Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Sarah Posner: Thanks for having me, Greg.
Mike Johnson (voiceover): What I saw, the angle that I saw, was that this woman was taunting ICE officers. She was impeding law enforcement; she was violating a number of laws in doing so. They were very patient and asked her multiple times to remove her vehicle and stop impeding their operation, and she refused. Her partner, whoever that was, was taunting the officer. It was a… it was a crazy set of circumstances. And from the angle I saw—this is my view; I’m not the investigator and I’m not the judge and jury—but I’ll tell you what I saw is that the vehicle… she revved, she hit the accelerator and hit the ICE officer, and he reacted in a split second.
Posner: Well, to him, somebody on the left—or somebody that he perceives to be on the left—is the enemy of ICE, is the enemy of law enforcement. So that person can never be in the right; that person can never be innocent. That person can’t exercise her First Amendment rights. So to him, she’s not a citizen concerned about her neighbors. To him, she is a leftist who is out to harm and impede law enforcement.
Posner: For Johnson, he represents only Republicans. In his mind, he doesn’t represent all American people. He thinks that he is on a mission from God to carry out a biblical or a Christian kind of government. And in his mind, that kind of government, you know, does not represent the ideals of, you know, helping your neighbor, welcoming the stranger—things that many people would think are biblical values.
Reporter (voiceoer): Mr. Speaker, lot of Democrats are saying that they want to add rioters or oversight to ICE funding in the Homeland Security bill. What are your thoughts about doing that?
Sargent: Now, this is really wretched. He’s very subtle about it, but note how he slips in this idea that the problem is too much resistance to ICE and that we’ve seen the consequences and effects of that. Again, blaming the victims of ICE violence for that violence; zero indication that Republicans have even the slightest bit of a problem with what ICE is doing. What do you think of that?
And so to him, he would like America to believe that, yes, there are riots in the street. He used that word: riots. And to him, by definition, those are not caused by ICE, because ICE is carrying out a mission from God to defend America from an invasion of illegal immigrants—from the left who would harbor those illegal immigrants. That’s the kind of narrative that he’s trying to draw here.
Sargent: Absolutely. And note how Mike Johnson also says that the American people want the law to be enforced and to let law enforcement do its job. Now, we’re seeing polls showing broad disapproval of ICE right now. And I think what most people are getting very clearly is that this is not really law enforcement any longer in any recognizable sense. You’ve been watching the videos. Is that law enforcement?
What laws was she violating, right? She turned the car around when confronted by the ICE agent. She was not impeding him.
Sargent: I think there’s no doubt about it. The Los Angeles Times is reporting on this other example, which is just horrific. This kid, a 21-year-old, Caden Rumler, underwent six hours of surgery, and doctors found plastic, glass, and metal embedded in his eyes and around his face, according to the L.A. Times.
Posner: Well, for Johnson, one of the few legitimate activities of government is law enforcement. And in particular, law enforcement that’s out to defend and protect his vision of what America should be: a country of compliant, white, Christian people who do not question authority. And so that’s why, for him, he picks up on this propaganda that ICE is actually carrying out law enforcement operations against illegal immigrants, right?
If you have somebody who has a documented reason to be deported, there’s a process for doing that. That process does not include basically turning our cities into war zones.
Posner: Franklin Graham, who of course is well known for being the son of the iconic evangelist Billy Graham. And Jack Hibbs, who is a California pastor who is possibly best known for being close to Charlie Kirk. Graham went on the Christian Broadcasting Network and talked about how he and Hibbs had a conversation about how today at noon—at noon, whatever time zone you’re in, noon for you—was a day that you should pray. And you should pray because there’s a lot of chaos going on in the world right now.
And you’re supposed to pray for leaders in authority. This is a big thing with them: that you’re supposed to pray for leaders. So pray for President Trump, pray for Kristi Noem—who is a “great lady who loves God.” Franklin Graham said that on the Christian Broadcasting Network.
But it’s really a way of mobilizing followers around this idea that these people need to be prayed for because they’re under threat, and they need to be prayed for because they’re doing the right thing.
Stephen Miller (voiceover): To all ICE officers, you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties and anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony. You have immunity to perform your duties and no one, no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties. And the Department of Justice has made clear that if officials cross that line into obstruction, into criminal conspiracy against the United States or against ICE officers, then they will face justice.
And with Miller, it’s just sheer authoritarianism, but there is a through line there, right? Can you talk about Christian authoritarianism and how there’s, like, a religious authoritarian and a secular authoritarian side to Trumpism?
But at the heart of it is this idea that there is authority, and then there are the people who are governed by the people in authority, and that it is your duty as an American, as a Christian, to be obedient to that authority. Now, recall that it works one way. It only works that way when a Republican, a white Christian, is in authority, right?
So whether you see it from the perspective of Stephen Miller, who’s just a nativist racist, or you see it from the perspective of Mike Johnson, who contends that he is carrying out this divine mission to submit to God’s authority and restore America as a Christian nation it really has the same effect: that these ICE agents are untouchable.
Sargent: You know, if you think about Minneapolis, which is really Ground Zero for the Trump/Stephen Miller/Mike Johnson war on the America of the 21st century, right? You can really kind of see the way they think of Minneapolis as something that needs this kind of violent cleansing, right? That’s what I think is going through their heads, right?
Posner: Absolutely. And do not forget that Trump probably maintains a grievance against Tim Walz for calling him and his supporters ‘weird,’ right? I mean, I think that that is also part of it.
He has actually used that word, looting, and that word has got to be deliberate, because looting is a word—it’s kind of a trigger word for conservatives about what protesters do when there are quote-unquote “riots” in a city, right? And so all of this is, like, very much tied together in the idea that Trump is protecting America from illegal immigrants.
Sargent: Yeah. So where does this end? Diverse, secular America—the one that exists in the actual Minneapolis, not the one that’s depicted on Fox News, not the fantasy version—that version of America is bigger than theirs. Is it not? Does that matter? How do we assert that vision of America?
Posner: Well, as you know, polls show that even though Republicans—a majority of Republicans—still support what Trump is doing and what ICE is doing, a majority of Americans overall do not. A majority of Democrats, a majority of independents, and very notably, he’s massively underwater with Generation Z. So the future of this country is not armed thugs roving the streets of our cities and terrorizing people and shooting them in the face. That’s not the future that anybody wants, right?
I mean, maybe Republicans think this kind of operation will never come to their city because Trump is only punishing blue cities. But, you know, there are a lot of Republicans out there who have friends and relatives who live in blue cities. Is that, like, what you want it to be like for them? Or when you go visit them? And I think that this is just un-American because it’s just inhuman, right? So it’s not just un-American. It’s horrific. And it’s not what Americans want.
Sargent: Sarah Posner, that was beautifully said. Folks, if you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to check out Sarah’s new podcast. It launches on January 22nd, and it’s called Reign of Error. I’ll be listening. Sarah, good to talk to you as always.
Posner: Thanks, Greg.
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