It has become increasingly evident that the Elitist Media have gone all in on the organized leftwing chaos currently underway in Minnesota, and have devoted themselves to shaping public perception accordingly as opposed to simply reporting the news. No other conclusion could reasonably be reached after a review of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. There were many dubious questions laced throughout the interview, but this was arguably the worst- whether the death of U.S. citizens is simply the price to pay for immigration enforcement: WATCH: NBC's Kristen Welker with the most disgusting question of the Minnesota cycle- "Is the death of U.S. citizens a price the Trump administration is willing to pay to carry out its immigration policies? (I don't recall hearing this asked of any Biden official RE: the deaths… pic.twitter.com/BOyPPcZhZk — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) January 25, 2026 KRISTEN WELKER: But let me ask, just big picture, Mr. Blanche, is the death of U.S. citizens a price the Trump administration is willing to pay to carry out its immigration policies? TODD BLANCHE: What does that have to do with whether it was a U.S. citizen or not? Any death is wrong. WELKER: Well, two of the deaths were U.S. citizens -- BLANCHE: Any death should not happen in law enforcement. WELKER: But two of the people killed were U.S. citizens. President Trump said his goal was to deport the “worst of the worst” people. My question for you is, is this part of the collateral damage, something that the administration is willing to accept as a part of its crackdown on people who are here illegally? BLANCHE: It shouldn’t be. It should not be. And you don’t see it anywhere in this country. I’m very confused about why the conversation’s about what you’re talking about instead of focusing on what really matters, which is why, in one city, in one place, do we have these problems. We deport ten times the number of illegal aliens out of Texas than we do out of Minneapolis. Why do we hear nothing out of Texas about any of the same problems that we have in Minneapolis? I’ll tell you why. Because in Texas we have the cooperation and support of local law enforcement so that we can do these operations safely, keeping U.S. citizens and others protected and safe. That is not what we have in Minneapolis. And the fact that it’s the administration that’s being blamed for the utter failure of leadership in Minneapolis is not right, it’s not appropriate, and it’s also not true-- WELKER: But are you saying those officers bear responsibility, those federal officers who fired ten shots yesterday bear no responsibility for the death of this 37-year-old ICU nurse? BLANCHE: I did not say that. Don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say that. I said there’s an investigation ongoing. But I said that the story and the narrative around this cannot be just those officers that were forced to do what they had to do yesterday to keep the operation going as it should go, without any support. That has to be the narrative, that has to be what we’re talking about. And the fact that the only thing we’re talking about is somehow blaming officers, blaming the federal men that were on the scene that day, and not looking at why it happened, not looking at why it’s only in Minneapolis that we see this violence, we are missing the narrative and missing what we should be talking about. If ever you needed proof evident of a double standard in news media, this is it. One does not recall anyone, much less Kristen Welker of all people, asking anyone in the Biden administration whether the deaths of Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, Jocelyn Nungaray, et. al were the price that the administration was willing to pay to carry out their immigration policy. But, as we often point out: if it weren’t for double standards, there’d be none at all.  This was less an interview than a struggle session which one suspects was always in the books. It is highly likely that Blanche was set to have been grilled about the “detained” five-year-old, but the shooting took precedence. There was always going to be this performance.  At this point there are many legitimate questions about the shooting, which Blanche made abundantly clear is under an ongoing federal investigation. Welker didn’t seem interested in asking any of those, instead choosing to gaslight and launch shaped narratives.  Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned interview as aired on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, January 25th, 2026: KRISTEN WELKER: And joining me now is Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Mr. Blanche, welcome back to Meet the Press. TODD BLANCHE: Good morning. WELKER: Good morning. Thank you for being here. I do want to start by watching one of those videos of the shooting. And again, I do want to warn our viewers, this is disturbing. Take a look. (Video of the shooting of Alex Pretti) WELKER: Mr. Blanche, the administration spent all day Saturday arguing that Alex Pretti posed a threat to law enforcement. What exactly do you see in that video that posed a threat to law enforcement? BLANCHE: Well, I’ll tell you what I don’t see. And I don’t see protesting happening. And this narrative that what was happening on that yesterday morning was protesting interrupted by ICE is not what we see. I also do