1/23/26: Don Lemon Charges REJECTED, Gavin’s Davos Knee Pad STUNT, Gaza Whistleblower Runs for Congress

27:18And so one argument you could see the protesters making is, well, we're not here to disrupt religious services and religious freedoms. This is us trying to like whistleblow on the pastor with respect to his dealings with ICE has nothing to do with the religious expression. Now, whether a court ultimately will buy that as a distinction for the dual intent purposes, unclear. But you can see the kind of arguments. We didn't physically obstruct. We didn't use force. We didn't use threats. And, you know, we don't have that intent. Right. Interesting. So say again, Pisco, what are the there were three?

27:52It's either obstruct, intimidate or actual violence. So those are three. It's force, threat or physical obstruction. You need to show one of them. And so and when you say threat, threat of what? Threat of force and threat is interpreted by courts in the context of true threats. These are a First Amendment standard that are like they're not protected by First Amendment jurisprudence. And they usually require some like reasonable person to apprehend that they're actually trying to put you in fear of bodily harm of some kind. And so if you're not seeing these these protesters shouting things like we're going to hurt you, we're going to like kill you or something like that.

28:34or wielding some kind of weapon to put them in fear, probably less likely for the threat prong. The physical obstruction, that's where the more complicated analysis is. And there are tons of decisions that try to interpret what physical obstruction means. Can it be constructive obstruction? Most courts say no, not constructive obstruction. What does that mean, constructive obstruction? That's what Sager does. Yeah, where you're kind of making it like more difficult and you're not actually physically blocking at all, but you're making it like difficult for for them to go into the into the given area, either the reproductive health service center or into the church.

29:15But you can imagine someone on the street yelling and saying something that's very emotionally resonant, but not necessarily physically obstructing. That said, there have been cases where it seems kind of trivial, the obstruction, where people are walking up to the individuals in their path with like flyers and leaflets. And that's treated differently than someone giving a leaflet from the side because you're trying to like stop there. In their path. Exactly. So the physical. So, well, I was just going to say, so in this instance, people were, you know, were leaving the church as the protesters are there.

29:49Like, they weren't obstructing, at least from what I've watched in the stream as well, they weren't obstructing people's, like, physical ingress or egress to the church. They were obviously obstructing the ability of the pastor to continue his sermon. So is it like physically obstructing into the actual building that is the legal standard or is it obstructing their ability to continue what they were doing in the building? Yeah, it's not just ingress and egress. The statute defines physical obstruction and it contains ingress and egress. And so I think they're not seemingly trying to block ingress or egress, but it also includes kind of conduct that makes it like unreasonably unsafe or difficult to get into the service place.

30:37Now, the question is, there have been some cases where protesters were, for example, in an abortion clinic or something, and they're sticking around because they know the cops are going to be there and they kind of are anticipating that they're going to stop the services. And you can see the kind of proximate cause of chain that they pretty much knew was foreseeable that people are going to be asked not to enter. So the question is, like, in terms of that actus reus component, the physical obstruction, how much are we getting into constructive obstruction by their conduct within? There have been some cases where just conduct within has been enough, but not always.

31:19Let me ask you this. This was a Sagar requested question, but I think it's a good one. So this was an article from the Washington Free Beacon about Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who's been defending the protesters inside the church. And they are alleging that he is hypocritical because in some other instances he supported the use of the FACE Act. Specifically, one of the cases they talk about here was involving a mosque. There was an activist who was filming the members of the mosque and their children over the course of I believe it was years over the course of years. They were sort of recording people going into and coming out of this mosque outside of Minneapolis.

32:01It says, as Minnesota attorney generally submitted a brief in a 2020 federal lawsuit that accused a Minneapolis woman of violating the First Amendment rights of parishioners at Dar al-Faruq Mosque outside of Minneapolis by filming them without their permission. Go on to say in 2015, as a House member, Ellison urged Obama civil rights chief Vanita Gupta to investigate whether a group of protesters in Phoenix violated the FACE Act by holding firearms during protests outside a Phoenix mosque. Quote, these demonstrators argue they are exercising their First Amendment rights. What they fail to understand is that First Amendment rights are not absolute.

32:33They are limited to protect the safety and rights of others. So does do they have a point here, Pisco, is this effective hypocrisy burn on Attorney General Ellison? I think it is. Yeah, I'm going to be honest about that. And listen, I'm a liberal Democrat and I so I put my cards on my on my chest. But yeah, I kind of don't like these bad arguments from Democrats that, oh, this law is just about reproductive services. And then you just go back and look at their track record and they're happy to use them to protect the religious liberties of other people when it suits them. And there are some things that A.G.

