Chapter 1: What new evidence has emerged about the shooting of Renee Good?
Hey, everybody. After I taped both these interviews this morning, there was a release of video footage, new video footage from the ICE agent that shot and killed Rene Good from his perspective. And I taped an extensive second-by-second breakdown of that, which you can find over on the board takes feed on your audio platform of choice or on YouTube or Substack.
For me, it more than confirms everything that we discuss on this show that I've discussed the last few days. And it shows somebody that was the one piece of information we learned is that Rene Good had greeted him pleasantly and said, I'm not mad. 20 seconds before he shoots her. It's an unbelievable piece of footage. Just one note in that video, you know, this is all moving very fast.
I called it body cam footage. We later learned it was from his cell phone, which he's carrying in his left hand. Well, he's firing off three bullets with his right hand, which needless to say is not... S-O-P for an agent of the state. So go over there to check out more on that. Appreciate very much our guest today and all of you. We'll see you back here next week. Up next, Mayor Jacob Fry.
Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We have a doubleheader for you today. In the second segment, it's our friend Ann Applebaum with an autocracy update, both at home and abroad. Look forward to getting to that. But first, we wanted to add the perspective from somebody who can talk to us directly about what's happening on the ground in Minneapolis.
And so I'm excited to welcome to the show the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Fry. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me. Happy to do it. Unfortunate, the circumstances. I want to start just by talking narrowly about the shooting of Rene Good and kind of what we know at this point.
One of the things I think has been getting lost in the discussion a little bit, I'm curious your perspective on is like, what were the ICE agents doing in the neighborhood at all? Like what was happening in that neighborhood in Minneapolis when the shooting occurred?
I don't think the ICE agents know what the ICE agents are doing in general. They seem to be rolling around neighborhoods without a clear agenda other than to terrorize people. And this stems back from some of the original direction that was given when I believe they went into Minneapolis. And granted, some of this is speculation, but I think I'm right.
I think that somebody from pretty high up told them, go to Minneapolis. find a bunch of Somalis to deport. And then they get here looking for the big meatpacking plant or factory where they can find a bunch of undocumented Somalis. Only thing is it doesn't exist because they're Americans. They're American citizens.
And when they figured out that they couldn't do the thing legally or constitutionally that they wanted to do, they just started rolling around the city terrorizing people. And granted, it's winter, it's Minneapolis, and we got ice and snow and they suck at driving in it.
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Chapter 2: What is Mayor Jacob Frey's perspective on ICE operations in Minneapolis?
What's your sense of what happened in the aftermath there?
So I haven't seen all of these videos. I mean, the number of times that I've had to watch some of them again and again is traumatizing in and of itself. But here's the thing. When you are a law enforcement officer, the most basic thing that you're supposed to do is that when somebody is in pain and especially dying, you help. Even if you're the one that caused that pain from the beginning.
Look, there are certainly situations around the country and in Minneapolis where an officer used justified force, had to hurt somebody, and then the next step is you immediately go and try to save their lives. First of all, this wasn't justified. And second of all, they didn't help, and they wouldn't let a doctor in.
I mean, there are so many facts about this that make the whole thing completely appalling. And when you listen to Pam Bondi or – Kristi Noem, I mean, talk about this. You hear the words that are coming out of her mouth. You start to think she doesn't believe a single thing that she's saying. You can tell when somebody is talking and their lips are moving.
You know, it's almost like the Teddy Ruxpin deal where, like, I don't think she believes the things that she's saying. And the whole thing is appalling. And now, you know, they're moving on to this investigation. And That seems illegitimate in and of itself as well.
So speaking of that investigation, have you spoken to anyone from DHS or the White House leaders? Have any of them called you to try to work together on this?
They have not called me as far as I'm aware. You know, certainly we're using every single channel that we can possibly use to get ICE out of here. The first goal that we've got right now is safety. We are trying to keep people safe in this city.
The second goal is we're trying to get ICE out of here because they've got somewhere in the range of 2,270 some odd agents and officers that have been deployed to the region. That so drastically outnumbers the amount of police that we've got. And to say that it is concerning is completely underestimating the issue.
