Law enforcement will arrest individuals who break the curfew and you will be prosecuted. But protesters continue to pour into the streets of downtown L.A.. The LAPD has allowed several hundred protesters here to meander pretty freely [00:00:15] right down the streets of downtown Los Angeles for several hours now, the one thing they have not allowed them to do to send down to the one on one freeway. And when hundreds of protesters briefly blocked traffic on the 101. Police pounced. [00:00:32] Yesterday, pretty much the worst that happened in regard to protesters. Demonstrators being disruptive is when they were briefly blocking the 101 freeway, which is a major highway in Los Angeles, and they did so around 4:00, [00:00:49] which was, of course, during rush hour traffic, which is kind of disastrous for people who are trying to get home from work. But nonetheless, that was the worst of it yesterday. And I'm really, really happy to say that because I think that we finally have a solution in which in Los Angeles, the peaceful demonstrators, [00:01:07] the peaceful protesters are able to do what they are legally and constitutionally allowed to do, which is peacefully assemble and protest. And that's what they did all day yesterday. The SEIU held its own protest in this context, of course, [00:01:24] and they had roped it off. They ensured that anyone wearing a mask to hide their identity was not included in their demonstration, because they understand the importance of protecting, the freedom of speech, the right to peacefully protest, from these bad actors [00:01:44] who really have no interest in doing the right thing or accomplishing anything, politically speaking. So let's get into the details of why last night in downtown Los Angeles was very different from what we've been seeing with these images in the previous nights. So apparently there were fewer clashes with authorities and less unrest in LA, [00:02:05] specifically because Mayor Karen Bass finally did what I believe she should have implemented earlier. She imposed a curfew. The curfew begins at 8 p.m. And ends at 6 a.m. The following day. So the Los Angeles Police Department reported that at least 25 people [00:02:24] were arrested for violating the curfew. So the LA police said that they made 27 arrests specifically on Saturday, 40 on Sunday and more than 100 on Monday. An additional 205 protesters were arrested Tuesday, before Karen Bass [00:02:39] had announced curfew at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. And so the curfew was also very limited, meaning it was limited to one square mile of downtown Los Angeles because, as I had told you guys repeatedly on the show. [00:02:56] It was. These riots were nothing like what we experienced in the summer of 2020, when the rioting was really widespread throughout sprawling Los Angeles. In this case, it was limited to downtown LA, which obviously makes it easier to control if you are willing to control it. [00:03:14] And I think this curfew was an important tool, in order to shut down rioters, you know, basically nip it in the bud before things start to get a little unruly. And that's exactly what happened here. So there were arrests of individuals who refused to abide by the curfew. [00:03:29] But, you know, you're not going to see the same types of gross images and videos that we saw the previous nights, which, thankfully, is allowing for the media to stop being so focused on the riots and focus on something else now. And by something else, I mean the point of the peaceful demonstrators. [00:03:48] They're trying to draw attention to what Ice is doing with these raids, who they're targeting, which I think is really important, an important part of the story that needs to be explored more, and we will be exploring it more in this story. But bass said that she expects the curfew to remain in place for several days [00:04:04] and will consult with law enforcement and elected leaders before she decides to lift that curfew. She also said that the curfew was necessary to curb the actions of bad actors who do not support the immigrant community. [00:04:20] Now, there are some people chiding me for saying something very similar, but it's the truth. And if you don't believe me, here you have Mayor Karen Bass calling it like she sees it because it's based in reality, and it helped inform the smart decisions [00:04:38] she made in implementing the curfew. Take a look. I wanted to let the city know that I have declared a local emergency and issued a curfew for downtown Los Angeles to stop the vandalism, to stop the looting. [00:04:55] Many businesses have now been affected by or vandalized. Last night there were 23 businesses that were looted. And I think that if you drive through downtown LA, the graffiti is everywhere [00:05:10] and has caused significant damage to businesses and a number of properties. So my message to you is if you do not live or work in downtown LA, avoid the area. So as we were approaching curfew, the crowds did kind of thin out. [00:05:32] And then, as we hit the curfew time, which was 8 p.m. Local time, Pacific time, you know, more and more people were leaving, but there were definitely some people who decided to stay behind specifically because they wanted to engage in civil disobedience. They didn't get unruly. [00:05:48] They were arrested by the police. 