Watch: Elon Musk is trying to bail out Republicans while flooding X with lies. Election Day is less than three weeks away, and panic is setting in for the GOP. “We see Republican groups pulling money away from House incumbents,” says host David Corn on the latest episode of Stress Test. “They’re cutting them off. They’re saying, ‘So long, Charlie! We don’t think you’re going to survive this blue tsunami.’” The one lifeline Republicans have right now is big money—and nothing gets bigger than Elon Musk, who has poured $366 million into this election cycle in an attempt to rescue at-riskRepublicans, making him the biggest known political donor in midterms history. But David warns, “It’s not just money with Elon Musk. It’s also disinformation.” On this episode, David and fellow host Garrison Hayes check the state of the race as we hurtle toward November. They’re joined by senior reporter Anna Merlan, who has been tracking Musk-amplified disinformation attacks on Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, who’s been the target of a MAGA operation that falsely claimed he left the campaign trail for a secret stay in an Ohio mental hospital—as well as a homophobic smear from Vice President JD Vance. “This new stuff about him being gay and mentally ill—that’s an escalation,” Anna says. And she’s watching for more: “What tends to happen on X.com these days, especially after Elon Musk took it over, is that there is a lot of disinformation in October leading up to elections—purported leaks of consequential information.” Meanwhile, Garrison and David discuss the epic fall of Kimberly Guilfoyle, ousted as U.S. ambassador to Greece after a report that she asked a donor to pay off a $100,000 Amex bill in return for providing him access to administration officials, and the shocking DHS raid on Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington, DC., home. They explore the Trump administration’s pattern of targeting prominent Black women and what David dubs Trump’s “personal vendetta” against Omar. You’d think a president staring down lame-duck status would have bigger worries than settling scores. After all, reality on the campaign trail is biting hard: “Trump is running around the country trying to shore up Republicans in states where he should not need to be campaigning,” David says. All that, and your audience questions answered, on this Friday edition of “Stress Test,” our special midterms video podcast. Subscribe: youtube.com/motherjones. This transcript was generated with automated tools and may contain errors. David Corn: Elon Musk, a disinformation agent. Garrison Hayes: Trump sics the DOJ on a Democrat. Kimberly Guilfoyle— DC: What a story. GH: Yeah, and is it time for the GOP to panic? DC: This is Stress Test from Mother Jones. I’m David Corn. GH: And I’m Garrison Hayes. Welcome back to the fifth episode of Stress Test. We are three weeks away—can you believe it?—from the midterms and approaching the midpoint of this kind of pop-up video podcast that we’ve been on. So we thought it’d be a good time to come back together and to try to think about, like, what’s going on, do a little bit of a status check on how things are going. David, what’s on your mind? DC: Well, we see that the polls are not changing. They’re all moving in the same direction. They’re all benefiting Democrats, and it seems kind of baked into the cake. Trump is running around the country trying to shore up Republicans in states where he should not need to be campaigning. He went all the way to Alaska, and he took half the cabinet with him because the Democrats are looking good in the Senate race there. And we see Republican groups pulling money away from House incumbents, Republican House incumbents. They’re cutting them off. They’re saying, so long, Charlie, we don’t think you’re going to survive this blue tsunami. So people like Thomas Kean Jr., who’s a representative in New Jersey, and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who’s in Iowa, they’re cutting them off, leaving them to their own devices. The one lifeline the Republicans have right now is big money, and the big news in big money this week, Garrison, was Elon Musk, right? He’s putting in 300—so far, $366 million into this campaign, making one of the largest donations ever in the history of American politics. I think he’s gonna top half a billion dollars. It’s going to Senate races. It’s going to get-out-the-vote campaigns and for senators and Republicans in the swing states, the key states. And it’s not just money with Elon Musk. It’s also disinformation. GH: Indeed it is. And so big money, Elon Musk, disinformation—to talk about all of this, we’re going to have a good conversation with our senior reporter here at Mother Jones, Anna Merlan. Anna, welcome to the show. Anna Merlan: Hi. Thanks for having me. DC: Yeah. I mean, everybody this week is going on and on about the money he’s pouring in—$158 million into Senate races—but you had a different take. Not only is he pouring money into this campaign, he’s a major force of disinformation. Explain. AM: Well, so this week we saw Elon Musk engaging pretty heavily with a story about Texas Senate candidate James Talarico. There was some scuttlebutt on the right because Talarico had not been seen on the campaign trail for a couple of weeks. That’s because he had the flu. He was really clear that he had the flu. He was appearing remotely via Zoom at several campaign events because he had the flu. Instead, a couple of far-right, self-styled journalists started to make a different claim: that he had actually been secretly committed to a mental hospital in Ohio for an extraordinarily short period of time before reappearing on the campaign trail. So this story didn’t work for a bunch of reasons that we can get into, but one person who was very excited about it was Elon Musk. He was engaging directly— DC: So what did he do? AM: He was engaging directly with Nick Sortor and Rhein Amacher, who are the two self-proclaimed MAGA-leaning journalists who were promoting this story. When they released a purported phone call between one of them and the mental health treatment center they claimed Talarico was at, he responded with two exclamation points. He also said at least twice in tweets that the Talarico campaign was hiding something that voters deserved to know about. So it’s pretty obvious that he had probably become aware of this story prior to Sortor and Amacher breaking it publicly. So he was a primary driver of people seeing this story. I mean, Sortor has a pretty good audience, but nothing like what Elon Musk has on the platform that he owns. GH: I’d love to get into why this story doesn’t work, because often, Anna, when these conspiracy theories come up, they’re based in some kind of thing that gives people a clue that there might be something going on. And so there are kind of this hodgepodge of facts that are unrelated, and they pull them together to make a story. But why are you saying that this story doesn’t make any sense? AM: There is a really basic timeline issue, which is that supposedly Talarico, according to Sortor and Amacher’s self-proclaimed reporting, had been released from this mental hospital in Ohio on Saturday night. That was a really big issue because he had been seen campaigning in person in Texas on