not see a single state and local law enforcement officer there to help. And that should be the narrative that we’re talking about, is that what we have is ICE doing isolated operations to get criminals off the street, with zero cooperation from the governor, from leadership in Congress, or from the mayor. And so when you see what we just observed, was that peaceful protesting? Of course not. That was a very violent occurrence because ICE cannot do their job effectively when law enforcement — local law enforcement refuses to help. And that is what is so tragic about what happened yesterday and what’s been happening in Minneapolis for the past several weeks, is that ICE is doing all of this work, doing their jobs, and local law enforcement are not being allowed to do a single thing to help. And that is dangerous, as we saw yesterday morning. WELKER: Mr. Blanche, respectfully, there are only 600 police officers in Minneapolis. There are 3,000 ICE agents. Local officials there say it strains credulity to think that they can back up every ICE official. But I want to stick to the video and what happened yesterday, the specifics of it. What exactly threatened those law enforcement officials? Did at any point Mr. Pretti brandish a gun? BLANCHE: I can see the same video that everybody else can see. It’s been analyzed up and down for the past 24 hours. But there’s obviously an investigation that’s ongoing. Secretary Noem talked about that yesterday, which is what we would expect anytime a tragedy like this occurs. But I disagree with you when you say, “What was there that looked as if there was a confrontation that was –” We don’t know what happened in the minutes leading up to what we just watched. We don’t know what ICE saw, what ICE heard. That’s part of the investigation that’s going to be happening. But what we did not see, again, and we cannot avoid this conversation. What we did not see is a single cop helping with that isolated, targeted effort by ICE to arrest a criminal. WELKER: Did – BLANCHE: And you’re right, there are three — go ahead, sorry. WELKER: Did you see him at any point brandish a gun? Have you been told by law enforcement there on the ground that at any point he brandished a gun, that he threatened them with a gun? The video shows he’s holding up a cell phone. BLANCHE: No, you can’t see everything that’s happening. I mean, what you do see is you see several ICE officers surrounding him. You see a violent interaction with the man who was shot. And so we don’t know. The video — no matter how many times you look at it, no matter how many different angles that we see, there’s a lot that we don’t see. And that’s exactly why you have to have an investigation, which is exactly what DHS is doing, and exactly what we would hope that they would do. But you can’t tell exactly what happened. It was a very instant, violent — law enforcement, ICE has a very tough job. It is very hard when they’re walking, trying to do their job, and there are agitators and rioters everywhere. These men and women are not protesting. They are not peacefully protesting. They are trying to impede and obstruct ICE, and it makes the job that our men and women have to do virtually impossible to do without interactions like that. And yes, yesterday’s shooting was a tragedy, and yes, we feel a ton of sympathy for the family and friends of the deceased. But make no mistake about it, this was entirely avoidable if we had a governor, if we had a mayor, if we had leadership in Washington and over in Minnesota that actually cared about their citizens. WELKER: Mr. Blanche – BLANCHE: This should never have happened because there would be law enforcement on the streets helping ICE. WELKER: Mr. Blanche, I just want to stay on this. The local officials do say Alex Pretti was a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry. The video seems to show at one moment an officer removing a gun in the seconds before Mr. Pretti was shot. Was he disarmed before those shots were fired? BLANCHE: I do not know, and nobody else knows, either. That’s why we’re doing an investigation. It does appear that he was armed. I have heard the same thing you have, that he was lawfully armed, and that’s something that’s important in this country, and there’s nothing wrong with anybody lawfully carrying firearms. But whether he was disarmed, or whether he pulled the gun on law enforcement, whether law enforcement saw him go for the gun, what they have to do is they have to protect themselves. They have to protect the public around them, and we’ll see what happens. But just make no mistake about it, this was an incredibly split-second decision that had to be made by ICE officers confronting a very complicated, violent situation with not a single local law enforcement officer in sight. WELKER: Well, Alex Pretti, I mean, he is a member of the public. He’s a resident there. I mean, this is an American citizen. He’s an ICU nurse at a VA hospital. He appears to be shot some ten times. There are a group of law enforcement officials who pummel him, who spray tear gas at him, pepper spray. Why shouldn’t every American be bothered by what they see in this video, Mr. Blanche? Are you bothered by what you see in this video? BLANCHE: Absolutely. Every American should be bothered. But what should they be bothered by? They should be bothered that ICE is going on an isolated arrest to arrest a