills are set to expire on January thirty first. If at least some Democrats don't sign on to the bills by Friday, there will be a partial government shutdown on Wednesday. Schumer reiterated, quote until ICE is properly rained in and overhauled legislatively, the DHS funding bill doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate unquote. Possible immigration enforcement concessions that Democrats are pushing for include, but are not limited to, independent investigations into the recent shootings, mandating judicial warrants for immigration arrests, mandating body cams, requiring agent identification, no masks, no arrest quotas, no roving patrols, and restricting border patrol agents to the US border.
00:36:41
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I want to address I've actually addressed the roving patrols before, and that the evidence standards for stops on those patrols. I'm not going to do that, but I do want to address this last one right with the quote unquote US border god. So, in the statute, border patrol is supposed to operate within a reasonable distance the United States border, which they interpret to be a one hundred mile distance. Now, when you are thinking of border, you might be thinking of land borders, but remember this also includes ocean borders. They interpret the Great Lakes to be international waterways, and thus it begins one hundred miles from the shore of the Great Lakes. For context, that still doesn't get you into Minneapolis, right, You're looking at a bit further. One hundred and fifty miles was the shortest line I could draw on a map. People seem to be operating under the misapprehension that this includes airports, and it does not, And I keep seeing this repeated online, and then people keep telling me the statue is actually very clear on what does and does not constitute a border, and it's talked about external borders and airports are not included in this Border patrol does not operate within one hundred mile radius of every international airport in the United States.
00:37:53
Speaker 2: Really unclear if Democrats will be able to get some of these things. Yeah, Obviously pushing for more training has its limits. The people involved in the shooting had years and years of training and gave the training. In some case, they were doing what they were trained to do. Yeah, but there's other stuff in here, like like mandating body cams, which though Border Patrol currently has body cams. ICE in Border Patrol they have body cams, they're not required to always have them on. This will be seeking to change that. Other things like requiring the identification of agents deployed, not wearing masks, not having arrest quotas. These would significantly change the way that ICE operates on the ground. Possibly the most important thing that they are seeking here is the emphasis on judicial wards as opposed to this administrative warrant that ICE has been using as its primary justification the past few months.
00:38:45
Speaker 7: I think we should refer to those I've been called the administry of warrants. I think a better I guess down to use is the Form two fifteen, because that's what it is. It's a form that they filled out right like, it's not a warrant in any meaningful sense of the word yeah. But yeah, just noting that because that's a change I'm going to be trying to implement in my work going forward.
00:39:04
Speaker 2: The last Minneapolis related story for this episode, which is mostly Minneapolis episode I Guess Yeah, is based on a CNN report that has claimed that federal agents encountered Alex Pretty a week prior to killing him. Pretty is said to have been driving and stopped his car when he witnessed ICE agents chasing a.
00:39:23
Speaker 6: Family on foot.
00:39:24
Speaker 2: Pretty began shouting and blowing a whistle before agents tackled Pretty and broke one of his ribs. Party was later released on the scene. DHS has told CNN that they have no record of this incident, though an anonymous source told CNN that Pretty was a known and identified protester to federal officials on the ground, quoting CNN quote. Earlier this month, the DHS official in Minneapolis sent a memo to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations officers assigned to the state on a temporary duty, asking them to use a form to input information on protesters and agitate. It is unclear whether the new intake form was used to share Pretty's information. It's also not clear whether federal agents who encountered Pretty on Saturday recognized him before they confronted him.
00:40:12
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's definitely HSI that has been doing the federal stuff that involves citizens, I guess, right, like when they are investigating and detaining people. I know Pam Bondi is there today again and it has posted pictures of people who are detained with HSI officers, which is not a usual thing to do. But yeah, HSI, for whatever reason, they're kind of using as their like surrogate FBI in these instances.
00:40:41
Speaker 2: Jason, you can also speak on the sort of like surveillance of protesters quote unquote agitators that Feds have been doing on the ground based on what you saw in Minneapolis.
00:40:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's thank you, Gay. Yeah.