33:11Ellison has done that I've that I've liked. But in general, yeah, I think that that's like a bit of hypocrisy on that. And additionally, what that article I think details is his unwillingness to do anything about this specifically putting aside the FACE Act violations. There are potentially like, you know, trespass statutes that could be applied here and other state analogs. analogs, and it doesn't seem like he has any willingness to do that. I'm not saying that he should, but it's just something that people should take into consideration when sort of judging that conduct. If you think that that's acceptable, you're essentially saying that the law breaking in this context, which probably was some form of trespass, is justified given the interest.

33:47Now, I'm somewhat sympathetic to certain arguments to that effect, given what ICE is doing and the overwhelming illegality there. But it is a determination that you're going to have to make if you want to defend the actions or inaction. I just want to jump in there and say one of the reasons that people on the right like Mike Lee have long called for the repeal of the FACE Act is that actually a lot of what is covered in the FACE Act, if not all of what's covered in the FACE Act, is already illegal for other reasons. And trespassing is a really good example of that. And it's a really good example from last Sunday as well.

34:19So it's and Piscoe, you can speak to this, but from my perspective, it's always been since it was going back to 1994 when it was signed. It's been a serious threat to free speech. I mean, the way the law is written, you were pointing out just the question about leaflets. If you're on a public sidewalk handing out leaflets, are you implicated under the FACE Act? That's crazy. We have laws about trespassing on the books. And that applies to, you know, there are a lot of pro-lifers who will intentionally go up and violate the FACE Act as an act of civil disobedience. And they know that they're going to be charged under the FACE Act, but then it can be used to build conspiracy against rights cases and all of that.

35:02So it's just whether it's a church or an abortion clinic, you can speak to this piece, but I think it's almost a bipartisan. And, you know, if you if you catch people in honest moments on the left and the right, they will tell you that the FACE Act has has serious speech concerns baked into the law itself. Yeah, no doubt about that. And you put out a bunch of great points there. I want to hit them all. The first is the legislative basis for the law in the first place. Putting aside the First Amendment issues, like where does Congress derive that authority to even legislate in this domain? It's a government of limited powers that has been sustained under the Congress's Commerce Clause abilities.

35:41And I know a lot of conservatives have a lot of things to say about that specifically and whether or not it's gone too far and how much Congress is legislated in that domain. So I understand that totally. I think people would have less of a problem if it were just the force or threat part and the physical obstruction to the extent that it existed was ingress or egress only. Like then it seems like, OK, maybe there's something there if it's a really important interest. And you embrace something, a nuance that is super, super important. the conspiracy against rights part, which the administration is talking about incorporating.

36:15The KKK Act has a criminal part of it. And Trump was actually charged with this as part of the Jack Smith indictments. If you he just went up to Congress as well. That requires some sort of federal right in it. And you can use the KKK Act, the conspiracy against rights and incorporate underlying face act violation, or at least some courts have held that. And so, yes, the FACE Act being there, it's been sustained for its First Amendment on facially, at least. There could be a NASA applied challenge. Gives a lot of powers for the federal government to get involved and then hits you with that conspiracy against rights if they can show that there's like more than one person agreeing to do this stuff, which often you can.

36:58Yeah. So go ahead, Ryan. Then they'll try to roll up an entire like activist organization or everybody in a WhatsApp group or everybody on Facebook. Exactly. Yeah, that's disturbing. Yeah. Pisco, bottom line, this one for us, you know, what would be your estimate of how likely the government is to succeed on these charges against these three activists? Oh, boy. Hard to say. I think they're going to try to do the conspiracy against rights and incorporate an underlined FACE Act violation. I think if I were to judge the arguments just based on the evidence so far of what I've seen of the facts, I think they're going to have an easier time on the intent prong of it than potentially the prong of physical obstruction.

37:40It seems that courts have been quite liberal in applying the physical obstruction, not totally and 100 percent. I'm not saying that every disruption at a proceeding or something constitutes a physical obstruction. But here you have, what is it, like 40 people? The numbers involved here, the pre-planning, I think it can be analogized to some of these cases in reproductive health care centers with like two, three, four people where they cause a disruption sort of anticipating police to be involved. But, you know, here you have a difference where they didn't necessarily stay as long. But yeah, so I think there's a lot of room for courts to judge that this was a physical obstruction.