25 arrests. It's not the end of the world. It's nothing like we experienced the night before. So now that the that rioting in LA and hopefully this continues is less of an issue. News reporters I've noticed have actually started focusing more [00:06:06] on the stories of the individuals who have been detained by Ice in Los Angeles. So first, let me just say, when it comes to the arrests made by federal authorities, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said that hundreds of people have been taken into custody during the raids since Friday night. [00:06:25] However, it's not really clear exactly how many people, you know, have been arrested. So they've been detained. But are they still detained? Were they arrested? Do they have charges? We don't know. An immigration rights leader, though in Los Angeles said that about 300 [00:06:40] people have been detained by federal authorities in California since the sweeps began last Friday. So let's talk about how insane some of these raids are and more importantly, what's the motivating factor? Like what changed? Why are we suddenly starting to see these daytime, very public and in some cases, [00:07:00] violent raids that are happening not just in Los Angeles but across the country? Well, it turns out that this was very much intentional, and this was a directive passed down by Stephen Miller, which none of us should be surprised by. So again, there's still a lot of questions about who was arrested, [00:07:18] why they were arrested, and how many of the arrests were the result of Ice raids essentially targeting suspected undocumented immigrants. But the Wall Street Journal, which is not some, like leftist publication, wrote a fantastic piece, [00:07:35] Shining Light or Shedding Light on what's been going on with the Trump administration and their thinking. So they're reporting that the administration is definitely Motivated to carry out more of these Ice raids because President Trump was falling short of the number of deportations carried out by the [00:07:54] Biden administration in its final year. So you know how Trump is. I mean, he's laser focused on ensuring that his deportation numbers are better than that of Biden's in 2024, because that's when he really got serious about deportations. [00:08:10] Or more importantly, I'm sure he's constantly comparing himself to the deporter in chief, which, of course, was President Barack Obama. Now, Obama was able to deport far more people because he directed Customs and Border enforcement to essentially immediately deport someone as soon as they [00:08:27] get caught trying to cross the border. So that really did inflate the numbers under the Obama administration. With Trump's very vocal anti-immigration policies and the fact that he keeps talking about how he's going to, you know, go after undocumented immigrants [00:08:44] aggressively, no holds barred. Less people have been coming to the border, which makes it difficult for Trump to bolster his numbers the way that Obama was able to do so. So as a result, in late May, Stephen Miller, a top white House aide [00:09:01] and the architect of president of the president's immigration agenda, addressed a meeting at ISIS headquarters to say that the president, who promised to deport millions of immigrants living in the country illegally, wasn't pleased the agency had better step it up. [00:09:20] So instead of focusing on what the Trump administration promised they would focus on, which was the deportation of undocumented immigrants, but undocumented immigrants who were committing other violent crimes, individuals who are part of gangs. They're now very much intentionally going after, like immigrants [00:09:37] who haven't committed any other crimes, and more importantly, immigrants who are low hanging fruit, the most vulnerable among us and the easiest to find. So this is, in my opinion, like some of the laziest and lamest type of immigration enforcement the administration can take part in, [00:09:54] and the types of people who are being targeted just absolutely heartbreaking. So, he says that federal agents needed to just go out there and arrest illegal aliens. Miller told top Ice officials who had come from across the United States, according to people familiar with the meeting. [00:10:11] And it gets worse. Miller argued that Ice agents did not need to develop target lists of undocumented immigrants, which, by the way, has been a long standing standing practice for the agency. So it's like, no, no, no, don't, don't plan ahead. Don't have a list of people that you're targeting. [00:10:27] Just go for it. Just go to very specific places where it's easy to find day laborers, literally people who are trying to earn an honest living. Arrest them and deport them. Indeed. Miller directed them to target Home Depot, where day laborers typically gather [00:10:46] for hire or 7-Eleven convenience stores. Miller bet that he and a handful of agents could go out on the streets of Washington, D.C., and arrest 30 people right away. So I want to also just note that the Trump administration has been attempting to deny [00:11:04] that they're doing these arrests at Home Depot parking lots, where day laborers are trying to earn an honest living. You want to know why? Because that information, that type of targeting, is actually not favored by the majority of Americans. The majority of Americans do want to get rid of the bad actors. [00:11:20] Okay. They absolutely do. But they don't think of day laborers in Home Depot parking lots. Okay. Waiting in the freaking heat on summer days in order to earn an honest living. That's not who they're thinking about when it comes to deportations. [00:11:36] And let's not