criminal, and they have zero support from law enforcement. The narrative here cannot -- WELKER: But shouldn’t they be able to make decisions on their own, Mr. Blanche? BLANCHE: What happened yesterday -- WELKER: You’re talking about state and local officials, and that is a debate worth having. What, if any, support are they getting? But in that instance, should they be able to make a decision about how to respond on their own? And if they can’t, should they not be in that position in the first place? BLANCHE: They make decisions all day, every day. There are 3,000 ICE officers in one city. We have tens of thousands of ICE officers all over the country. They make very difficult decisions all day, every day, trying to protect the American people. And what we see all over the country — save a few sanctuary cities like Minneapolis — is we see cooperation and support. And so the reason why we don’t see this violence all over the country is because in every single jurisdiction — save a few, like Minneapolis — there is cooperation. You work together with local law enforcement. Police are there to assist with crowd control, and rioters, and the violent acts that we see happening. And again, this is not a peaceful protest. He was not protesting peacefully. He was interrupting an ICE operation – WELKER: Please finish. BLANCHE: He was interrupting an ICE operation, and that led to a very tragic occurrence that every single person in this country hoped did not happen. But make no mistake about it, you cannot look at a ten-second video and judge what happened. You have to look at it from a full, full situation of what’s been happening in Minneapolis for the past several weeks, which is a simple fact. One city in this country do we have these problems. One city, and that’s Minneapolis. WELKER: But Mr. Blanche, you’re -- BLANCHE: That’s not a reflection of ICE, that’s a reflection of that city. WELKER: You’re saying he wasn’t protesting peacefully, and yet the video before shows him holding up a cell phone, directing traffic. The video after shows him being pummeled by these law enforcement. Everyone has now seen this video across the country, with this man holding up a cell phone. And part of the outrage that people are expressing is that they feel as though the federal government is asking them to believe something that they don’t see with their own two eyes. Is that what the administration is asking of the American people, to believe that he was violent when the video, based on what everyone has seen so far, does not show that? BLANCHE: Well, first of all, I did not say he was violent. I said he was not protesting peacefully. And you just described what every American has seen, which is video, shortly ahead of the incident, where he was screaming in the face of ICE. He had a phone up right into ICE’s face. You tell me, is that protesting peacefully? I mean, we all see the same thing. I mean, you shouldn’t try to gaslight the administration about what happened. That was not a peaceful protest. And yes, what happened afterwards is tragic. It is horrible. It is heartbreaking. But make no mistake about it, that would’ve never happened, that would’ve never happened — and it doesn’t happen in cities around this country every single day — but for the complete failure, the complete failure by the mayor and by the governor to do anything — to do anything to protect their citizens. They park their officers blocks and blocks away while they just let ICE go, and they let citizens just come and do whatever they want to try to torment and to try to agitate officers doing their job. WELKER: Mr. Blanche, this shooting happened Saturday morning. Mere hours later, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and others labeled Mr. Pretti a domestic terrorist. His family released a statement that reads in part, quote, “The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand, and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed.” What is your response to his family? BLANCHE: My response is that we are — we have nothing but sympathy for the family of him. We do. But make no mistake, this is an investigation that’s ongoing. And long before Secretary Noem took the stage yesterday, the mayor and the governor took their own narrative and said a bunch of things that were just as false, just as misleading, and just as horrible as anything that we’ve heard over the past month. And so we will do everything that we need to do to protect the men and women of ICE when the state and local government refuse to do so. And so yes, we are sympathetic, President Trump is sympathetic, the attorney general is sympathetic, ICE is sympathetic. Nobody wants any lives to be taken. But we are doing very important work in very difficult circumstances to make this country safe. There was an isolated arrest effort yesterday to arrest somebody that did not belong in this country, he’s here illegally, and he’s a convicted felon. They should be able to — ICE should be able to do that with cooperation and support, not with what we saw happening yesterday. WELKER: But let me ask, just big picture, Mr. Blanche, is the death of U.S. citizens a price the Trump administration is willing to pay to carry out its immigration policies? BLANCHE: What does that have to do with whether it was a U.S. citizen or not? Any death is wrong. WELKER: Well, two of the deaths were U.S. citizens -- BLANCHE: Any death should not happen in law enforcement. WELKER: But two of the people killed were U.S. citizens. President Trump said his goal was to deport the “worst of the worst” people. My question for you is, is this part of the collateral damage, something that the administration is willing to accept as a part of its crackdown on people who are here illegally? BLANCHE: It shouldn’t be. It should not be. And you don’t see it anywhere in this country. I’m very confused about why the conversation’s about what you’re talking about instead of focusing on what really matters, which is why, in one city, in one place, do we have these problems. We deport ten times the number of illegal aliens out of Texas than we do out of Minneapolis. Why do we hear nothing out of Texas about any of the same problems that we have in Minneapolis? I’ll tell you why. Because in Texas we have the cooperation and support of local law enforcement so that we can do these operations safely, keeping U.S. citizens and others protected and safe. That is not what we have in Minneapolis. And the fact that it’s the administration that’s being blamed for the utter failure of leadership in Minneapolis is not right, it’s not appropriate, and it’s also not true -- WELKER: But are you saying those officers bear responsibility, those federal officers who fired ten shots yesterday bear no responsibility for the death of this 37-year-old ICU nurse? BLANCHE: I did not say that. Don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say that. I said there’s an investigation ongoing. But I said that the story and the narrative around this cannot be just those officers that were forced to do what they had to do yesterday to keep the operation going as it should go, without any support. That has to be the narrative, that has to be what we’re talking about. And the fact that the only thing we’re talking about is somehow blaming officers, blaming the federal men that were on the scene that day, and not looking at why it happened, not looking at why it’s only in Minneapolis that we see this violence, we are missing the narrative and missing what we should be talking about. WELKER: That’s the broader backdrop debate. But let me talk to you more broadly about the actions of federal agents in Minnesota this week. I want you to look at these pictures, Mr. Blanche: a protester on the ground being pepper-sprayed; a five-year-old being detained; a U.S. citizen being pulled out of his home half-naked, later released upon determination that he was wrongfully detained. Are federal agents acting humanely, Mr. Blanche? BLANCHE: Yes. Our agents are acting humanely. Their jobs are very, very difficult. It is a very difficult place to be, going out and trying to arrest these violent felons with no support from local law enforcement, with no support from the governor. Remember, there’s a much easier way to do this. When these violent criminals who are here illegally are ready to get out of prison, the mayor could just let us know, we could go get them from prison and deport them. They refuse to do that. And so the result of that is that ICE officers have to go out onto the streets and make arrests, and that is tough work. These are very difficult times. And it is something where you see thousands of arrests, and you’ve identified two or three things that are pointed to as being wrong, or being too aggressive, or not being appropriate. That’s not fair to the men and women that are doing this every day. WELKER: Again, there are 600 police officers in Minneapolis, compared to 3,000 ICE agents. I do want to shift gears, though. I want to ask you quickly about the Epstein files. When you were here back in December, you said the Justice Department will comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Quote — you said, “Next week and the week after.” DOJ is now 37 days past the statute’s December 19 deadline. Less than 1% of the files have been released. So Mr. Blanche, when will all of the Epstein files be released? BLANCHE: Look, we’ve been working literally seven days a week to go through all the materials. But there is nothing more important than protecting the victims, and that means that every single page that we’re going to release, we have to lay eyes on and make sure that we’re redacting all appropriate information. We will not rush that process. We will not risk victim information being released. And I would hope that Congress doesn’t want us to do that. And I would expect that they expect us to do our jobs. And so we have over 500 Department of Justice lawyers working on it every day. I expect that we will see — we will see the release of the materials soon. WELKER: So when will it be released? Soon? How soon? BLANCHE: Well, listen, there are millions and millions of pages we’re looking at, and I’m not going to create an artificial deadline that I then miss for our men and women that are working on it. But we’re working on it very hard. And when we know a date of release, we’ll let the public know and let Congress know. But it is soon. It is very soon. We’ve been working on it now for over a month, reviewing hundreds of thousands of pages over the course of every few days. And we’re continuing to do that. WELKER: All right, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Thank you so much for your time this morning. We really appreciate it. BLANCHE: Thank you, Kristen.  

