The Push to Rein In ICE, and How the Government Is Echoing White Supremacist Messaging

0:02From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Friday, January 30th. Here's what we're covering.

0:13For the past few months, the Times has been tracking how a growing number of social media posts from the Trump administration have echoed white supremacist language, alluded to ethnic cleansing, and referenced neo-Nazi literature. The extremist language has appeared in dozens of posts from federal accounts, including the White House and the Department of Homeland Security. The messaging has been used to celebrate President Trump's immigration policies and recruit agents to carry them out. For example, one post from DHS included a link to join ICE, along with the phrase, Which Way, American Man?

0:51That slogan is nearly identical to the title of an anti-Semitic book from the 70s titled, Which Way, Western Man? Which is a key text for white supremacist groups. And earlier this month, the White House and DHS posted an ICE recruitment ad with the line, We'll have our home again. That's the name of a song written by members of a self-described pro-white fraternal order that's popular with extremist groups like the Proud Boys. When a Times reporter asked a Homeland Security spokeswoman about that language, she denied it had anything to do with the song. But if you tapped on the ad on Instagram, Oh my God, we'll have our home again.

1:33The song started playing. When the reporter pointed that out, the spokeswoman said, quote, I'm telling you it's not there, and accused the Times of pushing a left-wing conspiracy theory. Within an hour, the Instagram post disappeared. Most of the social media posts are still up, though. One expert on extremism at the Anti-Defamation League said that the language in them would be recognizable to just two groups, people who study white supremacists and white supremacists themselves.

2:09One individual in the detention center said he's a construction worker and he has four kids, and now his mortgage payments are delayed and he doesn't know how his family is going to stay in his house. In Minnesota yesterday, residents testified in front of state lawmakers about the fear and chaos that's been caused by the surge of federal agents there in recent weeks. It does not matter if you have a tribal ID. It is being disregarded and not honored. Our community is witnessing citizens and tribal members being detained and harassed. Native American organizers described tribal members being profiled based on their appearance by agents who mistook them for immigrants.

2:48Emergency room and clinic visits are down 20 to 25 percent across many of our health systems, and that's a conservative estimate. And a physician said that people were avoiding medical care because they were worried about leaving their homes and being detained. Lawmakers also heard from an independent journalist who described how she applied to become an ICE agent as a kind of experiment and was hired, despite having failed to complete basic paperwork or take a drug test. She told lawmakers she felt her story was evidence that ICE was not properly vetting its new hires as it ramps up its operations around the country.

3:26Meanwhile, in Washington, Senate Democrats have struck a deal with President Trump and Republicans that could allow them to negotiate new restrictions on ICE agents. With a potential government shutdown looming, they agreed to fund much of the government for the rest of the fiscal year, but only gave two weeks of funding to the Department of Homeland Security. They say they want to use that time to push for limitations, like a ban on officers wearing masks. Senators said they'd hope to vote on the spending package today, but House Speaker Mike Johnson said the earliest the House could act would be Monday, meaning the government could still partially shut down over the weekend.

4:10Across the country, a dizzying array of new rules have gone into place around what food stamps can and cannot be used to buy. As part of the Trump administration's Make America Healthy Again agenda, federal regulators have been increasingly letting individual states set their own standards for SNAP benefits. They say it will allow them to limit how much junk food Americans consume. But grocery stores and SNAP recipients say the results have been confusion and frustration over what can seem like arbitrary rules. In Idaho, for example, you will be able to use food stamps to buy a Twix bar, but not a flourless granola bar.

4:49And in Iowa, you can't buy a Snickers, but you can buy a Snickers ice cream bar because it's refrigerated and has milk in it. Grocery stores say they're trying to keep up, but it's a logistical nightmare with employees trying to manually check thousands of items to comply with the new rules. If they screw up, the stores could be removed from the SNAP program altogether, in rural areas in particular, that could leave SNAP recipients without any local grocery options. Anti-hunger groups say the states haven't done enough to prepare stores or consumers, and other critics argue that the rules amount to an attack on low-income Americans.

5:29One Iowa resident who relies on SNAP benefits told The Times that officials are effectively saying they, quote, don't trust their constituencies to make decisions around their own health.

5:47In France, the government announced yesterday that it will stop using Zoom, the American-owned videoconferencing software, and move its meetings over to a French-made platform instead.