And that's pretty crazy. An ICE official killed a citizen in Minnesota and Kristi Noem hasn't called you? Just generally speaking, usually local political officials would work with federal officials if one of their agents did something like this.
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Chapter 3: How does the federal government justify the actions of ICE agents?
I would hope that part of what these agents are supposed to do is not kill people and de-escalate tense situations. This was the furthest thing from that. Look, I'm not going to get into the frame by frame of what happened, but there's a few things that are clear to me. One, Rene did not run somebody over. Nobody got ran over here. Trump said they got run over. That's not true.
Second, they're calling her a domestic terrorist. That is disgusting and not true. Third, they're saying he was operating exclusively, the ICE agent was operating exclusively in self-defense and was so badly injured. I'm watching the guy on a video walk away with a hop in his step like he's about to go run the 400 hurdles. And then they say that he hurt his hip.
I think he hurt his hip or something. I mean, I've seen bigger hip injuries closing refrigerator doors. That just is just not real. Look, I don't know every in and out of what this investigation could reveal if it were done transparently. What I do know is that they're not off to a very good start. The BCA, which is the state agencies, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension here.
They have great expertise, sadly, having done a lot of this work before. They have investigated police shootings. They have come to conclusions both of culpability and a lack thereof. There are more than a few activists here in Minneapolis that would say, never give it to the BCA. They'll never find, you know, guilt on the side of the cop. They won't investigate it in that way.
But here's the thing. They do do it legitimately. It's mainly, it's like police officers. These are law enforcement experts. That's what we're asking for. And they're getting blocked out. They're getting blocked out. They're getting blocked out. They are getting blocked out in a way that they're not getting access to the materials, not getting full access to the investigation itself.
And that just makes it feel like a cover up. Even if it's not, that makes it feel like a cover up. Why not include them? The BCA has investigated other issues before. Where was a federal agent or a federal entity that was involved in some form of officer-involved shooting?
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of the ICE incident for local communities?
So let's talk about what remedies you guys have, either to get involved in the investigation and then going forward with ICE. Just first on the investigation, can you sue? What can the city do, if anything, at this point?
Yeah, we're still going through that. I don't want to jump the gun. But yeah, I think we've got a number of opportunities that we can move forward with, hopefully in the very near future, including judicial legal action.
I wish to talk about what other, you know, kind of what local law enforcement can do and what you can do as political leaders in the city, because it's something that I don't, you know, I don't exactly know what how the what rules govern all this stuff. You talk about how at this point, ICE is making the city less safe.
And we've seen a ton of videos, not just the shooting of Renee Good, but others of ICE agents bullying and menacing people who are following the law, who are citizens. Can Minneapolis police offer any protection for citizens against excessive force if they witness this kind of thing?
And obviously, we're not trying to escalate an intra-law enforcement battle here, but are there things that you guys can do to protect citizens from their infringement?
Yeah, there are. And let me give some credit to our police officers because they are exhausted. They are working tirelessly. They're getting all kinds of calls. My friend, my family member is being kidnapped. There's an illegitimate use of force taking place. Not to mention, they've just got the regular day-to-day stuff that happens when ICE isn't here that they need to deal with.
And we have fewer officers per capita than we need. And so they're doing a great job, but they're tired. They're being put in the middle of these horribly tense situations. And it's not like they go home to Missouri or Atlanta or Nebraska or some other state after this. They're here. Like these are people that are charged with keeping people safe in Minneapolis, not just for the few weeks after.
During this ICE occupation, but for the long haul. And so, yeah, it's deeply concerning that they're getting put in the middle of it. And at times they're even getting blamed for things that they didn't do. We have worked so hard to generate trust between officers and community members over these last several years since George Floyd was murdered here. And we've made huge strides.
I mean, community members, some of the most intense activists that did not like cops very much probably still don't are saying that our officers are doing the right thing. But I think the question that you're getting to, which I'm not, I have not wholly answered yet, is like you're basically asking, can our cops arrest them?
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Chapter 5: How does Anne Applebaum connect autocracy and the actions of federal agents?
You know, I mean, our officers, unlike theirs, have body cameras. And by the way, they turn them on both for the sake of transparency of the general public. They also turn them on for themselves because they want to be safe. They also show their faces. They show their faces.