Friday and Saturday. So they were crowing about a call that they had with this mental health treatment center in Ohio where, after asking someone at the facility several times if somebody by the name of James Talarico was there and getting several denials, eventually the person on the other end of the phone says, oh, he was discharged Saturday night. This person doesn’t sound clear, and this is after what turned out to be about six minutes of them asking this question in various ways. But regardless, that’s not how time works. If you see him in Texas on Friday, he cannot be in mental health treatment on Saturday. The other thing that happened is that the mental health treatment center, the Lindner Center, tweeted, James Talarico has never been treated here. Like, they were more than willing to just say, this is not real, this is not true. And this happened immediately. But that was apparently not enough for some of the people involved in the story to declare it not to be true. DC: Well, you know, it’s interesting because this is a mental health attack that they’re trying to put on to Talarico, and the other things that they’ve gone after him for, claiming he’s a vegan when he’s not—not that there’s anything wrong with that. And also, we saw what came from our own vice president, JD Vance, this week. Let’s look at that video and how he whipped up an attack against Talarico. [Clip plays.] DC: So he’s not only mentally ill and a vegan, apparently he’s gay. Wow. It seems to be the best they have at the moment. AM: Well, so there’s been a lot of this type of thing about Talarico, and some of it, again, Elon Musk has engaged in. There have been a bunch of quotes recirculated, for instance, about him denouncing white supremacy during 2020 and expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement, him talking about, you know, trans inclusion in sports, him talking about the ills of capitalism—things that are taken to be extremely frightening by the right. And there’s been a lot of recirculating of those quotes. But this new stuff about him being gay and mentally ill, that is—that’s an escalation, I would say. DC: And we talked earlier about the money he’s putting in—10 million—tens of millions of dollars into get-out-the-vote efforts in Texas, and a lot of those are focusing on these sort of issues, claiming that Talarico has a radical trans agenda. AM: Correct. I mean, part of what’s interesting here is that after Elon Musk spent millions of dollars helping to get President Trump back into office, he said he was going to pull back on political spending. That was probably the result of a couple of things. One was that he put a lot of money into the Wisconsin Senate race, which didn’t turn out the way that he wanted it to be, including at one point he offered to essentially pay voters to vote, which you’re not allowed to do. He had to walk that back very quickly because it is illegal. And the other thing that happened was that he put a lot of support behind Germany’s far-right AfD party, even appearing to speak at an AfD rally, and during that election, again, AfD didn’t do particularly well. So in 2025, he said, you know, I’m going to pull back on political spending, I’ve done enough. But now here he is again, you know, a year later, getting more involved in the midterms, I think, than any other single donor ever has in history. GH: Yeah, and I guess the question that everyone’s wondering is, will this work? I mean, obviously he’s had some failures in the past, but do you think, here we are in this position again where Elon Musk is dumping a bunch of money into an election, do you anticipate that it’ll work this time? AM: I don’t actually think there’s a direct 1-to-1 predictor between amount of money and success, which I do think is what Elon Musk thinks. I think he assumes that a large enough amount of money will result in the outcome you want, but he should know that that’s not the case. That’s not what happened in Wisconsin. That’s not what happened, you know, with him appearing to speak on behalf of AfD. Like, it just doesn’t seem to work that way. But I guess we’ll see. And, you know, I guess he’s welcome under the laws of this country to spend as much money as he wants trying. DC: Well, Anna, we ask this question of all our guests: What’s stressing you out, or what are you watching for in the next few weeks before the election hits Election Day? AM: I feel like if I let anything stress me out at this point, I would be dead, so nothing. Just, I’m good. I will say I am paying a lot of attention to purported October surprises. You guys both know that before consequential elections, there’s often this thing termed the October surprise, a last-minute, consequential piece of information. What tends to happen on X.com these days, especially after Elon Musk took it over, again, is that there is a lot of disinformation in October leading up to elections—purported leaks of consequential information. You might recall, like, the Macron leaks that were attempted to float before a French presidential election a few years ago on Twitter that didn’t quite work. So I am paying a lot of attention to narratives that take hold on X in the next few weeks, especially things that Elon Musk is promoting. For instance, right now he’s very engaged with allegations about Ilhan Omar—either, you know, hiding the source of her wealth, you know, changing her last name. There is a lot of attempts right now to just kind of attach general suspicion to her in the lead-up to the election. So I would say that’s the primary thing I’m looking at today, but who knows what it’ll be next week. GH: Anna Merlan, thank you so much for joining us. We’ll definitely be paying very close attention to your reporting, and we appreciate you being here. AM: Thanks for having me. Thank you guys for your work. DC: Well, she mentioned Elon Musk going after Ilhan Omar, and this week, in what was a shocking move, the investigators from DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, raided the Washington home of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, apparently looking for material relating to immigration forms filled out years ago, maybe even tens of years ago. This is unprecedented, Garrison, because, as you know, there’s a Department of Justice guideline that acts like these—investigations, raids, subpoenas—should not come so close to an election unless they are unavoidable. There’s a danger present. Someone may run away to, you know, flee the cops, go to another country. If there’s no reason to move this quickly before an election, so close to an election, you basically lay low. But the Trump administration is doing the opposite here. GH: They’ve, of course, you know, been targeting Congresswoman Omar for a while now. It’s a part of a larger anti-immigrant thing that they’ve been on. Obviously, we know Ilhan Omar represents a congressional district in Minnesota, and so all of this is connected to this larger project that the Trump administration has been pushing for quite some time now. But we also know that Ilhan Omar is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. She is a Black woman. And there have been a number of these kinds of targeted attacks from this administration on Black women. We have the Fed Gov. Lisa Cook. We, of