forget, Obviously all of this costs a lot of money for the taxpayers. So is the juice worth the squeeze? And I would I would argue, no, it is not. But the story gets even worse than that. So last Friday, Ice immediately targeted a Home Depot in the predominantly [00:11:53] Latino neighborhood of Westlake, and they did it in broad daylight. Gee, I wonder why they targeted Westlake, a predominantly Latino community. I wonder why they did this very public spectacle of arresting and detaining [00:12:08] day laborers at a Home Depot parking lot. Could it be that there's also that added benefit in Trump's head of protests that could devolve into riots, that he can then use to his advantage? And that's exactly what happened here. So again, this happened in broad daylight. [00:12:25] It set off protests later, riots on Friday night. That was the first night on Saturday that Trump had seen everything he needed to see. He ordered the deployment of 2000 National Guard troops to Southern California. Despite objections by local politicians and Governor Gavin Newsom, [00:12:45] and as these riots grew, Trump announced that he was going to send 700 active duty duty Marines to the scene. Who, you know, from what everyone has seen last night, haven't really been active in responding to demonstrators or anything like that. [00:13:02] And then since Miller's meeting with Ice officials, daily arrests have risen, according to Ice officials. There are no written directives, but officers have been told to do what you need to do to make more arrests, according to current and former Ice [00:13:17] officials familiar with the directives. And so that comes at a cost, by the way, for all of us. So, you know, you're one of those, like, cold hearted people who doesn't care that we're talking about immigrants who have been in this country for decades. [00:13:35] They haven't committed any crimes. They've contributed to society. They're constantly trying to earn an honest living. They're literally day laborers, in some cases waiting at Home Depot. You don't care about any of that. You think you're here illegally. No pathway to citizenship. We just want to get rid of you. Go. Get out of here. [00:13:50] We're going to separate you from your family members who are legal here in the US. They are citizens of the United States. You might have had children here. Who cares? We're going to separate you guys. Go go, go. Okay, fine. I disagree with you entirely. I think we should prioritize people who are not productive members of society [00:14:08] who are causing harm. But here's the thing. That kind of work takes a lot more effort. It takes a lot more investigation. And when you just want to bolster your immigration or deportation numbers, you're not going to want to do the hard work and you're just going to target anyone that crosses your path. [00:14:25] You're going to go for low hanging fruit. But our rights are on the line here as well, for those of you who only care about yourselves. So federal agents make warrantless arrests. Masked agents take people into custody without identifying themselves. [00:14:42] Plainclothes agents in at least a dozen cities have arrested migrants who showed up to their court hearings. Yeah. Great job. Trump administration. Way to discourage, you know, people who are here seeking asylum [00:14:59] from appearing at their court dates, because if they know Ice is ready and waiting to arrest them as they are following the rules and going to their court dates, they're going to stop going to their court dates. It's so stupid and counterproductive. [00:15:15] But there's more. Across the US, people suspected. Suspected. Simply suspected of being in the country illegally or disappearing into the federal detention system without notice to families or lawyers or lawyers. [00:15:33] So due process thrown out the window. Everyone should be able to speak to a lawyer, including people who are here with undocumented status. But what if the feds make a mistake and they suspect an American citizen is undocumented? [00:15:50] How the hell is that American citizen supposed to argue their case if they're not even able to talk to a lawyer or family member in Coral Springs, Florida. At least eight agents in tactical gear, gear, shields and rifles [00:16:05] surrounded the home. A home, I should say, with guns raised to arrest, a father with no criminal history whatsoever. Nice. A Cuban father who worked at a local candy factory began loading two young children into a red SUV. The agents initially planned to follow and arrest him after he had [00:16:25] dropped the children at school. Instead, they decided to arrest him immediately because the children's mother was also in the car. Real classy. The man stepped from the driver's seat with his hands up, while the woman in the passenger seat scolded the agents for arresting him in front of the children. [00:16:44] She asked if she could give her husband a kiss before they took him. None of the agents responded. I'm sure some of you have seen that video of a suspected undocumented immigrant mother in Texas who's being detained. [00:17:00] She's begging to see her children. They're in school. She's wailing, she's crying. She's worried about her kids. She doesn't even get an opportunity to see them, talk to them, tell them what's going on before they arrest her. And it gets worse. In Irvine, California, Ice agents drove a phalanx of military vehicles in the [00:17:18] Orange County suburb to arrest a person, though not for illegal immigration. They were