Kristi Noem impeachment picks up steam-- even among Republicans

26:13And so is there going to still be an effort, even with the evidence that we have publicly available, to secure, you know, to move forward with investigations and possible prosecutions, you know, given what we've got access to already? Well, Brian, I wouldn't agree that a videotape makes for a prosecution. I mean, I prosecuted the people who killed George Floyd, and I knew, based on my 36 years of being a lawyer, that you couldn't just push play and win. It doesn't work like that. And if you're not a lawyer and you haven't ever tried a case, you may not quite understand all the tricks that the defense counsel can pull.

26:55And they're not tricks. They're due process, okay? But I would say I would not agree that it's just some easy thing, easily done, push play button, you win. That's not true. And so I get a little nervous when I hear people say that because it's like, oh, your job is nothing and you don't really have. this is enormously difficult work to do. And it's going to, and if you really want to, if you want to do more than just get an indictment or a charge, and you actually want to convict somebody, you got to give us the room to work and saying that, oh, this is easy. This is nothing. Just, you know, just, just use the video.

27:34We're going to use the video. And I also want to correct one other thing, which is that we do have evidence other than, I mean, it's not like we don't have any evidence. We have a whole portal that the Hennepin County Attorney is open and that the Attorney General is open, and we are getting critical evidence from the public every day. And the BCA is cataloging and documenting and storing evidence all the time. And we may yet get the cooperation from the feds that we need. We don't know. We're not going to foreclose the possibility. But what I don't want to, but I wanted to say is that one, this is not easy.

28:14Two, it is worth doing right the first time. Three, however happy you feel when there's an indictment or a charge, if we get there, and as a prosecutor, I have to put it like that, okay? You will be much happier if we convict the person. And so let's stay in the long game. I'm telling you, from the moment that George Floyd was killed till the time that we got the conviction was not an overnight thing. But I think everybody in retrospect would say it was worth getting it right. So what I'm saying is that when it comes to pretty and good, no one has ever accused me of being afraid or reluctant to pursue justice.

28:56And I'm absolutely going to do that. And I'm going to do it with the partnership of the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, Mary Moriarty, and with the help of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. And I hope with the help one day of people in the FBI, should they change course. Have you had conversations with Kristi Noem or Pam Bondi or anybody in the DOJ or DHS or ICE? No. You know, since this is taking place, since they've kind of stonewalled you? You know, well, let me tell you, one time I talked to J.D. Vance one time. I've called Pam Bonney twice and didn't get a call back. And I've called the local U.S.

29:39attorney appointed by Trump and have received no return call. So that's about it. I'm joined now by Congressman Ro Khanna. Thanks for joining me. Thank you, Brian. So, Congressman, I wanted to have you on because you put together a really effective, in my opinion, list of things that we can do to hold ICE accountable, to push back against the overreach that we're seeing right now in at the hands of this rogue lawless secret police agency. So can you talk a little bit about some of the the things that we might be able to do right now to hold ICE to account as, you know, in the position that we're in right now, which is from the minority and then moving forward?

30:20People are horrified by the state execution of an American, but they want more than tweets and Instagram videos and social media posts. They want a plan of action. So I'm going to be introducing a bill that I hope can unify Democrats. It'll have three core points to it. First, let's make sure that we are not funding ICE in terms of the shutdown bill. Second, let's repeal the$75 billion in multi-year ICE funding. And third, let's end qualified immunity for these ICE agents and make sure that we're actually prosecuting ICE agents who break the law and hauling them in front of Congress. Now, it's going to have 10 total, but those are the three core themes.

31:06So let's talk about the the the likelihood of any of these things passing, given the fact that, look, right now, Democrats are in the minority. But even if Democrats are in the majority, they still have to contend with the with the prospect of a veto by Trump. And so is there any way for Congress to actually get these things done, given the fact that we can't go through regular course of order with Trump at the top of the food chain? First of all, we need to see Congress act. Right. I mean, the Republicans, when they were in the minority, every day would introduce or try to introduce legislation to repeal Obamacare.

31:39So the fact that we may not be in power doesn't mean that we go to sleep. We should be on the floor introducing what the legislation would be if we were in the majority. Second, there are Republicans who have emailed me, who I've worked with on the Epstein matter, who are concerned about government overreach. They're concerned, frankly, from a Second Amendment perspective because the person was carrying a handgun, but which was legal. And, you know, they certainly don't want a precedent of the federal government overreaching and killing people with guns. So I do think, like we did with the Epstein files, we can find unique coalitions to move forward.

