CNN panel says Rogan backlash signals ICE tactic problem (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Here is how podcaster Joe Rogan described it.

[00:00:04] Speaker 2: You don't want militarized people in the streets just roaming around, snatching people up, many of which turn out to actually be U.S. citizens that just don't have their papers on them. Are we really going to be the Gestapo? Where's your papers? Is that what we've come to?

[00:00:18] Speaker 1: That has also become a big part of this so-called enforcement. I mean, Minneapolis is not a huge place, okay? And they are absorbing thousands of federal officers, more than any other deployment that they've done so far. And we are seeing these encounters where you're seeing federal officers, maybe ICE agents, maybe Border Patrol, walking down the streets, stopping people, sometimes because they look Somali or they look brown or whatever it is. This is according to those people who were stopped. And asking them, where are your papers? Show me your papers. Where were you born? That's the stuff that we're seeing. And Americans, like Joe Rogan, are concerned about it.

[00:01:00] Speaker 3: And I think part of it is, look, Joe Rogan's identity does not depend on defending Donald Trump and his administration doing things that are indefensible. And I see people all the time bending themselves on TV, bending themselves into all sorts of pretzel shape because they subsist from being a Trump supporter, and that's all they've got. But Joe Rogan, I think, is speaking out of conviction, is speaking out of what he is seeing. And I think it's reflective of what a lot of Americans feel right now. People are showing up at the streets because they are pissed off at what is happening in our country. It is heartbreaking to see these images in America. We are the country that's supposed to be an example for the rest of the world. And the things that are happening in our streets are the type of things that happen in these third world countries. And they do bring all sorts of bad memories when you see these masked men targeting people. And it's not just Minnesota. I mean, we remember the woman who got pulled out of the street in Boston by masked men. We have seen pregnant women dragged. In Minnesota, we saw two young teenagers who were working at Target, like so many of our children do. American citizens. They got a job while going to school, being pulled out, while screaming, I'm a U.S. citizen, I'm a U.S. citizen, because they looked Latino and they were Latino. That is un-American and unacceptable and good for Joe Rogan for standing up and denouncing it. More of Trump supporters, if they want him to be a good president, should be doing the same.

[00:02:40] Speaker 1: Let me play what he said about the Rene Good video that we've been discussing. Listen.

[00:02:48] Speaker 2: It's complicated, obviously, but it's also very ugly. To watch someone shoot a U.S. citizen, especially a woman, in the face, when people say it's justifiable because the car hit him, it seemed like she was kind of turning the car away.

[00:03:05] Speaker 1: Now, Joe, what was really striking to me about this Quinnipiac poll, 53 percent said it was unjustified for the ICE agent to shoot Rene Good. But I was also really surprised by how this has penetrated. 82 percent of registered voters say they saw that video. So you're talking almost universal impressions of what happened there. Is it? I don't know. Are Republicans misreading the situation or risking misreading the situation?

[00:03:32] Speaker 4: Look, if anyone saw the last segment, right, I had no problem defending the officer and I think Joe Rogan's factually wrong about his assessment. But I am a big Joe Rogan fan and I listen all the time. And he is really emblematic of one of the most successful things Trump did in the campaign. It was to engage podcasters and win a lot of people who listen to that type of forum. I have a conversation in my head with Joe Rogan for hours every week. I'm a big fan. I talk to him. So when I hear him challenging something that I believe, you know, or my gut reaction to something, I actually listen to him. So I do think this is a problem for Trump because I think he is a very good barometer of where people stand. Again, this instance, he might be factually wrong. I think he is. But he is a good barometer of where a lot of Trump supporters are. But I would, I would, I would have, you know, they have the Waffle House indicator for a hurricane. Like if the Waffle House is closed, there might be, there should be a Joe Rogan indicator.

[00:04:24] Speaker 5: All right. With us now, CNN political commentators, Karen Finney and David Ervin. And friends, what I'd like to do is not relitigate the video or the events. I actually want to talk about how they're landing in comments like the ones David just made by Joe Rogan, who seems to be saying, I support the president's immigration effort notionally. I do not like what I'm seeing on the ground, though, he seems to be saying. How pervasive do you think that opinion is?

