Shutdown Looms as Democrats Challenge ICE Funding (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: What are the Democrats' tools besides saying how they feel very strongly? The power of the purse, which again, it's not a big power since they're in the minority in both chambers. But just to kind of rewind the clock a little bit, remember the last time there was a shutdown, the reason it got fixed is because there were a group of Democrats in the U.S. Senate who decided to vote with Republicans to reopen the government. One independent who caucuses with the Democrats is Angus King. Here's what he said about the current moment where we are now.

[00:00:36] Speaker 2: I hate shutdowns. I'm one of the people that helped negotiate the solution to the last, the end of the last shutdown. But I can't vote for a bill that includes ICE funding under these circumstances. Take up DHS by itself. Let's have an honest negotiation, put some guardrails on what's going on, some accountability, and that would solve this problem. We don't have to have a shutdown.

[00:00:56] Speaker 1: Tom Suozzi, who's a Democrat from New York, is in a swingy district there, who also voted to reopen the government last time, said that he made a mistake last time.

[00:01:08] Speaker 3: There is, and monitor this better than anyone, as do you, Dana, there is always a group, particularly in the Senate, on both sides that hates shutdowns and will inevitably be the deal makers, even if we get into a shutdown, that deliver an outcome eventually at some point when the political kind of temperature starts to lower enough for them to be able to move. You're not going to see that. Nobody I've talked to over the course of the weekend sees any of those Democrats, at least the bulk of them, enough to give John Thune 60 votes in the package that was expected to pass fairly easily this week of six appropriations bills, including the DHS bill, to move anytime soon, which means almost certainly there will be a shutdown or a partial government shutdown related to those six bills unless Republicans are willing to agree to strip out the DHS bill. And I haven't talked to anybody on the Republican side who sees any possibility of that procedural mechanism occurring, which means, literally during the break, I asked Manu, I said, what's the offer? We have no idea.

[00:02:08] Speaker 4: The problem is that there's a process problem and a policy problem and a timing problem. They have a Friday deadline here in order for this Friday. And that's just not the DHS funding. It has all these other major agencies, the Defense Department, the Labor Department, Health and Human Services. Democratic priorities, major ones. Much of the federal government would be funded by this bill. So this would be a significant crisis if this is not resolved. And so if they don't reach an agreement on the policy, which just means the ICE and the ICE demands that Democrats are seeking here, then they have to reach an agreement on the process because any one senator can vote to essentially delay things past the Friday deadline. That's going to be very hard to get all 100 senators to agree to essentially expedite things or change things on the fly. Meantime, the House is out of town. Remember, they are on recess right now, too. So this all is pointing to a very, very damaging shutdown. The change in the Democratic approach to this has been remarkable because last week, it seemed like they're going to let this go. Now they are dug in and they're ready to fight.

[00:03:04] Speaker 1: Yeah. And I mentioned Tom Suozzi. I'm just looking at it again. He voted last week on this current bill. Yes. And there were a lot of Democrats who were not happy with him that did it. I just want to, before we go to break, switch gears a little bit. And I want to play something that Tim Walz said yesterday.

[00:03:24] Speaker 5: We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank. Somebody's going to write that children's story about Minnesota. And there's one person who can end this now.

[00:03:45] Speaker 6: Anne Frank, Priscilla? Before the shooting that happened on Saturday, remember what news cycle we were in. We were talking about a five-year-old and his father who were taken to an immigrant detention facility. The conversation at the time, publicly, was about children being swept up in enforcement operations that weren't targeting them, but they were swept up in and them not having any control over the situation. So I think part of that too is tugging at the heartstrings, tugging on history and saying that essentially, as in most of his remarks, it said, what side are you going to be on when you're retelling? It's a big tug towards history there.

[00:04:22] Speaker 1: But just real quick, your sources on this whole question about funding and a shutdown?

[00:04:30] Speaker 7: Yeah, well, on the White House side, I don't see how they give them the way to take DHS out. That would be sort of a big capitulation for many of the Trump and Republican side. But I do think the politics on this in general are moving in the White House, right? Up until the past couple of weeks, I think there was a full-throttle effort behind the Stephen Miller approach to deportations, to DHS, to funding, everything, right? And I think as some of this has gone further and further and further, the people in the White House increasingly queasy, saying it's going to hurt us in the midterms, the polling's not there with us, we don't like what we're seeing in the videos, we don't think we've gone too far now, right? And so what's really playing out inside the White House, I think in the last 48 hours in particular, are lots of conversations about what are we doing here, right? Do we keep doing this just as we've been doing it, or do we scale back some of this, some of these operations, some of these DHS efforts? And I think you're going to see that play out over the course of this week, with the president involved as well, obviously.