00:40:53
Speaker 7: So, like I was at the Whipple Building, right, the Whipple Building being the federal building in Minneapolis where they are taking people who are being detained and where ICE and CBP are deploying out of every day, right. I would say that because there was a protest on Friday as part of a general strike and I noticed they look like CBPO ICE right then they had like what I would describe with tactical helmets and gear on, but using DSLR cameras to take pictures of people protesting. They were in vehicles and they were shooting. I can't remember they had the door or the window to allow them to take photographs. But I noticed, like that is an effort at surveillance, right, It is not unreasonable. I know, Garrison, you also have this video which happened in Maine, right of an agent more or less saying this, But it's not unreasonable to think that there is surveillance of people who are engaging in First Amendment protected activities.
00:41:42
Speaker 2: Yes, and there has been some desire among ice officials, including Tom Hollman, who went on Fox News earlier this month to say that he's pushing for a database quote where those people that are arrested for interference, impeding, and assault were going to make them famous unquote. So this news that Alex Preddy had been preview identified in some way by federal law enforcement follows an incident last Friday where a federal agent in Maine photographed a legal observer's car and said, quote, we have a nice little database, and you're now considered a domestic terrorist.
00:42:15
Speaker 6: I'll play this clip here.
00:42:16
Speaker 3: It's not illegal to record.
00:42:19
Speaker 4: Exactly.
00:42:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what we're doing.
00:42:21
Speaker 6: Yeah, why are you taking my information down because we have a nice little database. Oh good, and now you're considered domestic terrorists.
00:42:29
Speaker 5: Were videotaping you? Are you crazy?
00:42:35
Speaker 2: Georgia McLaughlin has told CNN that there is quote no database of quote unquote domestic terrorists run by the Department of Homeland Security unquote.
00:42:45
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:42:46
Speaker 6: I want to say something about this main video, which is that I've been seeing a lot of people circulating this is Oh, there's new repression tactics happening here. They're going to show up to people's houses. This has been happening. I mean, I know it was happening in Chicago. It probably was happening in la I just don't remember off the top of my head. But the stuff that's happening here where these people take pictures of your face is not new at all. It's not some kind of new innovation in these repression tactics. Like, obviously be careful, but this is not a reason that everyone suddenly needs to be afraid that there's like a giant crackdown coming. They've been doing this the whole time, and so far it really hasn't Like it sucks, but it hasn't stopped Minneapolis, hasn't stopped Chicago.
00:43:25
Speaker 2: No, they're trying to intimidate you stop doing this, Like that is the point of this agent walking by and joking about how you're now a domestic terrorist. Yeah, because that's not actually real. That is a way to scare you into not showing up the U based on the idea that if you do, they'll take a picture of you and now you get added to this domestic terrorist database.
00:43:46
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:43:46
Speaker 2: Is it possible that they're making like some kind of catalog of pictures of protesters that they can maybe use for reference in the future to build a case against someone, or if they arrest someone, they can look to see if they've been at previous protests. No, that's not impossible. That is something that they've been doing for quite a while. It's sudden that anti fascists to do against like Proud Boys back in the day, where you just document a lot of people at a protest and then maybe eventually the information will become useful. Right, That is not like surprising, but like I've seen some pretty outrageous claims going viral that like after Preddy had this encounter with law enforcement previously where they broke his rib that Preddy was then specifically targeted in the following weeks, Like, there is no information for that.
00:44:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have no evidence to prove that.
00:44:30
Speaker 6: There's no information that this database led to him being intentionally targeted by federal agents on the ground, that is just speculation at this point. Yeah, there's no evidence of that, and there's no evidence that this is like a new kind of campaigna repression. And I want to be very clear about this. If you are spreading this as a you need to be afraid now because there's a new thing that's happening. You are doing their job. You are spreading the fear that this is an intimidation that this is designed to do, so please stop doing this.
00:44:58
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think, like I understand that for a lot of people, any form of activism is very new and everything seems scary. But this is one of those times when you need to check what you're doing because as Mia said, right, this has the legal term is a chilling effect. Right, Like the government generally courts a fan, the government should should not do things that have a chilling effect on first Amendment protected to speak. That's absolutely what the government is trying to do. You don't have to help them or not the government, but that particular agent, I should say, acting at work, saying he's building a database, right, that is what that is trying to do is to have a chilling effect.