They're not afraid of doing something horrible that they might be held accountable for because they aren't going to do that horrible thing. These federal agents are not held to the same standards that we are. And the whole thing is, by the way, kind of wildly ironic, right?
Because it's the Minneapolis police that in the past have been the ones that, you know, have had sort of a federal consent decree that has been pushed, that we have all been pushing to carry out. Meanwhile, you've got the federal government that's doing this kind of garbage right now. And so, no, they're not holding themselves to the same standard at all.
You're here for people in the community. And it's got to be hard for people to tamp down their rage when it's like they're being lectured to. And you have the vice president like tut-tutting and wagging his finger at you and saying you've got to, you know, calm down and behave while he's calling you terrorists.
Yeah, I get it. And there's a greater good here. And I'm so proud, by the way, of so many people throughout our city. that have united around, yes, getting justice, yes, First Amendment speech, yes, peaceful protest, and also, importantly, not taking the bait. We stand by our immigrant neighbors. We will say it till we're blue in the face.
And one of the ways that we need to stand by them is not giving this federal administration an excuse to come in here with a greater occupying force. And so I have seen activists themselves de-escalate a situation with other activists. I've seen people pull other people back, say, hey, don't do that. That's not who we are. We care about our immigrant community and this could ultimately hurt them.
And so, you know, I'm hopeful that that is going to continue right now. But, you know, thus far, in many instances, yeah, I'm proud that things have not escalated to that point.
Have you seen other residual impacts in the city, like schools, businesses not wanting to open, you know, economic issues because of the fear or?
What I'll say is multiple truths here. First, the first truth is that this like apocalyptic hellscape that the far right is trying to paint on Minneapolis is just bullshit. It is just garbage. It's not true. You know what I mean? I walked out of my apartment this morning and I bought a raspberry white chocolate scone.
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Chapter 6: What is the current state of political unrest in Venezuela?
I've screwed up things that I've said a hundred times over. I'm sure I've screwed up some stuff on this interview. I am also certain that there's different perspectives out there in the city from mine. My perspective is we want you here. We got to keep the city rolling. There's a lot of people, immigrants included, that will work at that show and need to work at that show to feed their families.
I want to let you get back to work. I do. I would be remiss if I didn't just ask you briefly about this fraud scandal that has been kind of consuming the news around Minnesota. I sort of put it this way, like I take a backseat to no one, maybe to you about my anger and rage, like the racism targeting the Somali community from Republicans. I get it. It's outrageous. It's vile. It's sick.
I do get a little bit frustrated sometimes with Democrats because I hear a lot of anger targeted at that and a little bit more muted anger targeted at the fraudsters that really screwed over a lot of people in your city. And so I just kind of wanted to hear your reaction to that and how you think the fraud should be addressed and how politicians should be talking about it.
In this case and in all cases, we should be telling the truth with a full-throated response. The fraud is real. and is devastating. We have people in Minnesota and beyond that have stolen money that should have gone to feed kids, that should have gone to housing stabilization, that should have gone to daycare.
And for those that stole money, they should get charged, prosecuted, arrested, and put in jail, period. We should be angry about that because that also is crazy and should not happen. We in Minnesota have a sense of helping people out. We have a sense of creating a social safety net. And when people take advantage of that social safety net, they should be held accountable, period.
That shouldn't be a wild position to have. Here's another truth. They should be held accountable as individuals. They should be held accountable as individuals. You should rise based on your own success and talent. You should fall based on your own flaws and massive screw-ups and crimes. Whole communities, however, should not be held accountable.
You do not hold the whole Somali community accountable for the actions of the fraudsters. You do not hold the whole Jewish community accountable when Bernie Madoff goes to jail. You hold those people accountable every step of the way. That's how the system works in America. None of this should be a controversial position. You know, and so it should be full throated.
And, you know, we've just got to go in very clear. I'd like I mean, and this has got to be a message.
Again, this is my message to Republicans right now who are watching what is happening in Minneapolis with these ice raids is look, aren't you guys are supposed to be like the party that cares deeply about the founding fathers and the Constitution and these core values that hold us together as Americans, right?
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Chapter 7: How do U.S. actions affect international relations with Europe?