[00:05:27] Speaker 4: Jeremy, that was Congressman Angie Craig, who is running for Senate in Minnesota. Congressman, thank you so much for joining me this morning. Let's talk about the aftermath now, which is this new government shutdown threat. The Democratic leaders say that they will block this funding bill if it does have money for ICE, but a shutdown could impact many major agencies, from housing, to defense, to transportation. So, in your view, should Democrats shut the government down over ICE?

[00:05:59] Speaker 8: Democrats cannot keep acting like these are normal times in our country. That's my response to you. I voted against the DHS funding bill on the House floor last week, and I voted against the three other bills that were put before me. Look, the levers we have in the minority are few, but this is one of them. And so, I encourage my Senate Democrat, Democratic friends, to do whatever it takes to get ICE out of Minnesota. This is a moment in time that history is going to judge every single one of us, and including my Republican colleagues, who are complicit in their silence at this moment in time.

[00:06:38] Speaker 4: So, that would mean you'd be OK if the Democrats block this bill and it leads to a shutdown?

[00:06:46] Speaker 8: I think we have to pull that lever. That's the lever we have at this moment in time. I mean, are we OK that an authoritarian administration is taking over American cities? Are we OK that our First Amendment, our Second Amendment, and our Fourth Amendment rights under the Constitution are being violated? Hell no, we're not OK. But if we don't take a stand now, at this moment in time, America, look at what is happening in Minnesota. This is coming to a city near you if we don't take a stand now. So, I am absolutely committed to holding the line, and I encourage my Senate colleagues to stand the line, hold it, and force Republicans to do what they know is right. An out-of-control ICE is attacking and terrorizing the people of Minnesota, and they're coming to you if we don't stop them here.

[00:07:42] Speaker 4: Congresswoman, how far should Democrats take this? Should you push to abolish ICE?

[00:07:49] Speaker 8: Well, look, we're always going to need border enforcement at the southern border, but we absolutely have to dismantle Trump and Kristi Noem's version of ICE. And by the way, they're not actually doing immigration enforcement here. That's not what this is about. Donald Trump said they were coming after the worst of the worst. And instead, what are they doing? They're murdering a Minnesotan, Renee Good. They're murdering another Minnesotan yesterday. Anyone with eyes can see what happened in this video. The first hands-on anyone came from an ICE agent to a woman. Alex Pretty stepped up to help a fellow Minnesotan. We are seeing this all over Minnesota. And let me tell you, as a mother of a 28-year-old young man here in Minnesota who has a permit to carry, my first reaction yesterday, because he and his friends have been out standing with their neighbors, was to call and find him, because my wife and I were not certain that this wasn't our own son yesterday. Folks, if you think this can't happen to you, this young man, under his constitutional rights, was videoing. We have asked people to video, to document the abuses of ICE. My heart goes out. And we've been asked by the family of Alex Pretty to lift him up. He was an ICU nurse who worked on saving the lives of our nation's veterans. And what he did, as far as I'm concerned, was try to help his fellow Minnesotan yesterday. And it got him absolutely murdered by these federal agents.

[00:09:32] Speaker 4: And, Congresswoman, you're referring to this as a murder. I was talking to a Minneapolis City Councilwoman this morning who referred to these ICE agents as domestic terrorists. Would you go that far in labeling them as such?

[00:09:47] Speaker 8: Well, look, you know, two weeks ago, when Rene Good was murdered, I said that this was an out-of-control, untrained agency. I'm changing my words here today, because I think these ICE agents are doing exactly what they've been trained and enabled to do by Donald Trump and this administration. And make no mistake about it, this is not going to help Donald Trump. This is not going to help Republicans I've had colleagues, Republicans from my congressional district in the State House call me in the last 48 hours and say, my God, we're trying to tell our leadership that this is going to absolutely kill us in the next, metaphorically, of course, in the next election. This is something that Minnesotans are absolutely disgusted by. And I'm not just talking about Democrats. We've got so many libertarians in Minnesota. A third of my district, congressional district, is independent voters. And what they are seeing, the abuses by ICE, the overreach by ICE in our communities is not good for the Republican Party, and it's certainly not good for America.