00:45:36
Speaker 6: Well, I mean I would argue the government's also doing this, you know, calling every legal observer domesti terrorists.
00:45:42
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, I guess, yeah, fair enough.
00:45:45
Speaker 5: So we should mention this just so we don't leave it out. Although we don't have a ton to say at the moment about this, but like the day before we recorded this, on the twenty seventh of January, I believe Elan Omar was doing a town hall in Minneapolis where she is a representative, and was assaulted by a man named Anthony James kashmir Zak, who was a fifty five year old. He was carrying what looked like a syringe but without a needle, just like a like a large syringe, like the kind you'd used to like give medicine to an animal or something.
00:46:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, an irrigation syringe, right, and it.
00:46:20
Speaker 5: Was filled with some kind of off brownish yellow liquid. I don't think we know what it was. It apparently was foul smelling, obviously, and he ran up screaming you must resign, and sprayed some of it at her. I don't know how much God on her. He was tackled very quickly by a security guard. Omar seemed to be squaring up and ready to fight him, which was you know, expected, given like the kind of shit she's had to deal with, right, she's had to be a very tough person. She doesn't seem to be injured. I don't think there's any evidence that the liquid or whatever was something that caused or is likely to cause health issues, which I mean doesn't make it not assault. It just I don't think she's currently in any times you're thankfully. Yeah, there's been a chorus of denunciations about the attack on her from a bunch of other elected leaders. I know people have said that like it's been ignored, but at least it hasn't been from other people in the House.
00:47:14
Speaker 4: Right.
00:47:14
Speaker 5: There's a lot of folks, including some Republicans, who have made comments on it, just because none of them like the thought of having shit sprayed on them. I think, yeah, Yeah, anyway, we don't know a ton about this guy and why he did other than that he presumably hated illin Omar, right, and that he wanted to get her to quit her job or otherwise armor in some way. We don't really know much about this guy. There's some people talking about the fact that his kids seem to be on the left. Well, he's clearly not. As if that's weird, it's not. If your dad is the kind of crazy asshole who will spray poison on elin Omar hit a town hall, I can see how maybe you've become the opposite of him. But yeah, that's about all we know at the moment.
00:47:57
Speaker 6: I do want to mention Trump's comment on it, where Abe's News asked Trump if you'd seen the video, and oh yeah, Trump said, quote, No, I don't think about her. I think she's a fraud. I really don't think about that. She probably had sprayed herself knowing her.
00:48:12
Speaker 5: Yeah, you said that like a guy he thinks about her constantly.
00:48:16
Speaker 6: Hey yeah, yeah, really hideous stuff.
00:48:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:48:22
Speaker 1: Producer Sophie here with a quick pickup, as we did not have this information at the time of recording. This is as of January twenty twenty six. Per AP News quote, the Justice Department has charged a man who scorted apple sided vinegar on Democratic Representative Omar at an event in Minneapolis. According to court papers made public Thursday, the man arrested for Tuesday's attack, Anthony kasmar Zak, faces a charge of forcibly assaulting, opposing, impeding, and intimidating Omar. According to a complaint filed in federal court, authorities determined that the substance was water and apple cider vinegar. According to an affidavitkasmar Zakh sprayed Omar.
00:49:01
Speaker 6: With the liquid. He appeared to say, quote she's.
00:49:04
Speaker 1: Not resigning, You're splitting Minnesota's apart end quote the affi David says. Authorities also say that kasmar Zak told a close associate several years ago that quote somebody should kill end quote Omar quote. Documents say kasmar Zak appeared briefly in federal court Thursday afternoon. His attorney told the judge her client was unmedicated at the time of the incident and has not had access to medications he needs to treat Parkinson's disease in other serious conditions he suffers from US Magistrate Judge Dulce Foster ordered that Kazmarzak remain in custody and told officials he needs to see a nurse when he's transferred to the Sherburne County Jail end quote. Again, that is via AP News.