32:17But what I was saying with that agenda is let's get to work on it. Let's be introducing legislation every day, holding hearings every day, making sure that we are trying the discharge petitions, making sure we're trying coalitions, showing up for field hearings like the Progressive Caucus did in Minnesota. Not just, oh, well, we're not in charge. Let's wait to 26 or 28. No. What are we doing now? In terms of DHS funding, obviously the bill eked out of the House. But now in the Senate, Chuck Schumer came out and said that basically Senate Democrats are not going to be a party to passing any budget that includes this DHS funding.

32:52And so do you have any degree of confidence that there will be enough Republicans who see the abuses at the hands of these ICE agents and say, you know what, I think this is this is a hill that we're not worth that we're not willing to die on. So let's relent here. I think there may. But if the Democrats, of course, stay unified, then they can't pass it because this is not reconciliation. They need 60 votes. So I'm glad there's a line even for Schumer that seeing the state execution of Americans is too much. And, you know, and that we're going to hold together. I mean, Bill Clinton, whose politics are much more centrist than mine.

33:29I mean, his statement saying he's concerned for this country. He doesn't know what's happening in this country. Could not have imagined that you'd have state government officials shooting American citizens. It is horrifying. Yeah, I mean, just literally executing them in the street. And then and then on top of that, to your point that you made before to lean on this excuse that, oh, well, they were armed. This is Republicans saying that somebody being armed is a pretext to be able to just serve as judge, jury and executioner and kill them in the street. You know, two of the other things that you had spoken about that I want to talk about here.

34:02One is the idea of impeaching Noem and Pam Bondi. Obviously, Kristi Noem continues, even in the face of all of this, to go out and just lie brazenly and claim that the victim here was a domestic terrorist with no basis to do so, no evidence to claim that. You have Pam Bondi doing the exact same thing. Is there an appetite among your Republican colleagues to actually move forward with some type of impeachment? With Pam Bondi, absolutely, yes. And that stems in part from the Epstein files. I mean, she has covered up with the Epstein files. There is a lot of Republican discontent. Massey and I have been talking about impeaching her or doing inherent contempt.

34:48And we will be moving forward in the next couple of weeks as we're gathering more Republicans. And there's a through line here, right? The elite impunity between Epstein and the elite impunity between pardons for political contributions and the elite impunity allowing ICE agents to kill American citizens without investigating, prosecuting them. It's just an administration that lies and doesn't have accountability. With Noam, again, more or less support than maybe Pam Bondi, which has been in the culture for weeks. But now I'm starting to hear from some of the same Republicans who are working with me on Epstein and on Bondi that she has engaged in government overreach, especially on this issue of the Second Amendment.

35:31They don't want a president of an attorney general or a Department of Homeland Security giving instructions to shoot people just because they have arms. And I do think that this could be a dividing line where they see the ICE thing less from an immigration perspective and more from a government overreach perspective and a violation of freedom. So I think those are two realistic impeachments that we should pursue starting next week. One of the other things that I had that I thought was especially interesting in your list was the idea of investigating and prosecuting every ICE agent who broke the law.

36:08Obviously, we saw Jonathan Ross, who executed Renee Good just about a week ago. And now we have this latest ICE agent who executed Alex Preddy also in Minnesota. And yet the reality is that we already know DHS is not allowing the BCA state investigators in Minnesota to have access to the crime scene. They want to to have retained full jurisdiction so that state investigators don't get to do any prosecution at the state level. And that's for the express purpose that Pam Bondi and the rest of the law enforcement officials at DOJ have already pre-cleared any ICE agents and have decided that they can act with impunity so long as they're politically aligned with Trump.

36:48And so and so how much confidence do you have that we are going to see some accountability, given the fact that without even engaging in a modicum of investigation, we have Pam Bondi, J.D. Vance, Donald Trump, any other Trump administration official who's already decided by fiat that anything these ICE agents do is completely justified. And in fact, the victims are somehow the perpetrators. Well, no confidence. First of all, J.D. Vance doesn't understand the law. He's talking about absolute immunity for ICE officers. ICE officers don't have absolute immunity. There's no immunity from criminal prosecution.

37:21They have qualified immunity, meaning Rene Good or Petri's families can't sue the ICE officer civilly. And I'm saying we should eliminate that qualified immunity. But they have no immunity from criminal prosecution. J.D. Vance just literally made that up. And he made that up because that's this administration's policy. You literally can have the government use force against an American citizen, use violence against an American citizen, and they believe there's no accountability. I mean, that is the definition of authoritarianism, that a citizen does not have rights against the state's use of force.