The Washington Post on Saturday demonstrated the heartfelt belief of liberal journalists that protests are only legitimate and newsworthy if they advance liberal goals. Conservative protests are somehow illegitimate and inauthentic. Friday brought a perfect test of whether they could cover a newsworthy protest on both sides, and the the Post failed it miserably. Anyone who spent $4 on a paper on Saturday would find absolutely nothing on the “March for Life” anywhere in what they bought. But the top of the front page carried this headline: Anti-ICE protests escalate in Minn. THOUSANDS MARCH: BUSINESSES CLOSE Show of dissent is largest vs. immigration policies Next to that was a large (four-column) color picture displaying hundreds of protesters. The story had a byline with five reporters, and gushed at the leftist hootenanny with these front-page paragraphs: MINNEAPOLIS — Thousands of people converged at a downtown park on Friday afternoon in the state’s biggest show of opposition yet to the Trump administration’s immigration operations in Minnesota, braving subzero temperatures and skipping work and school. Hundreds of businesses in the Twin Cities closed for the day of action, an effort organized by faith leaders and labor unions amid continuing tensions over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions in the state, including the fatal shooting of Renée Good by an ICE officer earlier this month. On Friday morning, about 100 clergy members were arrested at a peaceful sit-in at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport protesting deportation flights. Labor leaders said more than 15,600 people had claimed tickets to the 2 p.m. march in Minneapolis — where the National Weather Service warned of minus-50 degree wind chill through Sunday morning. Bundled in down coats, beanies and ski goggles, demonstrators chanted “What do we want? ICE out!” and held signs bearing slogans such as “No MN Nice for ICE” and “Leave Us Alone!” as they marched peacefully.  “This rally says it all. We’re fighting for truth and freedom,” said Mary Turner, a night-shift nurse in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, and a union member who joined the march. Thousands of people converged on Capitol Hill on Friday afternoon in opposition to the killing of unborn children, braving winter weather and skipping work and school. The Washington Post ignored that as non-news, suggesting they should have all stayed home. But the leftists were awarded 30 paragraphs and two more large color photographs inside, because the Post is a Democrat rag manufactured for a Democrat audience.  To add comedy to this proceeding, the only other story on page A-7 was also about an anti-ICE protest:  Federal authorities wanted to charge Don Lemon. Here's what happened. Considering the obvious Post front-page bias, I also picked up Saturday's New York Times. The front page had a story on "Heaps of Dead Protesters In Iran," and the anti-ICE rally in Minnesota was reported with color photos on page A-10. The "March for Life" at least appeared, considering Vice President J.D. Vance spoke at the rally before the March. On page A-13, the headline was "Trump Widens Abortion Rule For Recipients of Foreign Aid." The Trump administration will expand the “Mexico City rule,” which bars recipients of United States foreign aid from promoting abortion, to include a ban on diversity, equity and inclusion policies or “radical gender ideologies,” Vice President JD Vance announced on Friday. Mr. Vance made the announcement, which had been expected, during a speech at the annual March for Life in Washington. The policy change is the Trump administration’s latest attack on what President Trump and his aides call “woke ideology” at home and abroad. It could affect more than $30 billion in foreign assistance.