seeking a resident's son who had allegedly posted fliers alerting neighbors to the presence of Ice agents. So you're not even allowed to warn your neighbors that the Gestapo is coming. [00:17:36] They might arrest you. Elsewhere, Americans detained by Ice have said that they were held for hours or longer before being allowed to prove their citizenship. Because this administration doesn't care about your rights. [00:17:51] They don't. They don't care about due process. They don't respect our Constitution. They take orders from foreign governments. One foreign government in particular. And that's the government of Israel. Of course, it's pathetic. This is not a government for the people. It's not a government by the people. [00:18:08] I get that there's a lot of resentment in the country toward undocumented immigrants at this moment because of how how badly the Biden administration bungled the situation. But I think a lot of Americans are forgetting just how many members [00:18:26] of their community that they love. How many members of their community that actually enrich their communities happen to be undocumented immigrants? And it sucks that these people have not had an adequate pathway to legal citizenship in this country, [00:18:43] all due to the lack of effectiveness, the lack of concern, the interest in doing anything productive in the United States Congress. It's so infuriating. And I really don't like this system of, oh, let's just do immigration policy [00:19:01] based on executive order. If Congress isn't going to do their jobs, what is the point of Congress? You know, yesterday I was obviously being sarcastic by saying we should abolish Congress. And someone took me seriously and was like, oh, so authoritarianism then? [00:19:18] Okay, so let me just say this. I was joking, but let's say I was being serious for argument's sake. What exactly has Congress held the executive branch accountable in recent terms? [00:19:33] Presidential terms? It's just they're useless. They've been incredibly useless. You know, with the exception of raising the debt ceiling, as they have to do every year, with the exception of with very little debate, increasing the military budget year after year after year without much debate, [00:19:51] adding to our deficit, adding to our debt that's already at 36, $37 trillion and costs $1 trillion a year to service Congress is useless, and it sickens me to see that these gross acts of injustice and moving forward [00:20:09] without any concern for due process, hasn't riled many people up in Congress. We've heard some Democrats, you know, in their old age, try to give some speeches about it, but they're really not well suited to respond to this current moment, in my opinion. [00:20:27] I mean, look, honestly, Gavin Newsom is exploiting what's happening right now to position himself as the leader of the Trump opposition. It's not about doing right by these immigrants. It's not about ensuring that due process is being implemented [00:20:46] when it comes to these detainments, these arrests and deportations. It's just about exploiting a terrible situation for political gain. And by the way, don't think I don't think I'm under any impression that Trump isn't doing the exact same thing. This is why I was so furious about the riots, [00:21:03] because we don't want federal agents showing up to to squash the rioters, and the only way that you prevent that from happening is to not allow riots to happen. So thank you to Karen Bass for finally doing the right thing and implementing that curfew, because I think that did make a difference. [00:21:19] Now, I should finally note that Ice has stopped regularly publishing data on on their acts and what they're up to. But nonetheless, the Trump administration arrested roughly 65,500 migrants living in the United States illegally and deported nearly 66,000 in its first 100 days. [00:21:38] And I want you to focus on this last part. For anyone who's, like, obsessed with thinking that like, Trump is a unique evil. All right, let's read it. A higher pace of arrests compared with 2024 and a and a slightly [00:21:55] slower pace for deportations. So if you're comparing where Trump is currently at right now with what the Biden administration did in 2024, still, at this point, the Biden administration deported more people in 2024 than the Trump administration has been able to do. [00:22:12] Obviously, it hasn't been a full year for the Trump administration, but nonetheless, deportations were happening under Biden only, by the way, when it became a political liability for the Democrats. They're playing with people's lives. [00:22:28] We need immigration reform. We need a pathway to citizenship. So the productive members of society who are not causing any harm, who are actually enriching our country and our communities can be here legally. They'll be protected by our laws. That's the right way to do it. [00:22:43] And yeah, deport the bad actors. I don't give a damn. Okay? I don't care. You're committing crimes. I don't care if it's, you know, doing looting, thefts, you know, rape, murder, whatever. You're out of here after we prosecute you, after you serve your time. I have no problem deporting those people. [00:23:00] But the day laborers in the Home Depot parking lot, those are good people. And the idea that we're targeting them under the Trump administration disgusts me to no end. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. Totally not true. [00:23:15] But it does keep you updated on our live shows.