course, have Letitia James in New York City. We have LaMonica McIver, who is facing 17 years for her interactions with ICE just last year. And so this is something that’s kind of been going on for a while, David, and it does feel in some ways unprecedented, but it also feels like something that they’ve been pushing. It feels very related to the objectives of this administration. DC: Yeah. And one small point that I see here, because I just came out with this book, How Russia Won, about the Russian intervention in the past elections to help Donald Trump, and in 2016, the FBI was conducting an investigation of interactions between the Trump campaign and Russia throughout the 2016 general election period. And they were assiduous about not issuing subpoenas, not even bringing in people to interview, because they thought that might tip off the investigation to the public, and they did not want to affect the election in that way. The deep state, as Trump would say, was actually protecting the Trump campaign, and that’s the way it’s supposed to work. Of course, at the end of that campaign, James Comey revived the investigation of Hillary Clinton, and that had an impact on the campaign, and that’s the reason for this rule that they are violating. But Trump, you know, has made, you know, this crusade against Somali Americans a tremendous imperative for him—targeting her, but just the whole idea that Somali Americans are committing fraud, that they’re evil, terrible people. He said that, and they should all be shipped back to Africa. So this is racism. It’s a personal vendetta, and what it does, I think, also is just send a message that we’re in favor of cruelty, and if you get on the wrong side of us, we will come after you. GH: Yeah, it is, I think, a lot of those things. As I said before, there is this kind of personal fixation that the president has with Minnesota. To your point, the story around Minnesota, you know, quote-unquote, fraud—some of it legitimate, some of it illegitimate. We know that that’s all kind of a part of this story as well, that we’ve seen play out for at least the last nine, 10 months. But really, it kind of goes back. We know, of course, Ilhan Omar was a part of that kind of Squad group of folks elected to Congress during Trump’s first term. She has been an unapologetic opponent of the president, quite antagonistic and unapologetic in her kind of prodding of the president. So all of that feels deeply, deeply connected. David, I’m curious, what is Omar’s reaction to all of this, to her home being raided? How is she responding to this? DC: Well, she’s leaning into it. I mean, I’ve gotten many fundraising letters or emails from her. GH: Never miss an opportunity to raise a few bucks off of this stuff, right? DC: Yeah, don’t put a crisis to waste, ever. And so she’s, you know, defying Trump, standing strong, and using it to try to bolster her support. And indeed, this is, you know, elevating her. I don’t think there’s a question about her winning her election. But it is, again, you know, this is happening through DHS, and there are people who are worried about DHS agents or ICE agents showing up at the polls to try to dissuade people from being there, creating crisis, creating chaos, which is what Trump is looking to do. And, you know, they keep trying to bring this back to fraud, but let’s talk about corruption. Where’s the real corruption? I would say it’s coming from within the house. And we had no better example of that this week than—drumroll, please—Kimberly Guilfoyle. She was selling favors. The big news was that she asked a Republican donor to pay off her $100,000 Amex card while she was trying—well, while she was trying to get him favorable treatment within the government because he had a few tax issues. And, you know, she didn’t last too long, right, Garrison, once this news came out? GH: There’s a story within a story here about who gets the boot when there is, you know, controversy. I mean, I am thinking a lot in this situation about Tom Homan, who we know was also involved in some suspected corruption and money, and there’s, like, $50,000 in a paper bag, I believe was the part of the story, from Cava. DC: It was a bag from Cava, the fast-food joint, $50,000 in it, in cash. GH: A bag from Cava. Exactly, in cash. And the question is, like, did he get the boot? Has Trump done the work of distancing himself from Tom Homan? I think the answer is, of course, no. And so there’s always kind of this interesting tension, and maybe even to some degree a gender tension here, around who Donald Trump decides to punish and distance himself from. I’m thinking about Kristi Noem, of course, in this instance as well. None of these are excuses for the behavior, but I think there is kind of a meta-analysis, actually, that needs to happen here as well. DC: Well, let’s see what Trump once had to say about her and what he has to say about her now. [Clip plays.] DC: Well, the interesting thing here might be, you know, they were close, and they were close through all this period of time that Donald Trump Jr. is cutting assorted business deals, using the family name to get connections in the defense industry and elsewhere—what we might call grifting. So I bet Kimberly Guilfoyle has a lot of inside information about how Donald Trump Jr. has amassed the wealth he has gathered over the last few years. You got to be careful who you throw under the bus, particularly if they know something. In any event, the House Democrats take control of any of the investigative committees, she might be someone they look to talk to. GH: I wouldn’t be surprised if, you know, for Kimberly Guilfoyle to get a subpoena of some sort if Democrats do take back the House. But, you know, David, the thing that I’ve noticed over the years is that it’s really hard to turn MAGA-world people against Trump. I mean, even if for a time they seem to move away from him, we’ve seen time and time again people kind of move back into his orbit. And so I would be curious to see if this situation and any pressure that Democrats can exert on Guilfoyle, if it would result in anything meaningful coming out of this from a probing perspective. DC: Well, the interesting thing is that Trump is sunsetting, right? You know, people—after the election, he will be lame duck. So his magnetic attraction to pull people back into his fold that he kicks out—you know, we’ve seen this with Steve Bannon, we’ve seen it with Michael Cohen—that gravitational force might weaken. And I think, too, you know, we’re here to talk about the midterms, and it’s my sense—and we see this—the Democratic candidates are leaning more into making corruption an issue. We talked about Talarico. He’s running campaign ads against Ken Paxton on all sorts of corruption fronts, including that he’s been bought off by big data to put up data centers that are very unpopular in Texas. We see other candidates across the country, Democratic candidates, using the theme of corruption. And I think it hits strongly now. It’s often hard to make corruption an issue for people, but when they’re having their own economic difficulties and they see Trump and his family literally pocketing billions of dollars in shady deals while he’s in the White House, and now we see Kim Guilfoyle using her power, her influence, to line her