38:17The harder part is like, are they really trying to interfere specifically with the expression of civil liberties regarding religion? I'm not sure. An example I would think about, and you guys tell me what you think of it. Suppose that we had a priest who was accused of being inappropriate with altar boys and a group of five people come in and say, he's having inappropriate relations with altar boys. Would we consider that purpose, the intent there, to be to interfere with the expression of religious liberties just because as a consequence of trying to expose a crime or some kind of corruption that it entails stopping the service?

38:55That seems a little bit more farfetched to me that the mere disruption constitutes the intent prong. But who knows? We'll see what the courts will decide. And as of now, without any court documents or any kind of complaints or indictments, I'm not comfortable doing the estimate. And how much so this would be this would be a jury trial in Minneapolis? Presumably, yeah, this would be in the federal court because it's a federal cause of action. And yeah, it would be you have a right to a jury trial there and do the determinations. I will note that I think the case against Don Lemon is significantly weaker to the extent that there's a weakness on the intent prong for the protesters.

39:33There's an even harder case for Don Lemon. And so I think it's kind of absurd, frankly, but specifically the Don Lemon one, I think, is offensive. Yeah. With regard to, you know, the fact it would be a jury trial, I mean, we've seen we just saw yesterday a jury almost instantly find this guy not guilty in Chicago who had been charged with supposedly putting a ten thousand dollar bounty on the head of Greg Bovino. And in Chicago, as part of the reporting on that, they were pointing out that of the, I think, 31 non-immigration charges that were filed in the context of what was that one, Operation Midway Blitz or whatever, that none of them have been found guilty yet.

40:16And 15 of them have either the charges have been dropped or they've been found not guilty. And we've seen a bunch of instances where juries are grand juries are not indicting, where juries are finding people not guilty. This was another example of that. So how much does that also play into the possibility of how they'll view the actions of these protesters? You really have to, at times, doubt the seriousness of this Department of Justice, not just on some of these cases like the sandwich thrower case. Really, P.C.O.? The binders. Yes. Devastating. Recently, for example, Lindsay Halligan, did you see the news where she's like she's not actually appointed lawfully under the acts providing for interim officers?

40:59for the Eastern or for the Virginia District Court or the district attorney's office. And go for it. Oh, go ahead. I was just saying the Eastern District of Virginia. Yeah. And the officers in the Department of Justice, when they were when they're trying to justify her using the title, the title of U.S. attorney, they're basically using the court filings as another forum to air their grievances as though they were on a news media. The judge specifically called them out for being too like polemical and being too weird. And the court's like, we're not going to stoop to your level. It's too weird.

41:35Yeah. It's so weird. It's honestly boggling sometimes. And say nothing of the James Comey indictments. So their failure rate is not usual given the track record of the Department of Justice. Department of Justice is known for having like very good case rates and usually being able to convict on all their stuff. So this is abnormal. And the department is is going through some things. That's well said. Well said. Well, Pisco, thank you so much for teaching us about the law today. Where can where can people find you? And, you know, guys, I love Pisco. He's a debate gladiator. OK, I've seen him in the ring.

42:17I saw him on a Tim Pool cast. He debated five people on stage and the crowd. So got any big debates or any big streams coming up soon, Pisco? We have some people that are lined up, some people from the right, some people from the farther left. But, yeah, we're trying to work stuff out. I just had a conversation with Drew Pavlou. You guys know who this person is? He's like an online Australian person. Oh, yeah. Deeply. Yeah. And so he actually came to New York City, and he's like, hey, do you want to put on, like, a show or something? Like a week before he's supposed to arrive, he wanted me to do a ticketed event so they could cover the Peace Go Drew hour or something.

42:53totally wasn't going to happen, but he at least came in and we filmed the thing together. And it was a fun debate about the Venezuela strikes and about whether or not Trump is doing a good job. But you can find me at Pisco Liddy on all the platforms, YouTube, Twitter, whatever. We're always doing debates. And thank you again, guys. Appreciate your coverage. It's always really excellent. And yeah, looking forward to seeing what you guys. Yeah, of course. Pisco also did one of the World War. Word War debates. Which also Pisco had a very interesting logo, very similar to the logo of our old breaking points logo.

43:27Yeah. Some interesting AI happening at that event. Yeah. You guys tell me if you want to file like a trademark thing or something. Maybe we can work something out. But no, we don't do lawsuits. OK, we just talk to lawyers. That's right. But yeah, the word war debate, that was the one where Anna and Hannah Pearl Davis had this discussion about feminism was a total blowout. But I was actually like the undercard. They're trying to do it like UFC. And so if you want to learn about birthright citizenship, we had a very interesting debate between me and another lawyer regarding Trump's executive action on birthright citizenship.