00:49:49
Speaker 7: So I want to very briefly update people on Rejava. The bfkey bassing for a whole episode. We will do one. I've been in Minneapolis.
00:49:55
Speaker 5: It's kind of a lot going on right now.
00:49:57
Speaker 7: Yeah, and me you may have noticed, but this is a very important right, Like, horrible things are happening. So the STG that's a Syrian Transitional Government Ahmed al Sharha Jiulani's government right and the SDF Syrian Democratic Forces which includes the YPG and YPGA, the armed forces that defend Rashava, have signed a fifteen day extension to their ceasefire. But both sides are accusing the other of widespread violations of the ceasefire. Both of them are right, like I've seen a lot of videos of ceasefire violations. Ceasefire was internationally mediated, likely by the US, and likely because of huge concerns around the escape of Islamic State prisoners. There was an attempted is suicide bombing in Iraq yesterday as we record this, that's the first time I can remember one of those happening in a while that the person was apprehended. But the US, I know, has been transferring detainees from the prison near Jusseka, and they're transferring them to US facilities in Iran. Created it doesn't the prince of the detainees is not the thing that is going to make the US support their allies in Rasjavo or their former allies in their SDF for I guess I should say now that the US once again, it is not going to be a good friend to the Kurdish people. Trump has also truthed that Iraq should not appoint Nurial Malachi as its next prime minister. In his Truth, he said, quote, I am hearing that the great country of Iraq might make a very bad choice by reinstalling Nuriel Malachi as prime minister. Last time Malachi was in power, the country descended into poverty and total chaos that should not be allowed to happen again because of his insane policies and ideologies. If elected, the United States of America will no longer help Iraq. And if we are not there to help Iraq has zero chance of success, prosperity or freedom.
00:51:48
Speaker 3: Make Iraq great again, yess ch.
00:51:51
Speaker 5: First off, I mean Molikey does suck.
00:51:56
Speaker 3: He's a really bad guy. Yeah, this is not like yay Malachi po. But this ain't the way to go about doing that.
00:52:02
Speaker 5: No, I mean just the whole we will cut all ties and support to Iraq thing. When everything happening, there is still downstream of us fucking with them.
00:52:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did this.
00:52:13
Speaker 7: We spent twenty fucking years killing people in a rack. Like you don't just get to be like oh yeah, and like the idea that we were doing regime change. But when the regime isn't and the one that we like, that people act and I was like, we're doing regime change again, Like obviously the whole thing was a fraud and a lie.
00:52:29
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, still is.
00:52:31
Speaker 7: Yeah, very concerned for my friends all the parts of Curtis dannergy. The peace process between the PKK and Turkeys is falling apart, and state violence in Iran is still absolutely repugnant scale right, Yeah, a pretty tough time in that part of the world.
00:52:49
Speaker 3: I thinking of them.
00:52:50
Speaker 6: So finally, I want to give a brief update on my story from last week about this attempt to and FED independence and this att to sort of do an investigation into the chairman of the Federal Reserve. So earlier today, as we were recording this, we got the result of the Fed's vote about what they were going to do with interest rates. There's a whole episode about that. Go listen to that if you want air send what this is. But the FED, instead of cutting rates as the administration has wanted, has decided to hold interest rates at the same level, which was what was expected out of the Federal Reserve before Trump started putting even more pressure on them. However, we did not get any updates from anyone at the Federal Reserve about this Department of Justice investigation or any of the Trump pressure that's been being put on the Federal Reserve. So we'll keep you updated as the situation evolves, but all we got was a very normal interest rates are being held at the same level.
00:53:52
Speaker 7: We will include our list of mutual aid fundraisers for Minneapolis again in the show notes for this episode.
00:53:57
Speaker 3: Would you like to donate, put a transfer on your couch yep and if you.
00:54:01
Speaker 7: Want to email us Cool Zone Tips at proton dot me.
00:54:05
Speaker 3: Use a proton mail addresses.
00:54:06
Speaker 4: Send it.
00:54:07
Speaker 3: We reported the news. We reported the news.
00:54:19
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00:54:22
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