own pockets, I think these corruption themes might resonate a little stronger. GH: My question for you, David, then, is when or if Democrats, you know, take back the House—perhaps in 2028, if they are able to take back the White House—what power do they have to change things in a way that would prevent something like this in the future? DC: Well, they have two different things they can do. If they win back even the House, let alone the Senate, in this election, they can use the power of congressional investigations to start digging into some of the stuff—you mentioned Tom Homan. They can go back to all sorts of things. They don’t have to investigate them as crimes, but they still have the right to investigate them. And of course, if the Democrats should win back the White House in 2028, which seems a long time from now, they will control the Justice Department, and they’ll be able to look at all sorts of things that went on during the Trump years. But on the other hand, I would not put it past Trump to issue a blanket-wide pardon covering almost every political appointee who served in either one of his administrations. So that’s kind of far down the road at this point. But there is a lot they can start looking at, whether it’s Elon Musk, whether it’s Kim Guilfoyle, whether it’s Tom Homan—a lot of things out there. The problem that the Democrats are gonna have on these investigative committees, if they gain control, is deciding which investigations to launch. GH: Wow. Well, those are the things that we’re interested in and thinking about, but of course, we’re always curious what you are interested in and thinking about. We have a few audience questions that I want to tee up for us, David. We’re enjoying, of course, your comments. Go ahead and drop a comment now for something that’s on your minds, maybe something that’s stressing you out. And so we have a few comments that we wanna get into. I’ll start us out, David, and then you can take one and I’ll take another one, and we’ll get through these as quickly as possible. This is from someone who goes by FrankHodge7654. They say, the biggest stress test to our democratic republic in our history was the Civil War. The second-biggest stress test was the economic collapse of the 1930s. They say, the current crisis is a very important test. When the people in office do not respect the Constitution—that’s a lot of what we’ve been talking about today—and no one is responding effectively, Frank says. They’re asking, I guess, in a way, what would be the appropriate response? We kind of got into that a little bit, David, but I’m curious what your thoughts are on the appropriate response to the disrespect, as Frank puts it, for the Constitution. DC: You know, ultimately it boils down to you and you and you and you—to all of us—to vote for people who will uphold the Constitution as they swear to do when they take the oath of office. And, you know, we’ve had a president who got into power, you know, got into office not once, but twice, I think, by, you know, by hoodwinking the public in many ways, who has no respect for the Constitution. And what we might have thought in the past, that a political party—even his own political party—would put up guardrails to keep him in place and not let him tear up the Constitution too much, well, that wasn’t there, and they just folded and caved and became part of the Trump cult. So it’s really up to Americans, if they want to keep the democracy that they’ve been bequeathed by our founders and by people who gave their lives for this democracy in years past, to make this a priority for them and vote for people who they think will uphold the rule of law. I mean, it’s kind of Civics 101, but I don’t have much more to say than that. Let’s turn to—go ahead. GH: I’ll add one additional point here, David. I think you’re spot-on, but the thing that I’ll add—I mean, as FrankHodge7654 points out, you know, so much of this is directly connected to the unfinished business, I think, that this country has around its relationship to race and racism. I mean, obviously the Civil War was about slavery, and these things kind of create these chinks in the armor, these little kind of vulnerable points or vulnerability points for someone who does not respect the Constitution to come in and to lean into anti-immigrant sentiment or maybe racist rhetoric in order to gain power. And so all of these things are in their own way connected, and I think you’re totally right that the people, voters in our country, have to be thinking strategically about who they give power to. DC: That’s a good point. And until we resolve some of those issues, we will be vulnerable to demagogues who don’t respect the Constitution. So let me turn to a viewer who goes by the name Disky, DISKY01. I’m gonna read it off the paper here. Flock cameras are for license plate reading specifically, but I think this is an indication that people are finally beginning to understand the consequences of general mass surveillance. We can’t trust the federal government to do anything right now, and so it must be a local government issue. We have to ensure that our local governments enact stronger spying and surveillance laws against corporations, law enforcement, and governments. I think that’s true, but I think we’re gonna see this with AI as well. There’s going to be a big fight between who gets to regulate these new technologies, and Big Tech doesn’t want it to be state by state, locality by locality. They have a much easier chance of influencing the process if it’s done at the federal level, where they can throw in a lot of money, as we’ve seen and as we’ve talked about with Elon Musk, and as we’ve discussed on earlier episodes, big super PACs being funded by crypto and AI. GH: Okay, I think that’s enough for our audience section. I wanna move us to our final question that we always talk a little bit about, which is: What are you stressed or maybe not stressed out about this week? David, let’s start with you. Go ahead and tell us what’s stressing you out, or maybe what are you less stressed about than you were before? DC: Well, I’m less stressed out about the polls being really wrong. I mean, they may not be fully accurate, but they are moving in the same direction. They all show the same overall trend across the country in different races when you ask the question in different ways, so I’m not as worried about them missing something. What I’m, you know, stressed out or what I would be concerned about is something that Anna said earlier on the show, and that is an October surprise of some sort, but more or less being funded by a lot of money. The money coming in is just tremendous, and, you know, there’s hundreds—maybe tens, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars that we can’t track. That’s dark money that we don’t even see, and the ability of that money to finance an October surprise. Another story about James Talarico being, you know, taken off to a mental health institution—things that break on the weekend right before the election and where it’s harder to counter them, you know, whether it’s from Russian disinformation bots or from Elon Musk and MAGA influencers making things up on X. I worry about that coming and being pushed out with a lot of money. GH: Yeah, I mean, that’s exactly