Brittany Luce

Engineering support came from David Greenberg.

Our supervising producer is Barton Girdwood.

Our VP of programming is Yolanda Sanguini.

All right.

That's all for this episode of It's Been a Minute from NPR.

I'm Brittany Luce.

Talk soon.

We've never had that phenomenon before.

Okay, y'all, I've been seeing a mix of different stories in the news that each seem unsettling on their own, but I'm starting to put together the pieces, and I'm wondering if anyone else is seeing what I'm seeing.

Walk with me.

First, we got Nicki Minaj's pivot to the right, which has been long brewing, but sort of crystallized in this moment where she joined Turning Point USA's Erika Kirk on stage for a special dialogue.

Nicki Minaj now refers to herself as President Trump's number one fan.

And she's the latest in a line of rappers who have moved from being Trump-critical to openly admiring the president and his policies.

And if we turn to the matter of arrests and fatal confrontations involving the Department of Homeland Security, let me throw some numbers at you.

According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as of August 2025, about 23% of the overall DHS workforce identifies as Hispanic or Latino.

For Customs and Border Patrol, that number jumps to 50%.

This may not capture the large influx of new agents that have joined the Immigration and Customs Enforcement as of recent, but these are the numbers as of last August.

It feels like we're in a moment where people of various racial backgrounds are on the front lines of our current culture wars and not fighting for the side you might assume.

Now, I'm obviously not talking about the majority of any one group of people, but these examples are making culturally impactful moments that have me scratching my head and wondering, how the hell did we get here?

To think this through, I'm here with Axios' senior race and justice reporter, Russell Contreras.