43:58Amazing. Awesome. We'll check all that out. Peace go, Liddy. It will be in the description of this video, and we'll see you later, Peace go. Thanks, Peace go. Thank you so much. Have a good one, guys. This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Trainor, disappeared from a commune It was hard to wrap your head around It was nature and trees and praying and drugs No, I am not your guru And back then, I lied to my parents I lied to police I lied to everybody There were years right where I could not say your name I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California Interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists Whomever I can to try to find out what actually happened Isn't it a little bit weird that they obsess over hippies in the woods and not the obvious boyfriend?

44:50They have had this case for 30 years. I'll teach you sons of bitches. Come around here and my wife. Boom. Boom. This is The Red Weather. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show contains information subject to, but not limited to personal takes, rumors, not so accurate stats, and plenty more. What's up, man? This your boy, Nav Green, from the Broken Play Podcast. Look, it's the end of the season. The playoffs are here. But guess what? It ain't the end of your season. You can always tune in with Broken Play Podcast with Nav Green on the Black Effect Podcast Network.

45:30Not a team who ain't going to the playoffs. The Chiefs. Oh, it's a wrap. It's time to rebuild. Who your MVP right now then? Drake May up there. Josh Allen up there still. Oh, my boy, Matthew Stafford. Where the hell both Knicks at? He ain't too far behind. He did all this talking. What Matthew Stafford is doing statistically, bro, is crazy. Bro, you know I ain't no Josh Allen fan, but Matthew Stafford got better weapon. Caleb Williams. Hey, he should be in that conversation. In what conversation? MVP. He should be in it. Listen to Broken Play with Nav Green from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast.

46:08Okay, Ryan, we've got another guest in the mix here. that we're going to bring in right now. Why don't you introduce him for us, Ryan? Oh, yeah. So sometimes on the Friday show, we invite candidates on. Other times we speak with Anthony Aguilar today. We're doing both in the same segment. Turns out you are crazy enough not just to blow the whistle on the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, but also to now run for Congress in the 13th District of North Carolina, which covers what Raleigh and some of Fort Bragg. Anthony, what are you thinking? Well, great question. Fair question. And, you know, this district covers all the way up to the North Carolina-Virginia border because of the gerrymandering last year to separate District 2.

47:08It wraps around Raleigh and down south to where I live, where I have lived for the last 13 years where my children are raised, where they go to school, where we live and where I retired. So why, right? Like, why would I do this to myself? You know, after 25 years of serving in the United States Army and retiring, I was looking very much forward to a retired life, a quiet life. And then I went to Gaza and the things that I saw and the things that I witnessed and what our government was complicit in forced me to take a hard look at what our government is doing, what our government is doing abroad and domestically.

47:46And as we've seen the course that we're on, tough, tough questions need to be asked that aren't being answered. So since I returned from Gaza from July until now, I was just in D.C. last week talking to members of Congress. and last week by coincidence with Doctors Against Genocide, we talked to Brad Knott, who is the incumbent and the current holder of this district. And in speaking to his staff, his staff was not aware of any of the House resolution legislation for block the bombs, allowing aid into Gaza, the reference to what's happening in Gaza as a genocide, any of the War Powers Acts votes, which we've seen go twice now in a dead tie broken by the vice president.

48:32If his staff isn't aware of those things, it's because he doesn't care about those things. But of all the members that we talked to, senators and representatives, both sides of the house, bipartisan, they have excuses for hard questions. And it's led me to believe that our traditional party system and those in power right now are compromised and they do not have American interests in mind. So once again, I feel that I need to step up and answer the call and, you know, dust off my boots, so to speak, and go back into serving the nation. I find it as a calling. I don't see it as a as necessarily any type of political move in terms of me wanting to be a lifelong politician.

49:22This is not what I had on my bingo card going into the new year, but I'm doing it because I care about our country. I care about the trajectory that our country is on. And I care about all of you. I care about our fellow citizens. I care about my children and how they're going to grow up in this world. Anthony, I was going to ask, you referenced it there that, you know, you feel frustrated with the two-party system. You feel let down by both parties and you've decided to run as an independent. I'd love for you to just speak more about what led you to make that choice. So a couple things in reflecting on my own political views and where I fell and kind of how I felt coming out of the military seemingly in a very apolitical type of mindset and then becoming very political, I would say, in my viewpoints and where I stood on certain issues.

50:10But if you look at the landscape of America right now, most millennials and Gen Z are identifying as independent. 40 to 50 percent of adults are identifying as independent. I'm a millennial and I understand why we're identifying as independent. The problem is, is that there isn't really a good choice. This menu of two options between Republican or Democrat is a anemic menu with no fortitude and no character and no sustainment and nourishment to the American people. It's not a choice. It's a dilemma. The least bad of two bads. So looking into the parties to run with, I felt I cannot under good conscience, morally and ethically run with Democrats or Republicans.