[00:04:51] Speaker 6: Yeah, John, listen, I think it is very pervasive, right? Americans overwhelmingly voted. One of the president's strongest suits, Americans overwhelmingly voted for this president. If you look at the numbers and reasons given to secure the border and crack down on kind of the sieve that was the border under the Biden administration and this administration effectively sealed that border up and did that. And then the president promised to go after the bad hombres and the drug dealers and get those people out of America. And and, you know, the there's a lot of support for that in America. What there isn't support for in the polling bears this out. This isn't David Urban's opinion. This is the polling. It bears out that people do not want to see what you're seeing on your screen right now. They do not want to hear what Joe Rogan is saying. They don't want to see masked men geared up like Delta Force walking down the streets of America, asking people for their papers, throwing them on the ground, zip tying people who are doing sheetrock, you know, gardeners, nannies. They don't want to see that. Right. That's not what they voted for. And so it is it is really hurting this president in the numbers on an area where he was strongest on immigration, strongest. Now it's becoming a weaker point. You know, Karen knows this. President Obama deported lots of folks, but he did it in a completely different way. The Obama administration grabbed lots of folks who just came across the border. People who are who are who hadn't really integrated themselves in the communities hadn't become people's neighbors. And, you know, surprisingly or not, surprisingly, people don't like it when I shows up in their on their neighborhood and take away people that they have relationships with. The Obama administration was very effective because they snatched people. People didn't really know. And in this case, neighborhoods see this happening and they don't like it. So I think the tactics need to be addressed.

[00:06:47] Speaker 7: Can I just actually say it's not just that you don't even know what I'm about to say, David. So why don't you let me talk? You know, it's not just that they this idea that somehow there's a difference between it's not just taking people that people know. It is the violence. It is the terrorizing of communities. It is. There's a story in USA Today. A couple was getting back from a cruise there in Miami. Ice or border protection comes into their cabin, hauls them out. The gentleman of the couple, they're both American citizens. He's a Coast Guard veteran. I mean, it's the violence that people are really reacting to. And David is right. This is really people are very aware of this story and they're very aware of other stories where they're seeing this armed militia essentially acting as though Americans have no rights. We have the right to ask someone to see their badge, who they are. But these ice officials are acting as though you don't have that right. And they're smashing car doors, ripping people out of their cars, even when individuals are saying, wait, I'm an American citizen. Let me get my ID. That is part of it. It's about the way they are conducting this far beyond, you know, it's not just taking nannies and taking, you know, day laborers. It is now. And we saw an American citizen get shot in the face. So it's and it's as traumatizing, frankly, as the George Floyd murder was so many years ago.

[00:08:31] Speaker 5: I do want to know, I think you guys are agreeing basically here. So let's just take a minute to acknowledge that, even as, you know, maybe a start off as agreement. Let me just put up some of the numbers that David Urban was talking about here. Do you think the Minneapolis shooting was justified? Justified 35 percent, not justified 53 percent. That's according to a new brand new Quinnipiac poll. And then approval of ICE in general approve 40 percent, disapprove 57 percent. And once again, I go back to just the idea in the culture now, even among people who may be more supportive of the goals here. You know, Zach Bryant has a brand new album out. You know, the biggest country singer there is practically fills stadiums. And I just don't know Zach Bryant's politics one way or another. But he comments on things being too woke, plenty. He's got this line in this song. The song's been out for a while, but it was just released in the album. I just want to play it right now. So who is this on, David? Who needs to change this, David, if it is a problem?

[00:09:49] Speaker 1: Yeah.

[00:09:50] Speaker 6: Well, John, I think this needs to start at the top. I think the president needs to be aware or made more aware that maybe the numbers are going to play out. But continue to have polling that shows that the American people don't like this. Listen, when you lose Joe Rogan, right, you got a problem. And and I hope the White House takes this to heart, that people don't want to see this type of behavior from ICE. Listen, everybody wants to get the bad guys out of our country. Everybody wants to fix the immigration crisis in America. But what is playing out in the streets, to Karen's point, across America is not something that seems American. Right. And the people who came here illegally, we needed to deport them. But there's a way to do that. And it doesn't appear that the current situation is making things better. And and listen, we've got it. We've got midterms coming up. Do you think that anybody who's watching this thinks that Republicans should get more power or less power? I mean, you know, these these these things all are super important for the administration to take into account. I think it needs to be dialed back. I think they should take this. We can still enforce the laws and have strict immigration control, but do it in a different manner.