the thing that I’m stressing out about as well, David—this idea that people with the largest megaphones on social media are able to push these election-influencing bits of dis- and misinformation, and that these things get shared so widely. I mean, part of the reason, I think, why Elon Musk just amplifies stuff that’s, as Anna pointed out, just nonsense is because at the end of the day, we are susceptible, we are influenceable, we are able to take in this information, and a lot of times it does have an impact on our behavior. And so that’s kind of stressing me out, and how we kind of fight and push back against these things is kind of interesting to me. And of course, one of the ways to do that is to subscribe to Mother Jones, to subscribe to Stress Test, to stay in the know by being right here every single week. So that’s one of the things that you can do to lower your stress, and that’s what I hope—that’s what I’m allowing to lower my stress, is that we’re doing the good work of getting good information out there. DC: Well, that’s all we have in today’s episode. If you missed previous episodes of Stress Test, go to our YouTube channel. You can go there at youtube.com/motherjones, subscribe there as well, and find us wherever you find your podcasts. GH: Of course, a huge shout-out to Anna Merlan for her incredible reporting. Our great journalism and the work that we do here, like Anna’s reporting—this stuff is only made possible because of your support. Your views and your subscriptions keep us going, so don’t forget to like and to share and to subscribe to our YouTube channel, as David says. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to leave them down in the comments. We love to read your comments and to answer your questions, so make sure you ask a question down there in the comments today. We’ll be right back here in a couple of days with another edition of Stress Test. Have a good one.

Christian nationalism—the idea that strict adherence to Christian theology should govern American political life, separation of church and state be damned—has been on the rise in America for years. Some vanguard elements of this revolutionary movement believe adherents are called to wage a spiritual battle for control of the United States, seeking command of schools, public policy, and even the courts. Its ascendancy helped propel Donald Trump into the White House the first time, and it continues to find purchase at the highest rungs of government, including inside Trump’s second-term cabinet. How is the movement impacting the midterm elections? Our guest on this new episode of Stress Test is Kiera Butler, a Mother Jones national correspondent who has tracked Christian nationalism for years and documented the shifting fortunes of its top leaders. In Trump’s first term, the charismatic prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation held sway. In his second, the ascendant figures are more ascetic, chief among them Doug Wilson, pastor and founder of Christ Church, a more Calvinist congregation in Moscow, Idaho. Wilson also co-created the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a global network of 160 congregations—including the one attended by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. “Pete Hegseth, who has started these worship sessions in the Pentagon, brought Doug Wilson in earlier this year as a speaker,” Kiera says. “You have this very clear line from this Christian nationalist leader, Doug Wilson, right to Pete Hegseth, who is very close to President Trump.” Kiera joins host Garrison Hayes to discuss the movement’s rising political influence, and the current state of religion in politics more broadly: how it is shaping leaders like Hegseth and JD Vance, and how the right has pushed to rebrand basic Christian empathy as a sin. Garrison, himself a former pastor, observes how the left is trying to reclaim the space: “You have a candidate like James Talarico, who is actively talking about Jesus as a person who invites the stranger and the immigrant. And so you have this kind of warring and competing vision of Christianity playing out in American politics.” What’s stressing Kiera out? “Fundamentalism in all of its forms,” she says. “When I look around and I see people who are against religious pluralism and who are actively trying to undermine the separation of church and state, that’s what freaks me out.” This transcript was generated with automated tools and may contain errors. Garrison Hayes: Talk about faith during these midterms is kind of everywhere. We’re talking about Islam and Judaism. And of course, if you’re anything like me, you’re interested in the conversation about Christianity that’s happening again during the midterms. If you’ve been keyed in on the political conversation that we’ve been having here in America, then you know that you’re well aware that this conversation about Christianity and faith isn’t only limited to the right wing. Both Democrats and Republicans are leveraging the common language of faith to appeal to voters in this time. And so, who better to talk to than my colleague Kiera Butler? She’s been diving deep into Christian nationalism, following it closely for a very long time. Welcome back. This is Stress Test from Mother Jones. I’m Garrison Hayes, and we’ve been talking about the midterms kind of nonstop. That’s what this show is all about. And I’m really, really excited to dig into this conversation. I’ll tell you, in the last episode, David Corn, my co-host, and I had a great conversation with Mother Jones reporter Russ Choma on the money side of the upcoming midterm election. There’s so much there around who’s funding who, campaign finance, potential malfeasance, all that stuff is kind of there, and you definitely want to go back and check it out. If you missed it, you can watch that on our YouTube channel, youtube.com/motherjones. Definitely go check that out. But I think this conversation is also really interesting and really, really important. We’re talking about the role of faith in the current political economy. So without further ado, I want to welcome national correspondent Kiera Butler onto the stage here with me to talk about today’s topic. Kiera’s been keeping a close tab on extremism and Christian nationalism here in the United States for a while. Kiera, welcome to the show. Kiera Butler: Thank you so much for having me, Garrison. GH: Of course, of course. I want to start with where we are right now. You know, I made something a little over a year ago after Charlie Kirk’s death. I watched his memorial service, and it felt like a revival. It also kind of felt like the kind of peak of Christian nationalist fervor in this country. I don’t know if I’m misreading that. You’ve been, of course, staying close on this. And so a year later, heading into the midterms, are we still seeing that same momentum that many Christian nationalist types were riding after the unfortunate and untimely assassination of Charlie Kirk? KB: Yeah, you know, that was certainly a flashpoint. Charlie Kirk’s murder hit a lot of people really hard in the Christian community, and not just Christian nationalists either. You know, I think that was a real reckoning in that community. And in some ways it was a unifying force, and in other ways, you know, we saw new divisions