6:00If you're thinking Zoom, French Zoom, it's all the same, the move is actually part of a broader effort by European leaders to reduce their dependence on American digital infrastructure. As the U.S. and Europe have found themselves increasingly at odds over the last year, over trade, Greenland, etc., Europe is trying to be more independent in strategic fields like technology. France's prime minister said relying on non-European-made tools meant they lacked control over their data and faced cybersecurity risks. Recently, French officials were also asked to start using a government-designed messaging app instead of foreign-owned ones, which would include WhatsApp, owned by Meta, or Signal, owned by a U.S.-based nonprofit.

6:48The German government's been making similar moves, even developing its own alternative to Microsoft Office, in an effort to build up digital autonomy.

7:02And finally, the key to living a long life, I'm talking cracking 90 or even 100 years old, has been studied, debated, theorized about. Experts say you've got to move your body, eat your fruits and vegetables, get enough sleep, don't smoke, don't drink too much, make sure you see friends. A new study out this week in the journal Science, though, pins down another factor, your genes. According to the new research, your potential lifespan is written in your DNA. A healthy lifestyle can help, of course, but basically, if you want to know if you could live to be 100, you need to have won the genetic lottery for longevity.

7:39The researchers looked at data from sets of Swedish twins. They also looked at data from over 400 Americans who lived to be 100 and what happened to all of their siblings. They controlled for outside factors like accidents or infections and found that the biggest single factor when it comes to differences in lifespans seems to be genes. One public health professor who was not involved in the study told The Times that the research has a powerful message. You don't have as much control as you think. He said, basically, it turns out some of us are driving a Mercedes and some of us aren't quite that lucky.

8:20Those are the headlines. If you'd like to play the Friday News Quiz, stick around. It is just after these credits. This show is made by Will Jarvis, Jan Stewart, and me, Tracy Mumford. Original theme by Dan Powell. Special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Larissa Anderson, Miles McKinley, Zoe Murphy, and Paula Schumann.

8:41Now, time for the quiz. I've got a few questions for you about stories The Times has been covering. Can you get them all? First up. The risks we face from nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies are all growing. Every year since 1947, a group of scientists has updated what it calls the doomsday clock. The symbolic timepiece, which critics have called a bit of a stunt, is designed as a way to highlight the potentially apocalyptic risks of man-made disasters like nuclear war. They originally set the clock at seven minutes to midnight, midnight being, you know, and this week, Humanity has not made sufficient progress on the existential risks that endanger us all.

9:31They moved it to T minus 85 seconds. It is a hard truth, but this is our reality. That's the closest point ever to humans wiping ourselves out. But the clock doesn't always tick forward. It's actually gone back and forth over the last 70-plus years. So your question, in what decade was it farthest from midnight? Essentially, when, according to the clock, was the world the safest?

10:06The answer? The early 1990s, when the Soviet Union was fading and had just signed a major arms control treaty with the U.S., which really tamped down fears of a nuclear showdown. Since then, it's basically just been ticking closer and closer to doom.

10:27And the next question. This week, a famous brand, known more for casual comfort than for being formal, announced that it will soon release a bridal collection. The new products will feature pearls, ivory-colored satin, even chiffon blooms. Your question, what brand is it? Don't worry, I've got a hint for you. From the company's CEO. We wanted to make sure that people are walking naturgevolte skin, which is natural intended walking. So that was a mission. The answer? Birkenstock family was exactly sitting on the same corner. The hippie footwear brand said it got an email out of the blue a few years ago from an American wedding dress designer and the bridal Birks were born.

11:18The prices are decidedly un-hippie. The designs start at$660. Now, I'm not saying that you could make them yourself. I will just say that if you have some plastic flowers and you know your way around a glue gun.

11:38Moving on. Reincarnated. I'm a stargazing. Life goes on. I need to hug my babies. The Grammy Awards are this Sunday. We're going to see if you can name some of the big nominees not based off of their songs, but based off some little puzzles we have for you. I will give you an example. If I say, Seamstress Moving Quickly, the artist I'm looking for is Taylor Swift. Got it? Okay, let's give it a shot. First one, Rotten Hair. That is hair, H-A-R-E. Hop, hop. It's Bad Bunny. Next, Teenage Witch Woodworker.

12:31Sabrina Carpenter. Third one, Noble Woman Baby Talk.

12:42Lady Gaga. Number four, a small place of worship and a major French river.

12:56That is Chapel Rhone. And last one, domesticated Chevy model.

13:06That is Tame Impala. If you want to tell us how many you got, our email is theheadlines at nytimes.com. I'm cafeteria platter, little ocean, British mother river crossing. The show will be back on Monday with my colleague, inheritance document, glass container. I give up. Will Jarvis. Have a good weekend.