You would think that one of the accepted rules of living in a society built on law and order, is that you should always obey orders from police, and certainly never run from them. But on Friday night's edition of CNN's NewsNight, host Abby Phillip made the absurd and dangerous claim that fearing ICE agents in Minneapolis justifies a suspect  running away from them. Mimicking much of the liberal media, the opening segment of the show focused on the father of a five year old boy in Minneapolis who ran from ICE agents, resulting in both the man and his son being taken into custody, after authorities say, the boy's mother refused to take the child. PHILLIP: ...Why would you run when you encounter ICE? Well, because in Minneapolis, what we've seen is that even American citizens who are minding their own business  walking down the street, you don't get to walk away from an ICE encounter. They might detain you for hours or even days. That has also happened. So that, I think, seems to be a legitimate fear on the part of any person.. in Minnesota right now, but particularly if you are brown, if you are Hispanic, if you are Somali, that.. you're whether you have papers or not, whether you have status or not, whether you have a pending asylum claim or not, you might get detained. And that's exactly what happened to this family. Phillip conveniently left out that, as pointed out in the story link above, the father in this family, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, is an Ecuadorean citizen who was in the United States illegally and was released into the country by the Biden administration. She also failed to mention the list of arrests made by ICE in Minnesota, released last week by DHS, which includes murderers, drug traffickers, and an illegal alien with 24 convictions.  Phillip wasn't finished defending those who run from ICE, as she debated GOP Strategist Lance Trover. PHILLIP: Running from law enforcement may not be okay, but it's also a reaction that people have to knowing that if they have an interaction with ICE, whether or not they are legal, whether they are a citizen, they might have their freedom stripped from them. That's a real thing. Do you acknowledge that that is happening? TROVER: I acknowledge that it happens every day in this country when somebody who has committed a crime or doesn't runs from the police, what are they going to do? Yes, you're going to be in trouble. That's how our system operates...Why are we making an exception for illegal immigrants? Darn good question. And just for good measure, panelist Xochitl Hinojosa ended the segment by weighing in, supporting Phillip's position.  HINOJOSA: It is because ICE has eroded trust and the trust of the American people. And I will say, the vast majority of law enforcement have done so much to build that trust. And I would say if this are a regular day, if this were a few years ago, yes, I agree, running from law enforcement isn't great. We live in different times, ICE is acting out of control, and that's why people are running. Shame on Phillip and Hinojosa. There are few things more irresponsible than sending a message that it's okay to run from police. It should be common sense that escalating a situation involving law enforcement can only make the situation worse, not better. But common sense and the liberal media don't seem to be a fit these days.

If Joe Scarborough had been around at the beginning of the 20th century, you might have found him on a street corner, haranguing anyone who would listen about the evils of the advent of the automobile. Flip to today, and there was Scarborough on Morning Joe, fulminating about artificial intelligence. AI is stealing jobs from younger Americans, says Joe. And that's because: "People in Washington will not stand up to tech monopolists. They will not stand up to the billionaires that run this economy. They will not stand up to the very people who are going to get richer and richer on AI and leave you and your friends and your generation further and further behind. It's that simple." Yes, so simple! Per Scarborough, the solution is so easy and obvious: "Break up tech monopolies."  Right on! Just like back in 1969, when the feds decided that IBM's supposed computer monopoly was the big threat, and brought an anti-trust lawsuit to break it up. Thirteen years, and tens of millions of dollars wasted by the feds and IBM later, the government withdrew the case, admitting it was "without merit." In the interim, many new companies had sprung up, producing faster, better, cheaper computers that peeled off big chunks of IBM's market share. Any possible monopoly had been undone not by government intervention, but by the power of free markets. And, seriously, Joe? AI monopolies are the problem? Have you not noticed the cutthroat competition among the many AI companies, and the producers of the chips that they depend on? If ever there were an industry that is not monopolized, it's AI! And yet, echoing Scarborough's call for the government to wield its powers, there was Axios honcho Jim VandeHei: "The only thing government should be talking about. How do we make sure that everybody benefits from this technology that's going to make a couple of companies awesomely powerful and awesomely rich? And that's fine if everybody else benefits from it. But if you have a bunch of people or a few people getting really rich, really powerful at the expense of everyone else, you're going to have a much bigger mess than we have today." Yup: We're from the government, and we're going to "make sure" that everybody benefits from AI--in the way that we politicians and bureaucrats think is best! VandeHei also buys into the notion that the wealth pie is limited: if some artificial intelligence creators are getting "awesomely rich," it will be "at the expense of everyone else" -- unless government steps in. Scarborough, wearing his best "AI, git-off-my-lawn!" face [see screencap], detected a dastardly scheme in which "political leaders" are "distracting" young people from realizing that AI is the cause of their job-hunting difficulties by instead blaming, among others, "Somalians."  "Somalians?" It's Somalis, Joe. And they are rightly being blamed—for massive fraud—but not for taking jobs. Perhaps since Scarborough was so focused on money this morning, he had "semolians"—that old-fashioned slang term for dollars—on the noggin, and that crept into his misnaming of Somalis. Here's the transcript. MS NOW Morning Joe 1/23/26 6:04 am ET JOE SCARBOROUGH: We're talking about distractions like Greenland. We're talking about, I mean, and, you know, this guy right here [laughs as he points to photo of Howard Lutnick in the NYT] saying globalization has failed, when the United States has been dominant over the past 80 years because of it.  You talk about a distraction. You talk about what my football coach in high school would talk about majoring in the minors. It's just sheer insanity. This is something that should bring everybody together to figure out how working Americans don't get started -- and they're young! Coming out of our best colleges on the planet even, not being able to get jobs because of AI.  JIM VANDEHEI: I've never in my life seen a bigger disconnect between what people are fixating on and what they should fixate on. It's the only thing government should be talking about. How do we make sure that everybody benefits from this technology that's going to make a couple of companies awesomely powerful and awesomely rich?  And that's fine if everybody else benefits from it. But if you have a bunch of people or a few people getting really rich, really powerful at the expense of everyone else, you're going to have a much bigger mess than we have today.  And so hopefully, by writing about it, by you talking about it, eventually Congress, business leaders, teachers, everyone will start thinking about how do we equip everyone to make this shift? We can do this. I believe that we can do it, but not by ignoring it, right?  SCARBOROUGH: Right. And I mean, listen, and for younger Americans who are trying to figure out why they're not getting jobs, you can blame Somalians if you want to blame Somalians. It's horrible for you to be blaming Somalians, but I know you have political leaders that are telling you, you're not getting jobs because of Somalians. You're not getting jobs because of Mexicans. You're not getting jobs because people are coming from India and they're getting H-1B visas. I understand. I understand. That's what you hear on your feeds. That's what you see on your feeds all the time.  That's simply not the case. The problem right now is, especially right now over the past year to 18 months, you're not getting jobs out of college right now,  because as Jim VandeHei and Axios has [sic, have] reported, and other people have reported, CEOs are frozen. They're saying, we're not going to fire people. But with this AI technology, we don't have to hire anybody new. And we can just get rid of our workforce by attrition. That's what they're thinking right now.  So you blame the Somali eight states over from you. If that makes you feel better, that's not going to fix anything. And it's really bigoted.  So you should actually look what the real problem is. And understand, you have people in Washington, D.C. that will not stand up to tech monopolists. They will not stand up to the billionaires that run this economy. They will not stand up to the very people who are going to get richer and richer on AI and leave you and your friends and your generation further and further behind. It's that simple.  I mean, listen, you can keep getting distracted by things they're trying to get you to distract on. Well, Washington keeps passing tax cuts and keeps passing laws and keeps refusing to do the things they knew, do, need to do to break up tech monopolies.  If you don't want to focus on that, if that's too hard for you to read about, I mean, it shouldn't be. You're in college, for God's sake. You know, then that's your problem. 

Intentionally or not, the PBS News Hour exhibited a liberal double standard in descriptions in a story by Liz Landers from Minneapolis, where residents are apparently being persecuted under ICE. A long 13-minute Thursday segment, which was capped with two guests, one from the Trump administration and one from the Obama administration, twice underlined that anti-ICE protester Renee Good was killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, but the November murder of another federal law officer in Washington, D.C. was downgraded to a mere “shooting.”  The story did lead with a strong statement from Vice President J.D. Vance from on the ground in Minneapolis. PBS News Hour co-anchor Amna Nawaz: Vice President J.D. Vance was in Minneapolis today, as federal agents continue to clash with protesters two weeks after an ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old mother Renee Good. Vance had this message for city residents: Vice President J.D. Vance: Do we want these things to happen? Do we want these arrests to be so chaotic? No, we don't. These guys want it least of all. But if we had a little cooperation from local and federal -- or -- excuse me -- from local and state officials, I think the chaos would go way down in this community. The inconsistent labeling came in standard liberal criticism of Trump’s move to cut both legal and illegal immigration. While Renee Good was “killed,” the two members of the National Guard targeted for assassination by an Afghan national were merely shot, even though one of them, Sarah Beckstrom, died a day later from her injuries. Landers: In total, more than 8,000 student visas revoked in the past year, the State Department says. The Trump administration has also moved to narrow pathways for legal