37:56It's such a horrific thing that Justice Department civil rights attorneys that I know are resigning. Six of them resign because there's no investigation into the killer of Renee Good. And my view is that we need to make it very clear that when we take back the Congress, these people will be hauled in front of the Oversight Committee. When we take back the White House, these people will be prosecuted. But we need to make a list, keep a list of everyone who's been violating the law under the Trump administration, whether those are people who are killing boatsmen in Venezuela, whether they're people who dismantle agencies that kill people in Africa, whether it's people who have engaged in illegal conduct in ICE, and they all need to be held accountable and investigated and prosecuted, not out of retribution, but out of a sense of justice, because without justice, you cannot have reconciliation.

38:48Without a sense of affirming the rule of law, this country cannot move forward. So I'm not one of those people who thinks, kumbaya, let's move forward, all is forgiven. I think we need to make it clear that there's going to be consequences when we have the Congress and the White House. And one more point, Brian, on that, that's going to also provide a counter incentive in the next three years for them not to act with impunity because they know they would go to jail when the new administration comes into town. And I'm so glad that you said that because, you know, the last time that we were in kind of an analogous situation, which is Joe Biden takes over, Merrick Garland take over in the aftermath of Trump trying to overturn an election.

39:27And we have a DOJ that's so focused on preventing the optics of politicization that they don't touch Donald Trump for two years. Finally, they deign to appoint a special counsel two years in to Joe Biden's term, giving Trump enough time to basically, you know, delay his way out of these charges, wins the presidency. And now the first thing Trump does is basically absolve anybody who committed crimes in his name and just and legalize crime so long as you do it on behalf of Donald Trump. But the only reason that he felt emboldened enough to do that, the only reason that we're seeing any of these people act in such a way that there's no as if there's no consequences is because when Democrats have had power in the past, they refuse to wield it.

40:09And when we have the opportunity to hold people to account for having committed crimes, we are so focused on not wanting to seem political, but in effect, we just allow them to run roughshod over democracy and and relegate Democrats to like non-existent status in the United States. And so it's just so self-defeating on the Democrat side. And then just more broadly, as far as democracy is concerned, you can't have a functioning democracy if one side is allowed to is allowed to, you know, just completely ignore the rules and for whom the law doesn't even apply. Well, that's very well said, Brian.

40:44I mean, we should never be exercising power for retribution or power in an unconstitutional way. But your point is we've been reluctant to exercise power for justice because of the political optics, because we're afraid of what people will think. Well, that's wrong. You can't just be so afraid about political perception that you're not willing to exercise power justly and make sure people have accountability. And this has been going on for decades. Remember when the people who committed torture in Iraq and got us into a war in Iraq with lies? They were never held accountable. What about the bankers who created the Great Recession and hollowed out the savings of all Americans and homeowners?

41:29owners. They were never held. No prosecutions of the bankers, right? You know, that's such an important point because that is in large part the mentality that Trump exploited to win the presidency. I mean, this idea that there's two tiers of justice, that you have a cabal of people at the top who never get held accountable, who can commit crimes with impunity. And he and he basically leveraged the anger that Americans have with that exact thing and used it to propel himself into the White House. And now he's just he's just basically exacerbating that exact phenomenon, except for his own friends and his own political allies.

42:03It's just it's just the peak of hypocrisy. It is. That's what Epstein is all about. Right. I mean, he said, I'm going to go get Epstein, these people who raped underage girls from working class families now. No, I'm not going to go after my friends. And now he's partnering people who literally are giving him political contributions. And now he has allowed people to commit crimes in his behalf and killing people. He's allowed people to dismantle agencies that are killing people. And if we just get in what we do and say, OK, all is forgiven. Let's move on. Then the next Republican, once it comes into power, is going to think, OK, I'm just going to commit whatever crimes I want.

42:44I mean, the reality is that we need to learn that Merrick Garland is a decent human being. Maybe he would have been a fine justice. He was a terrible attorney general. And, you know, we should have had someone in that position who is actually going to go after the crimes. I mean, you know, I know Vice President Harris was, you know, did well as vice president, but she would have actually had the chops to go after people as an attorney general. You need someone who's aggressive and going to actually fulfill the law. Right. And deter criminals from committing crimes in the future. And that's something that we don't have, which is why we have such an emboldened MAGA Republican Party right now.

43:22because, you know, why? Because why wouldn't they? What Democrats have shown them that there's some deterrent value to doing anything that they're doing? I want to finish off with this. We have seen the way in which ICE has comported itself. Should ICE continue to exist? Is it salvageable in any form? No. And that should be the answer across the Democratic Party. Absolutely not. It has been corrupted. It has been tainted. It is an agency that is rogue, that is killing American citizens. Tear it down. start a new agency that has oversight? Look, you of course need immigration enforcement. No one would say you should not enforce immigration laws.