51:00I cannot align myself to not only what they what they have been doing in action, but what their actions over the last, frankly, the last decade have been. Same for the Republican Party. I mean, even worse. So I looked at this and I'm like, what is the history of American politics and why do we just hold so tightly onto this two-party system? And you know, it wasn't until our 18th president, Grant, before we broke into this two-party system. And since then, we've had 19 Republicans and 11 Democrats. And where has it gotten us? We're at war with the world. We're in debt through our eyeballs. We're selling off our children's future.

51:42we're destroying the planet we have people in america that can't afford health care put food on the table before we had this two-party option whether you could choose a democrat or republican you know george washington himself ran unaffiliated then we had the federalist party then we had the democratic republican party then we had the national republican party and then we had the whig party and it wasn't until andrew jackson came along as the first democratic runner and when he ran against John Quincy Adams, they called him the same thing. Oh, you're gonna ruin, you're gonna spoil the race. And he won.

52:16He won because of the principles he stood out as a candidate, not the party. And then the Republican Party didn't come around until Abraham Lincoln. And then in Abraham Lincoln's second term, he didn't run as a Republican. He ran as a National Union Party. So this idea of this two-party system is a lie. It's a lie to keep America entrenched in corporatization and make Americans feel that your vote has to go one way or another. And if you don't, you're wasting your vote. I believe that's why we have seen a greater number of voters not turning out to vote, of voters feeling like they don't have an option, and voters feeling more and more that they identify as independent or third party, but still voting for a Democrat or Republican because they feel they don't have a choice.

53:02I don't feel that in this race I'm a spoiler. I feel that I'm enriching it. Who in this race, who in the district and many in Congress have the experience I have in foreign policy at the tip of the spear for the last quarter century or have felt the repercussions of domestic policy back home after returning from combat? I have. Well, talk to us about your domestic policy, Tony, because we've talked to you in the context of foreign policy. But what does your domestic policy agenda look like? How would you describe it? Well, so first of all, right now, and just as an anecdote to my overall view, if you look at the Department of Homeland Security's strategy for the next five years, 2023 to 2027.

53:45So we're about halfway through that strategy. $169 billion to continue to fund specifically ICE within the program of DHS to increase ICE agents from 400 field agents to 10 ,000. Why? We can be putting money into healthcare, into education, into better jobs and a living wage where Americans don't have to spend unlive off a credit card, where here in my own district where we have fracking and we have AI installations or AI sites going up, sucking our water and our power. So when I look at these policies and how they're being employed and why, I'm not someone that thinks in this hyperbole of abolish ICE or in this bombastic sense.

54:42We need reformers. We absolutely do need reform. I don't believe that our system is broken. I believe that the people running the system and the people that have set the rules that we all have to abide by over the last decade plus don't have our interests in mind. So I would look at domestic policy from a standpoint of the programs that we fund. Looking at the National Defense Authorization Act, looking at the National Defense Strategy, why are we funding the National Defense Strategy to the Department of Defense with a$1.7 trillion budget next year? After this year, we just gave them$981 billion.

55:20That's not what the American people signed up for. That's not what the American people want. We do not want to be entrenched in endless war or war in our own hemisphere or making enemies of our closest partners between Canada and Mexico where we can take advantage of the prosperity of what we have in this nation and not selling it to foreign lobbyists. I think that our domestic policy has been sold to foreign interest. I want to sever that. As a candidate, I will take no money from political action committees to include, yes, APAC. I will take no money from large lobbyist groups or special interests, nor the military industrial complex.

56:05I have seen firsthand how the military industrial complex stretches its tentacles deep into our domestic policy, where we move weapons facilities, where we move space command headquarters, whether it should be in Alabama or Colorado, Colorado back to Alabama, simply because the president has a friend in Alabama, wasting American dollars. I know that I could look through the NDAA just in that one piece of legislation, document earmarks and save the American taxpayer billions, but also put that money back into things that Americans want in our country. Anthony, on the reforming ICE position, now abolish ICE has become a very popular position within the Democratic side of the party.

56:49You know, ICE has the incredibly large funding, larger than the GDPs of many countries. A lot of people are fixated on this killing of Renee Good. Yes. So what does reforming ICE look like, especially because ICE has only been around for about two decades? We didn't have ICE before. Why do we need ICE now? And what are the specific reforms you're suggesting? First of all, as a candidate in Congress, One of the first things I would get to work on is drafting a resolution to bring to my constituents and caucus on disbanding the BIRD program under the Department of Homeland Security. And that's the Binational Industrial Research and Development Program.