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Season three of her podcast, Autocracy in America, is out this morning. The first episode examines how the transformation of ICE into a masked and heavily armed paramilitary is reshaping our democracy. It's an apple balm, and that is a sad but timely topic to be releasing today. So I appreciate you're here on the pod. Thanks for having me.
A bunch about autocracy abroad I want to get to with you today, but I guess given the topic of the podcast, we should start with what we saw in Minneapolis this week. We just spoke to Mayor Fry about his update from the ground, but want to hear more from your perspective on the ICE killing in Minneapolis and how that integrates with what you're talking about on the podcast.
This episode of the podcast, the point of the podcast is to pull together some things that we've seen covered sporadically or unevenly or in different places and to make an argument that these are the combination of the transformation of ice, changes in culture and education and health.
deregulation of crypto, all these things are designed to unlevel the playing field for the midterms later this year. That's the bigger argument. This particular first episode, which was not planned to come out the day after a really horrific and shocking American tragedy, the theme of the episode was ICE and to a lesser extent, the National Guard. And
which has been covered as a story about immigration. And my argument is that it's not just about immigration. It's about intimidation. It's about creating a paramilitary that feels itself to be above the law. People who wear masks have only rudimentary training, drive unmarked cars, and as we saw in Minneapolis, use guns.
freely and willingly as if they were fighting terrorists on the streets of America, when in fact what they're fighting is 37-year-old women driving Hondas. But the point is that this was designed from the beginning as that. So it was about immigrants, but it was also about having a force that was loyal to Donald Trump, that could be used in political ways.
We don't know all of the political ways that it will be used. Towards the end of the series, some people are speculating, and actually some of the governor of Illinois said this, so it's not just some people. There's a fear that troops on the street or armed men on the street during the midterms could frighten people away from voting.
So there are lots of ways in which this kind of force can be used. But what we just saw was... It was more than just a power play. I mean, it was a shocking use of violence and then lies about the use of violence and then the immediate extension of impunity to the person who'd used violence.
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Chapter 8: What are the broader implications of using lies to justify violence?
What's your sense of what the state of play is in Venezuela?
I am in touch with people. I'm in touch with somebody, a couple of people in Caracas and others. To be clear, the Venezuelans I know who were delighted that Maduro was gone and were really happy. And the Trump press conference on that same day in which he kind of dissed Machado and he said she's a very nice lady, but nobody respects her, was truly horrifying to them.
We were just talking about people who inspire you. The Venezuelan opposition, particularly over the last two or three years, fighting against enormous odds, carried out this incredible election campaign. Machado herself wasn't running because she was forbidden from running, but Edmundo Gonzalez, who was a former Venezuelan diplomat, did run. They got people all over the country involved.
And not only that, they got people involved in monitoring and counting the votes. So they were able to prove that they'd won. They won something like they got two thirds of the vote. So this is a very deep, very big, very grassroots opposition. This is not a bunch of elites or a bunch of rich people or a bunch of outsiders. Machado represents...
very large part of the country, and she has enormous respect. She is widely admired among all kinds of people, all kinds of demographics in all parts of the country. And so the people were horrified by that. People were also horrified by the initial impression is that Trump intends for the country to be run by the Maduro regime.
which is still in place and its own paramilitaries and its own police force are still in place, and somehow intends to monitor it from the outside through blockades, somehow controlling oil revenue. And it's very unclear how that's going to happen and how that's going to work and what it's going to mean for ordinary Venezuelans.
And, you know, the people I talk to go kind of way up and down, you know, like one day, maybe it's going to be all right. You know, maybe this is a transition phase and eventually we'll have our own legitimate leaders. And then they seem more, you know, a lot more worried. Very hard for me to tell you what direction this is going. It's not unprecedented for the U.S.
to be involved in some kind of leadership chain in Latin America, but it's the way this is happening and the language that Trump is using is totally unprecedented. I mean, he's talking about Venezuela very much as we're taking their oil. You know, the point of occupying Venezuela or blockading Venezuela is to take their natural resources for the purposes of Americans.
So he sounds not just like an imperialist. I mean, he sounds like a kind of... I mean, you'd have to go back, you know, before the British Empire. I mean, it's a kind of rapacious, extortionate... We're just there for the oil kind of enterprise.
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