43:59Of course you need a secure border and have to enforce immigration laws. But we had the INS for decades before we had ICE. And what has happened with ICE is beyond redemption. I mean, they have hired people who have no training, who are acting like goons, and have militarized budgets. and they have no oversight. And so the Democrats need to be clearly for tearing it down, replacing it with an agency that actually works under justice for human rights. And that's one of the points I have in this resolution that we shouldn't be afraid of it. I think this is the moment for a realignment, for a bold agenda for the party.

44:41People are desperate for it. Perfectly put. We'll leave it there. Congressman, thank you so much as always for the time and for your leadership on these issues. Thank you, Brian. I'm joined now by the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia. Congressman, thanks for joining me. Sure thing. So we've seen a number of abuses play out as it relates to ICE. With Kristi Noem in charge of the Department of Homeland Security, what punishment, what consequences should she shoulder because she's in charge of this agency? Well, she should be impeached. I mean, look, if Kristi Noem doesn't resign or remove from office, that impeachment procedure should start immediately.

45:17I'm one of the co-authors of the impeachment resolution that's now in front of the Congress. There is no question that she has gone above and beyond the crimes, what she's done to rip up her Constitution, due process for U.S. citizens, the way she's treating people, the way that she and her agents have now, of course, now are killing Americans and people on the streets of our country is not only shameful. It is it every American should be so disturbed by the images they're seeing now. And to have her and others come out and say that everything that the agents are doing is correct or somehow that we shouldn't believe what we're seeing.

46:01Obviously, we're all all of us are outraged by it. And so she must be impeached. And those those efforts are underway. And I know that oversight, judiciary, homeland security, those three committees are going to be very involved in that process. Can you talk a little bit about the appetite among your Republican colleagues? Because obviously they're going to play a major role in this if, you know, they have a majority in the House and they're in charge of all these committees. Look, some of the Republicans are obviously starting to grow a little bit of a spine. You're starting to see some members of Congress actually ask for independent investigations, talk about the shooting as it relates to needing additional information.

46:38So look, there's something there. At the end of the day, I think most Republicans in Congress, they are committed. They bend the knee to Donald Trump, whatever he wants. But we have to push that their majority is so slim that we've got to push aggressively to get this impeachment moving. And hopefully, we just need a couple Republicans to join us. We've seen Republican defections on issues that have become, you know, 70-30 or 80-20 issues before the Epstein file discharge petition happened because there was so much public pressure to the point where Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace, Thomas Massey all signed on to this effort.

47:15And ultimately, the law was passed out of the House and signed by Trump. Now we have another issue that's become a 70-30 issue with the way that ICE is abusing their position. You know, 70 % of Americans, again, do not approve of what we're seeing right now at the hands of ICE. And so is does there still exist the possibility that if we saw this come up for a vote, that the pressure would be great enough on even these few Republicans who could defect and make a majority that we can actually see some movement on this issue? I mean, look, we're going to find out. I think there could be. There are a lot of Republicans that are running for re-election in some in districts that Kamala Harris won, many others that are trying to find their spine again and trying to do the right thing.

47:56And they're seeing Donald Trump and his complete erratic behavior. Donald Trump is losing his mind. I mean, he can't even put together coherent sentences. He can barely reach out to the American public and explain what he's trying to do on any given day. And that was going into American cities and turning ICE into his own police force. And so there's a lot of work ahead for us to do. The impeachment proceedings need to start immediately. To what extent do you think, were you surprised to see organizations like the NRA, gun owners of America, former Bush officials who were in charge of standing up the Department of Homeland Security back in 2002.

48:35All of these people kind of coalescing into this one narrative that they are vehemently opposed to what the administration is saying right now, whether it's whether it's trying to vilify Alex Preddy for the crime of holding a gun for which he had a concealed carry permit and never even held because he was holding his phone, all the way up to just, again, to your exact point, these executions at the hands of these ICE agencies. What does it say that all of these even right-wing voices are coming out in opposition to this? It's been really great to actually see some of these right-wing groups come out.

49:11I mean, the fact that the NRA said anything, I think is a really important step forward. But as important as some of these right-wing groups have been a lot of these right-wing voices and leaders online, I've seen folks that have essentially always supported Trump beginning now to say, hey, this is wrong. What ICE is doing is wrong. These are U.S. citizens. Why is ICE attacking folks this way? Why are we losing our civil liberties? The fact that DHS said that he had a had a gun, that has nothing to do with the fact that he wasn't using it. He's allowed to carry people in this country are allowed to carry.