kind of coming to light after that. I would say that since then it’s not that there’s any less Christian nationalism, it’s just that it’s looking a little bit different, and we can get into that. GH: Yeah, I’d like to get into it. And it felt like in some ways some people were trying to use that as a way to advance a more stringent Christian nationalist agenda. And I’m curious if you were seeing the same thing up close. KB: Yeah, so I like to put the Christian nationalists into kind of two different buckets, right? You’ve got the kind of more old-school evangelical charismatic Christian nationalists. These are folks, I’ve done a little bit of reporting on the New Apostolic Reformation. This is a movement where, you know, self-proclaimed prophets will talk about politics as kind of a mountain to be conquered. There are these seven mountains that, you know, culture and entertainment and politics and education. There’s, you know, several more as well. And these folks, you know, if you picture kind of your evangelical megachurch, you know, the worship band, people kind of swaying back and forth, it’s a very kind of interactive style of worship. This was the movement that really defined Trump’s first presidency. You know, this is Paula White-Cain, who is actually still Trump’s spiritual adviser, but this movement was ascendant, and you saw January 6, 2021, was a big moment for these folks. You know, that this movement was very influential in that storming of the Capitol and in election denialism. In Trump’s second term, we’ve really seen the emergence, or I guess the ascendancy, of a different kind of Christian nationalism. We’ve seen a group of folks who I wrote about about two years ago for the first time called the TheoBros. These folks are Reformed Christians, and Reformed theology is a whole thing, as you know, Garrison. It’s—there’s a lot to it. But basically, these folks believe that God decides in advance who’s going to heaven. Their worship style is much more restrained. They sing hymns and psalms, you know, that they are not the, like, you know, soaring worship band, pastor in jeans, like, you know, strutting back and forth. They’re very almost puritanical in their worship style. These folks, though, are pretty extreme in their beliefs. A lot of them believe women shouldn’t be able to vote. A lot of them believe in bringing—they call it prison reform, but by prison reform they mean bringing back public flogging and public execution, which, you know, we’ve seen—we’ve just seen a whole news cycle about that recently. And, you know, they also—they’re self-proclaimed Christian nationalists. They will come right out and say, you know, I believe that the Ten Commandments should be replacing the US Constitution. So I should say, you know, that was kind of a long-winded way of explaining these two Christian nationalist camps that I notice and, you know, really saying that the latter, the TheoBros, I see as more influential politically these days. GH: Yeah, that’s a good point to kind of transition, because the idea here, you know, as you’re saying with the folks who are more influential, is to really have the ear of the president, the people who are really wanting to have a little bit more influence on exactly what kind of comes out. And I guess my question in all of this is, who are the people who have the ear of the president in this time, and who are the leaders that are influencing those who will likely be elected in these midterm elections? KB: One of the most influential Christians who has Trump’s ear is Pete Hegseth, secretary of, as he says, war. He is a Reformed Christian. He certainly belongs to this camp of TheoBros that I was just talking about. His faith—he belongs to a church that is in a denomination called the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. This is a Christian nationalist denomination. It was started by a guy named Doug Wilson, who’s a pastor in Moscow, Idaho. I’ve spent a lot of time reporting about Doug Wilson and his beliefs, and he is the spiritual adviser of Pete Hegseth. And in fact, Pete Hegseth, who has started these, like, worship sessions in the Pentagon, brought Doug Wilson in earlier this year as a speaker at the Pentagon. So, you know, in Pete Hegseth, you have this very clear line from this Christian nationalist leader, Doug Wilson, right to Pete Hegseth, who is very close to President Trump. I will also say that JD Vance, even though he’s a Catholic, so he’s a kind of a different flavor, he mixes pretty freely with this group of TheoBros. A lot of the TheoBros have connections to Silicon Valley. And JD Vance became acquainted with them during his time in Silicon Valley with the world of Peter Thiel, another Christian thinker. And so JD Vance is—he’s very influenced by this, by the TheoBro movement, by some of the, I would say, like, postliberal intellectual circles that JD Vance moves in have influenced him quite a bit. GH: Yeah, well, Kiera, you kind of undersold yourself. You haven’t just been reporting on Doug Wilson. I want to come back to JD Vance and the folks inside the White House in a bit, but you haven’t just been reporting on Doug Wilson. You actually went out to Moscow, Idaho, to talk to him. You interviewed him, and I’m curious what that was like, and what did you see when you were there? KB: Yeah, I’ve actually been to Moscow twice now. So in Moscow, it’s—I have to say, it’s an adorable town. I felt so at home there. I used to live in Berkeley, California, and it reminded me of, like, a mini Berkeley, like college town, you know, think, like, little cozy cafes and, like, couches on porches, and, you know, the University of Idaho is the big college that’s there, and their mascot is the Vandal. And so you see this, like, little Vandal things everywhere. Super cute town, really beautiful part of the country. It’s kind of in the northwest corner of Idaho. But Doug Wilson has this project there. He’s trying to make Moscow, Idaho, into his own little Christian fiefdom. He’s said this. This is something that he’s, you know, fully, you know, states as a goal of his, and he’s done a pretty good job. He started this church, which is now a whole denomination of Reformed Christians. I think there’s something like 160 churches around the world in this denomination. In the county, Latah County, in Moscow, where he is, there are seven churches that are related to his original one. He started a publishing house that’s now a media company. It’s called Canon Press, K through 12 Christian school, a college called New Saint Andrews— GH: I’m jumping in only because, Kiera, I imagine someone watching this is like, okay, he has a, you know, a press and a media company and he has a church that’s maybe growing, perhaps. What are some of the things that a person or someone who subscribes to Doug Wilson’s beliefs, or maybe just Doug Wilson himself—he can speak for himself—what does he believe? As I understand it, there are things that they believe about women and about the gender roles and all of this stuff. Can you get into some of the beliefs? KB: Yeah, absolutely. So Doug is a proud—well, I’ll say Doug is a fan of the patriarchy. His religion, his denomination is patriarchal. Women do not hold leadership roles in his church. He believes in household voting, which is