57:32That is the program that attaches ICE to training with foreign entities such as the Israeli Ministry of National Security. I would sever that program. That program is nothing more than a program to put Israel in the forefront of our domestic agencies. It serves no purpose. They are not trained well. We've seen the result of the training. Now, when someone says abolish ICE or abolish the Border Patrol or abolish the police, under the current leadership and the current personalities that run those organizations, Christine Oum, Greg Bovino, yeah, it's pretty easy to want to say that. But in this country, do we want a border patrol?

58:15Yes, we do. We share a large border with Canada and Mexico. Do we want an immigration control element for illegal immigrants and so that we have a responsible immigration policy? We do. Not under the current way that it's funded where we have turned the border patrol and we have turned ICE and we have turned the TSA and we have heard other components of the DHS into an internal policing security mechanism against American people, funded, as you said, more than the GDP of some nations, and we're turning them into an army. 400 right now. What we're seeing on the streets of our country, Minneapolis, Washington, all around the country, that's only 400 ICE agents.

59:04Imagine 10 ,000. That's what the current budget, this budget that was just passed, that was pushed through to get us to this 1.7 trillion, you know, where we were supposed to thank Congress for doing their job, approved DHS security strategy FY26, which we've now started in October, into 27 for that funding that I just described to you for$169 billion to field 10 ,000 ICE agents. We don't need that. We should abolish that. abolish the entire agency? No. I have been in the military long enough and I have lived through budget cuts and military expenditures and spending cuts that when you take a cut to the bone through programs, you make things worse.

59:50We should be surgical in our approach to what we cut. We should be surgical in our approach to what we fund because that's what the American people deserve. Every single penny that goes into these programs comes out of our pocket, comes out of the food on our table, the college fund for our children. And that penny should be spent responsibly. And it's not. So I am not an advocate of saying abolish this or abolish that. But I think that we need some serious, deep reform in those agencies from the top down, all the way down to the field agent. The behavior and the tactics that we saw on the streets of Minneapolis, that's not a coincidence.

1:00:28We, the American taxpayer, paid for that training through the funding of the Binational Industrial Research and Development Program outlined in the DHS, funded under the NDAA and written off by this Congress to continue to pay for into 2027. And what comes in 2026? Midterm elections. Next election coming up, presidential election. We're going to have 10 ,000 ICE agents on the streets of America. That's scary. So, Anthony, the reason why myself and others who support Abolish ICE do so is not because, I mean, I'll speak for myself, not for everybody, but not because I want to completely end immigration enforcement, but because I believe this particular agency is a rogue agency.

1:01:07And I'll tell you what I mean by that. So you're obviously retired military, highly decorated. And even though I think the Trump administration is doing things to try to turn the military into just their personal foot soldiers, I have confidence that if you elected a Democratic president, that the military command would follow the leaders, the leadership of the commander in chief, that they would obey the orders, the lawful orders of whoever the commander in chief was, whether they be Democrat or Republican. I believe ICE is different in that they are, especially this surge of recruits, are being brought in specifically to be the foot soldiers of this administration and to pursue this particular policy, not to be loyal to the country regardless of who is in charge.

1:01:54That's the reason why, while I support, you know, having some immigration enforcement, why I think this particular agency is so rotten and so rogue, it needs to be eliminated entirely. And that we could go back to the system that we had prior to the war on terror, where immigration enforcement was housed in, you know, in a different agency. INS. Yes. Yeah, being from South Texas and living in a border city, I'm very familiar with the previous policies that INS and why ICE was created. Very much a product of the Global War on Terror and the Patriot Act and looking at Americans as the enemy. So in the sense of abolishing the agency, so what I would say to clarify my position is we should not abolish the function.

1:02:42Abolish the agency and its current operations and its current agency and the people that are in it. Yes, I do not want to abolish the function. If you look at the function prior under Immigration and Naturalization Services or INS and that function, we didn't have militarized federal agents storming the streets of America, kicking in doors without warrants and arresting five-year-olds. We have that now because of the agency and what it has become. So to that point, I agree with you wholeheartedly. And to the point of who they're recruiting, true story. Many of those infidels motorcycle club bikers that served in the GHF because that was the hottest thing going.