immigration, using executive orders to institute travel bans in June, revoke humanitarian programs that shielded migrants from deportation and cut refugee admissions to record lows. The shooting of the two National Guardspeople in the nation's capital in November prompted a further tightening of visas. Also this year, the administration began a controversial rollout of deportation operations in major sanctuary cities across the country, with agents often masked arresting immigrants at workplaces, courthouses, even Home Depot parking lots. In June, fiery protests in Los Angeles caused President Trump to send in National Guard troops. Later, Landers also emphasized an ICE officer had killed “unarmed woman” Renee Good. Landers: In the aftermath of the killing of an unarmed woman, Renee Good, by an ICE officer in Minneapolis, protests flared again…. A transcript is available, click "Expand. PBS News Hour 1/22/26 7:19:25 p.m. (ET) Amna Nawaz: Vice President J.D. Vance was in Minneapolis today, as federal agents continue to clash with protesters two weeks after an ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old mother Renee Good. Vance had this message for city residents: Vice President J.D. Vance: Do we want these things to happen? Do we want these arrests to be so chaotic? No, we don't. These guys want it least of all. But if we had a little cooperation from local and federal -- or -- excuse me -- from local and state officials, I think the chaos would go way down in this community. Amna Nawaz: This is just the latest development in what's been a turbulent year as President Trump has carried out his campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration. Liz Landers takes a closer look. President Donald Trump: First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. (Applause) Liz Landers: President Donald Trump wasted no time following through on his campaign promise to crack down on immigration, signing executive orders his first day in office designed to expedite removal and reinterpret the Citizenship Clause of the Constitution. Border crossings began to drop soon after and are down dramatically year to date, a 93 percent reduction, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The agency estimates 1.9 million self-deportations and 622,000 deportations have taken place in the last year. President Donald Trump: This was an invasion. This wasn't people coming in. This was an invasion of our country. Liz Landers: But the administration quickly ran into legal challenges with some deportation measures when it deported more than 200 Venezuelan men to a notorious Salvadoran prison. President Donald Trump: These were bad people. That was a bad group of, as I say, hombres. Liz Landers: The president invoking the little used Alien Enemies Act of 1798, claiming the men were part of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, among them Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man with no criminal record, deported despite a court order barring his removal. Abrego Garcia was eventually returned to the U.S. and is now challenging efforts to deport him to a third country. A ruling is expected next month. The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and pro-Palestinian activist, signaled a crackdown on international student visas in early March. Secretary of State Marco Rubio: We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses. Liz Landers: In total, more than 8,000 student visas revoked in the past year, the State Department says. The Trump administration has also moved to narrow pathways for legal immigration, using executive orders to institute travel bans in June, revoke humanitarian programs that shielded migrants from deportation and cut refugee admissions to record lows. The shooting of the two National Guardspeople in the nation's capital in November prompted a further tightening of visas. Also this year, the administration began a controversial rollout of deportation operations in major sanctuary cities across the country, with agents often masked arresting immigrants at workplaces, courthouses, even Home Depot parking lots. In June, fiery protests in Los Angeles caused President Trump to send in National Guard troops. President Donald Trump: These are paid insurrectionists. These are paid troublemakers. Liz Landers: Prompting the president to float the idea of using the Insurrection Act, which would allow the president to use the military in a domestic setting. It's a threat he's continued to make into the new year. Kristi Noem, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary: We did discuss the Insurrection Act. He certainly has the constitutional authority to utilize that. Liz Landers: Those targeted operations spread nationwide to Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans, and, just this week, Maine, all this bolstered by a surge in funding after the president's signature tax and spending bill passed in the summer, tripling the annual budget for ICE. The administration faced significant legal pushback in Chicago, when a federal judge there determined Customs and Border Patrol official Greg Bovino was overstepping his authority in handling protesters. Gregory Bovino, Border Patrol Commander: The use of force that I have seen has been exemplary, and, by exemplary, I would say, the least amount of force necessary to accomplish the mission. Liz Landers: In the aftermath of the killing of an unarmed woman, Renee Good, by an ICE officer in Minneapolis, protests flared again. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller with this message to ICE officers: Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff: 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. Liz Landers: But Democrats are hoping to use the latest incidents to reduce funding or force changes to immigration enforcement if they do well in the midterm elections.