actually something JD Vance has mentioned too, where the head of the household would vote for the entire household. And Doug Wilson believes that men should be the heads of households, and that wives should be submissive to their husbands. That’s a strong core of his belief. Related to that, he also believes that women are ill suited for combat roles in the military, which of course gets important when you think about what Pete Hegseth is doing with the US military. And in addition to that, you know, he has the sort of beliefs that you would expect from a kind of a fundamentalist Christian. He believes gay marriage should be illegal. He believes abortion should be illegal, that abortion should be considered murder. GH: It actually may be helpful, Kiera, to just hear from Doug Wilson. I’d love to play a little bit of tape, a little snippet from your interview with Doug Wilson back in September, where you asked him about his relationship with the defense secretary, or the secretary of war, as he calls himself. And then I want to ask you about what you thought of his answer. So let’s hear from Doug Wilson first. [Clip plays.] GH: You know, it really strikes me that he is almost trying to downplay his kind of connection and role. That’s what kind of stood out to me. What stood out to you, Kiera? KB: Yeah, you know, what stood out to me in all of my interactions with Doug Wilson when I was there in Moscow is that he is kind of very different when I’m interviewing him, like, you know, when I’m talking to him in person, than he is in some of the viral clips of him that have gone around. You know, he famously said to CNN, like, women are the kind of people who people come out of. In it—I don’t know, like, in his speech at a National Conservatism Conference two years ago, he said, I’m a Presbyterian, not a Lesbyterian. He talks about the tranny flag a lot. He, you know, uses the word retarded, retard. He, you know, he is so much more measured when I’ve been talking to him one-on-one, or, you know, you saw his wife Nancy there in that clip, with her as well. It really is, like, I’ve been thinking of it as, like, a tale of two Dougs. GH: That’s fascinating. You bring out the—like, maybe you have, like, an energy that brings the respect out of him in some way. I don’t know what you think that is. KB: Well, I think part of it is that he knows who he’s talking to, right? Before I ever went to Moscow, I’d been emailing back and forth with him, and to his credit, like, he will always answer my emails, but he’ll often work in, like, a little dig at the end. Like, he’ll be like, Okay, and that’s what I think, and you can go write that in your commie publication. So he certainly is aware of the Mother Jones readership, I guess. The other thing I think that is relevant here is that he—every time he’s—he told me during that same interview that you just played a clip from, I asked him, like, is there any part of this when you have a clip that goes viral or, you know, when you say something particularly controversial and there’s a lot of media scrutiny, like, is there anything that’s good for you and your movement when that happens? And he said, absolutely, it’s great for us. You know, people see what I’m saying and they, you know, want to move to Moscow, Idaho, or they want to, you know, find their nearest Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches church. Another one of his core beliefs is that Christians—like, Christian nationalism is very literal to him. So in his ideal version of a Christian America, people of other faiths would not be allowed to hold office. And he gave me an example: Like, Muslims in his Christian America would be able to practice their faith, but they would not be able to build a minaret. So this is a very kind of muscular version of Christian nationalism that he’s imagining. GH: Yeah, there’s something about it that, you know, I don’t think it always goes unsaid, so I won’t make that statement, but it isn’t said enough that there’s something, I think, deeply bigoted about a lot of what Christian nationalism is trying to advance. I mean, you have—obviously this is Islamophobic in nature. We know that there is actually a ton of anti-Blackness that kind of pops up among some of these, quote-unquote, TheoBros, as you call them. And obviously we also have seen a great deal of antisemitism present in Christian nationalism. In the conversations that you’ve been having with Christian nationalists, have any of those elements of bigotry come up when they aren’t being polite, good little boys? KB: Yeah, you know, anytime you ask about immigration, that’s kind of the tell, right? That, like, you know, the both kinds of Christian nationalists, both the New Apostolic Reformation, kind of the charismatic, Pentecostal evangelicals, and the TheoBros, these Reformed guys, like, none of them are, you know, pro-immigrant in any way. And the only—well, no, definitely will not say the only, but an interesting tension comes when you think about Catholics, right? And, you know, JD Vance has gotten himself into some trouble with this. JD Vance obviously is very—it’s kind of a hard line on immigration, but his Catholic faith is in conflict with that. You know, there’s social justice teaching in Catholicism, that, you know, to be welcoming to immigrants, to, you know, extend empathy to immigrants is a core tenet of that faith. So there’s been some interesting tension there. And I’m actually curious, Garrison, what you’ve noticed along those lines as you’ve been looking at folks on the left and Christians in those circles. GH: Yeah, I mean, well, you have this big showdown happening in Texas, where you have the Republican Party has, of course, taken the position of being anti-immigration and taking pretty hard lines on immigration. And then on the Democratic side, you have a candidate like James Talarico, who is actively talking about Jesus as a person who invites the stranger and the immigrant. And so you have this kind of warring and competing vision of Christianity, I think, playing out in American politics. You know, it’s really interesting to see the way that scripture is leveraged on both sides of this conversation. I, of course, have my own perspective in all of this, but I’m really curious to see how Americans who have obviously voted now for Donald Trump—some subset, some section of Americans have voted for Donald Trump, who always ran on an anti-immigration kind of platform—they voted for him now three times, right? And obviously elected him twice. And so I’m kind of interested how a state like Texas, where this conversation isn’t just theoretical, it’s very much kind of playing out in the practical—I’m curious how that will play out from an electoral perspective. But it is interesting to see how Christians on the center left are thinking about Christianity as a way to advance their political agenda. And I don’t think it’s necessarily new. I wouldn’t describe it as new. Black Christians have absolutely across the South been using and leveraging their faith in electoral politics for a long time. I mean, the Souls to the Polls movement has been a really significant way to get Black voters out to go vote, but I’m seeing it in kind of outside of Black circles in a way that does feel a little new, and I’ve been really curious