1:03:24Guess where they're working now? Ice. You know that for a fact? I know that for a fact. Not only have I seen them on videos, I have identified them and I have seen some of them that have celebrated it. Some of the same individuals that were in Gaza shooting people in the face with tear gas, shooting at people with machine guns, billy clubbing people and spraying them with the entire can of mace in the face. Palestinians, unarmed Palestinians, are now working in the field as ICE agents. That's a fact. We should also note that we spoke with the Chapin Faye spokesperson for the GHF and refer people to that interview to hear their perspective on all of those.

1:04:14We can link to it in the bottom here. Sure. Yeah. When I when I look at things like that, that demographic is what ICE is recruiting. Individuals that are already prone to an extremist viewpoint against immigrants or Arabs or any type of minority or quote unquote foreigner who already have a propensity for violence. Those are the people that they're hiring. And how much are they paying ICE agents now? Around 200 grand. How much were they paying us while we were in Gaza? In Gaza, about two grand a day. It's about the same. That's the price of freedom. That's the price of truth. That's the price of integrity.

1:04:51Give someone two grand a day and they will turn their back on all American values and they will be the extremist Gestapo that you want them to be. And that is what ICE has become. So to the notion of abolishing the agency as it is, Yes, I do not want to abolish the function. So therefore, when you talk about abolishing the agency, you have to be very careful when it comes to fiscal year and calendar year spending and earmarks in the Congress. You have to plan ahead for that. So if you abolish the agency, you then do not have an agency to build within that for the function. So abolish it, yes, but do not abolish the function.

1:05:29The function should be reinforced in a way that promotes immigration in our country, because after all, we are a nation of immigrants. You could send them all a fork in the road email too. There you go. We're going to actually follow the constitution now, fork in the road. Like if you want to do that. I find it to be a very simple notion, very clear set of guidelines that if we follow the constitution and what it was designed to be as a document for our nation right now, if the constitution is in left field of Wrigley Stadium, we're somewhere in Barcelona. We're nowhere near it. We're not even in the same sport.

1:06:10So on the horse race, what's the what's this newly drawn district like when it comes to the composition of registered Republicans, Democrats and independents and third party? And Brad was running for reelection. I haven't even. So here in this district, the incumbent Brad Knott, this is his first office holding right now. He will run as an incumbent. The incumbent Republican typically sweeps in the primary, which will be in March. And then when he goes into the general, he'll have to face me. He is an APAC recipient, big time APAC recipient. And he'll have to answer for that. I think Americans are tired of that.

1:06:47The other piece with District 13, District 13 encompasses eight counties, Wake County being one of them where Raleigh is, which is the capital of North Carolina. And now District 2, Deborah Ross, a Democrat who also takes APAC money, it cuts Wake County in half. And as I was looking at where to run in North Carolina 13, I didn't want to be a carpetbagger and run out of district or run just to run like a Randy Fine or someone to that nature. I want to run where I live, where my children go to school, where I pay my trash bill, where I pay my electric bill, where the school bus picks up my kid and drives them to school on public roads, where I live, where my wife lives, where we live and work and raise our family.

1:07:29That's where I want to represent because I live here. It's a self-interest in a way, but I also, I deeply care about the people in this district because a lot of them in the four district or at the four counties that surround Fort Bragg are veterans and military and they're getting screwed over. And part of my platform is advocating for veterans, for veterans benefits, for mental health. As an example, to yesterday, I had a VA appointment and because funding was cut to build the VA hospital in Sanford where I live, which cuts the distance in half for people that live between the two, wasn't funded.

1:08:08It wasn't funded because we're spending money on ice. So whenever I have to go for a VA appointment, free healthcare offered by the government, I have to drive an hour and 15 minutes away. That's not putting veterans first. That's not putting Americans first. And it was in the funding and it was cut. Where did that money go? That money went to a ballroom. That money went to ice. That money went to war in Venezuela and secret sonic weapons. Apparently Trump is paying for the ballroom himself, but I think the other ones. He took donors to pay for the first hundred and thirty million. The price tag is now three hundred and nineteen million.

1:08:44And that is coming out of our pockets because it's going to fund the National Registry of Historic Sites through the national parks. That money is going there. What I always say, follow the money. So you're with Sagar on demolishing the ballroom. What's that? Sagar wants to demolish the ballroom once Trump is out. Would you support that? You know, I was in the army when we went through this kerfuffle of naming all the bases. And I thought, OK, well, if we're going to name all the bases, we're never going to make everybody happy. So let's just name the base for the city it's in. Let's just do like the Navy does or what the Air Force does, like Mountain Home or let's just name it for the city it's in.