49:46and having a gun that is not a reason to just murder someone because they are actually filming an incident, an ICE operation. And so I think a lot of folks right now are finally beginning to see the terror of this administration and the damage that Donald Trump is doing to this country. So I hope those folks continue to be loud and continue to voice their opposition. You know, in the aftermath of the 2024 election, there was a lot of talk about the damage that the Democratic brand had sustained. And cut to we're now in January of twenty twenty six. Today, the gubernatorial candidate for the Republican Party in Minnesota dropped out because the brand of the GOP is so toxic that he didn't even think it was worth it to run as a Republican in that state.

50:33And so can I have your reaction to kind of that switch that we're seeing right now at the hands of a party that had, you know, clear runway, everything going for them to the point where just, you know, a year later, they can't even run as Republicans in certain states because what Trump has done to that brand is so egregious. Well, absolutely. And let's look at the polling and the research. I mean, first, Trump is historically unpopular right now. He's never been this unpopular, not just with the American public, but with his own base. Yeah. The MAGA brand is underwater completely. Really, I'm seeing these numbers.

51:13And what's really interesting is he's not just doing poorly in traditional areas like health care or even on the Epstein files issue, but now on immigration. administration he's underwater on what used to be his signature issue where the american public has turned on him on the one issue where he had a lot of strength and so what you're also seeing is republicans across the country trying to distance themselves but more importantly i think you're seeing energy on the democratic side we have a real shot not just of winning the house but winning the senate if we can somehow win the senate which will be very hard there's no question about it.

51:50But if we can win the Senate and the House, we are on our way to then winning the presidency in 28 and once and for all putting MAGA away and as a horrific mark in our history, reversing all of the terror that Donald Trump has caused and actually real agenda on day one that can be implemented with both houses of Congress. Because you're talking about Alaska, which is looking way better today than it did before. You're talking about states where Ohio is looking better than it did before. We're going to win states when we have to win states like Michigan, obviously, and New Hampshire. But look, there's an opportunity for us in places like Texas.

52:34And so we need to play in every single state, including Maine. And there's an actual shot here. It's an outside chance, but a real chance of the Senate as well. You know, I'm glad you spoke about what we can do moving forward if we have majorities. I've spent a lot of time thinking about the ways in which Trump kind of feels emboldened and empowered to do, you know, to commit these these criminal acts with impunity. And I think that was in large part due to the fact that there was no deterrent effect for him back in 2024. I mean, he tried to overturn a free and fair election. Merrick Garland didn't even touch him for two years.

53:10And only then did he deign to appoint a special counsel. But so much time had elapsed that he was able to effectively run out the clock. And so I understand the Democrats have to be focused on delivering. But I think that there's also a lot of real damage and danger in kind of advancing with an agenda where we don't look to hold anybody to account for any of the wrongdoing that they've committed because then they feel emboldened to do it again. That's what we're seeing right now. It's playing out in real time. And so can you talk a little bit about the accountability that these folks have to shoulder so that in the event Republicans win at some point in the future, they don't proceed with the abject lawlessness that we're seeing right now because nothing bad ever happens to them at the hands of feckless Democrats?

53:55That's where the Oversight Committee comes in. That's where a strong attorney general that the next president will hopefully be a Democrat will put in place. Look, I've said from day one that we cannot just move on. We cannot just pretend that this didn't happen. We can't just put together this forward-looking agenda and not actually then hold those that cause harm accountable. Because we need to be able to tell the next generation that this period of time was led by a corrupt administration and an administration that harmed the American public. That should never happen again. And so holding folks, not just Donald Trump himself and the family that is causing corruption across the world, But folks like Pam Bondi and Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem, these folks have to be held accountable.

54:45They have to be, they have to be, look at the American public and the courts and account for what they did. So that's why the investigations and subpoenas and holding folks in contempt and impeachment are going to be really critical in the month and certainly when we have the majority. Last point I want to touch on here. Is ICE salvageable? No, you have to abolish ICE. There's no question. Look, this is not an agency that can be reformed. It's not an agency that we can somehow retrain. ICE needs to be abolished. And we need to begin to rebuild real federal law enforcement, which we had in this country before.

55:27Decades ago, we actually had, there were functions that ICE performed that other agencies used to perform. And now we have essentially a paramilitary force that's only accountable to Donald Trump. Right. We'll leave it there. Congressman, thanks so much for the time. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks again to Tim Walls, Keith Ellison, Ro Khanna and Robert Garcia. That's it for this episode. Talk to you this weekend. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesley and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five star rating and a review.

56:02And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to Brian Tyler Cohen dot com to learn more.