Trump’s Rage at Protesters Boils Over as ICE Scandal Takes Worse Turn

Last week, President Trump unleashed an angry tirade over anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis, threatening to invoke the “INSURRECTION ACT” against “professional agitators and insurrectionists,” i.e., ordinary people. On Friday, Trump seemed to suggest he might not, but he also left the threat very much dangling out there. Indeed, after we recorded this episode, Trump kept raging, seething about jailing Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, sharing tweets about “anti-ICE anarchists,” and exploding about Minnesota politicians supposedly wanting criminals in their state, showing his fury is on full boil. This comes as a devastating New York Times frame-by-frame analysis of Renee Good’s shooting shows very clearly that the shooting was not remotely justified. Making all this still worse, troops are now reportedly mobilizing for possible deployment to Minnesota. We talked to Mother Jones writer Mark Follman, author of a new piece on Trump’s exploitation of crises. We discuss how the Trump-ICE justifications are collapsing, how dangerous invoking the Insurrection Act would be, and what Trump hopes to accomplish by stoking social antagonisms at moments of national trauma. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.