1:09:24But we went to this whole kerfuffle of changing the name, which cost the American taxpayer for military bases that were named after Confederate generals, which I agree with the notion of. That cost over$30 million. Signage, funding, ridiculous. And within the first week of Donald Trump coming back into office, one of his first executive decisions was to change it back. So now I watched it. I literally watched at Fort Bragg on the road that I drive on every day coming home from my son's school where that sign went from Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty to Fort Bragg. And the same dude that worked for the Department of Public Works was the one out there changing the sign because I took a picture with him.

1:10:06I'm like, don't you think this is ridiculous? And he was like, he was like, yeah, man. He's like, I just took this sign down last week. I was going to take it home and put it in my garage. But before I could even leave work today, they were telling us to put this new one back on. So 60 million dollars down the drain because of some pedantic, petty job creation. Yeah. You know, and it's just you had, you know, when they when they're like, oh, it's going back to Fort Fort Bragg. You know, you had all the all the old timers that have been working on Fort Bragg since before I was born, like have to go race back to their garage to get stuff out.

1:10:40Like, you know, they were they were heirloom. They were they were historic items. So yeah, it's a waste. So when you look at this ballroom piece, it's disgraceful. It's absolutely disgraceful that when you look throughout our country, you have hardworking Americans, hardworking Americans, not Americans taking handouts. And in most cases, we refuse even a hand up because they wanna work hard and they wanna provide for their family. And they make ends meet by working two, sometimes three jobs, both in the household work. I know that because where I go to school in the neighborhood that I live in, we're very close.

1:11:16And we sometimes have the neighborhood kids over when their parents are at work. And we and we kind of help with that that communal aspect of of, you know, caring for caring for the neighborhood kids. and I see people having to work incredibly hard just to put food on the table and pay the bills while our president is building a lavish ballroom in front of our eyes where the price tag was lied to us and is tripled. He's not a good builder as he says he is or the real estate magnate. He is not those. He's horrible at it. He just has endless money and he's entitled. And when I look at that, the scene that goes through my head is like, if Great Gatsby was written in 1984, in a third world country.

1:12:00Anthony, thank you so much for choosing us to break the news of your candidacy. We're very honored. We're grateful for you, you know, stepping up to serve in a new way. Once again, tell people where they can find more about your campaign and support you if they're inclined. Aguilar for uscongress.com. You can find all the information and links to the social media associated to the platform. And then also, when I saw you last, I myself was not on social media. I am now. I have become part of the new generation. So look out, America. I'm learning how to do Tic Tac and Instagram. It's crazy. but amazing the reason I specifically wanted to ask Emily Ryan crystal is because you've always been a strong voice you've always stood on the principles of truth regardless of the consequence and you're strong and you're courageous I follow everything that y 'all do and when I first came back from Gaza you were one of the first that wanted to hear the story and that amidst the lies and the slander that were just incredulous.

1:13:04You stood strong against that with truth and integrity. And whether or not we agree on everything, I know that I can trust you because you're a platform of integrity. And that's what's important to me, integrity. And you represent that. And you are warriors, that you are warriors out there asking hard questions, asking hard kidding questions. I've watched your platform. And when someone's in the hot seat and you ask them a hard question and they're BSing you, you do not let them off the hook. I love that. Well, that means a lot coming from you, Anthony. So thank you so much for all of those kind words.

1:13:40And also, like I said, I ran for Congress once. I know it is a major sacrifice, the level of scrutiny you're going to get. It's not always a fun thing. So thank you so much for putting yourself in the hot seat once again. I think the mudslinging with the GHF prepped me well. I'm ready. Yeah, that's true. You are ready. Well, thank you very much and have a have a great day and have a safe weekend. I know we're going to get some winter weather. So be safe. Indeed. Yeah. Be safe, Anthony. Thank you. Good luck. Anthony Aguilar, independent for Congress. Thank you. Carolina's 13th district. all right perfect perfect um that was uh anthony and uh that's going to be the end of the first half of the show folks we're gonna be talking about a lot of stuff here in the second half we're gonna be looking at jared kushner's plan for new gaza we might be looking at elon's promise that we're all going to have a personal robot in the next two to four years look excited that and maybe we will take some intensive looks at Trump's hand that has not been looking good lately definitely gotta do that he clipped it on a table many such cases Crystal has to go to a gymnastics meet, is that what's going on?

1:14:54yeah, we had some she was supposed to be this weekend because of the snow, they moved it up so now it's today you guys better do excellent medical analysis on this hand situation Okay, I'll be checking in. If you want to see the rest of the show, second half of the show, you can go to breakingpoints.com to sign up, become a member and support Breaking Points. And we'll see you all there in just a moment. Bye-bye. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.