where that’s coming from. KB: I’m curious if you’re hearing in your circles anything about empathy, because one of the big themes over the last year or two, I would say, in the right-wing Christian nationalist circles is the notion of empathy as a sin. The idea that kind of an excess of empathy and/or misplaced empathy is sinful and is something that, you know, Christians need to repent for. And this, particularly with immigration, I would say, you know, folks are saying, like, you know, if you’re welcoming everybody and if you’re, you know, if you’re having a, you know, a bleeding heart for, you know, all of these people who are flooding over the borders, then that is a sin. You’re sinning. What are you hearing in your circles? GH: You know, I’m certainly hearing the opposite of that. This idea is, of course, a part of, to your point, a kind of certain type of Christian nationalist thinking. It’s certainly a talking point. There’s a commentator named Allie Beth Stuckey who wrote an entire book around this called Toxic Empathy. And so I’ll take the reporting hat off for just a moment here. And as a former pastor, I will say that the notion of having some kind of empathy for the stranger, for your neighbor, understanding, welcoming them in, that is a very common theme throughout scripture. You know, whatever you do to the least of these, you’ve done unto me, and, you know, do unto others as you would have them do unto you is a really common theme throughout the synoptic gospels. And so it’s hard to kind of wrap my mind around, as a former pastor, it’s hard to really wrap my mind around this as a sin. Okay, that’s kind of difficult to find, I think, in scripture. But I will say, you know, I’m really curious, you know, what—you know, putting the reporter hat back on, you know, maybe for a moment here—I’m really curious if this is cutting through. And I, you know, Kiera, maybe you have access to some polling data and what people are actually feeling here in the moment, but I’ve been really curious to learn more about how Christians are responding to this. I mean, truly, love thy neighbor feels so fundamental to the kind of ethic of Christianity that it’s hard to imagine what Christianity is without it. And I would, you know, use that term, love thy neighbor, as kind of a proxy for this concept of empathy. KB: Yeah, I mean, that’s—to me, when I first heard about Allie Beth Stuckey’s book, and also a co-pastor of Doug Wilson’s, Joe Rigney, wrote a very similar book, and when I first heard about it, I thought to myself, just like you were saying, it seems incompatible with basic Christian teachings. But, you know, I think it was maybe it was last year when JD Vance was talking about this, when he sort of got into it about the ordo amoris, the Latin for rightly ordered love, I guess. He was talking about, you know, how you should love, or God wants you to love your family first and then, you know, your extended family, and it kind of is, you know, this concentric-circle model of who you should devote your care and empathy to, and the farther out you get from your kind of core nuclear family, the less you should love. And he used that to sort of explain his stance on immigration. And the pope actually came back and was like, That’s not what that means, which was—it was just kind of a funny little disagreement. But I agree, you know, I don’t have any polling. I don’t know whether there’s polling on this issue of empathy or not, and if there is, I don’t have it at my fingertips, but I am very curious about how Christians are receiving that notion. GH: You know, I think a lot of this really depends on something that I’ve heard pastors say for a long time, which is that people aren’t really reading their Bibles anymore, and that there’s this kind of—there’s a real concern that Christians are getting further and further removed from the kind of primary source text in all of this. I will say, as a person who again has kind of studied this stuff and was a pastor for a while, that a part of the Ten Commandments is, you know, the fourth commandment talks about the extension of rest, and it really goes all the way out to the stranger that’s in your country, the stranger in your gates, and then it works backwards from there all the way to the person who lives in your home, a family member. And so this kind of notion that one is supposed to love closer and then maybe kind of work your way out, it kind of, like, there’s something, I’d say, maybe intuitive about that, the idea of proximity, but I think the Bible writers go out of their way to invert that as a way of, I think, reaffirming the importance of loving those far away from you. Okay, this isn’t Bible study, Kiera Butler. KB: I do want to say, though, this made me think of something, and I can’t help but mention it. There is a Progressive Baptist church—and I live in Atlanta, and there’s a Progressive Baptist church in my neighborhood—and they have a bunch of signs outside the church, and one of the signs is, like, somebody drew, like, almost like a child’s drawing of Jesus, and the speech bubble says, Y’all, that is not what I said. GH: Right. Right. Okay. I want to move us on. You just kind of closed out a big investigation about this organization called Life Surge. I loved your episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out. It was so good. You went to this event, you kind of dug deep. If you don’t know, Life Surge is a Christian roadshow that’s tied to the former star quarterback Tim Tebow, and it was great. I’d love for you to tell us a little bit more about that and where we can go find it. What’s kind of interesting about that investigation? KB: Yeah, so Life Surge is—their main event that they draw people in with is, like, a roadshow. It’s, like, a one-day event that’s where they kind of mix, like, worship and motivational speakers. Many of their speakers are, like, athletes, like really famous athletes like Tim Tebow, and, you know, they’ve had Magic Johnson, they’ve had David Ortiz, just, like, you know, super famous people. And during that day they try to get you to sign up for these—what they call Impact Classes, and they’re, like, financial—like, they teach you how to invest in the stock market, teach you how to, like, flip houses and, you know, allegedly make a bunch of money in real estate. And then once you go to the three-day classes, then they try to sell you on packages of investment training that cost, like, you know, packages that range from, like, $10,000 to, like, $50,000. And so my investigation focused on how folks who have done these classes have said that the salespeople are using faith to sell them on a product that they can’t afford. So I’ve, you know, talked to people who have ended up tens of thousands of dollars in debt and said things like, you know, that the salesperson said, If you’re having doubts about whether you want to buy this financial package, that was the devil. The devil was putting doubts in your mind. So that was the investigation. You know, an interesting thing, I guess, just in the wake of the investigation, Tim Tebow cut or paused his ties with Life Surge, and a bunch of the other high-profile speakers did as well. So that was—it was really interesting to see that impact there of our investigation. But, you know, I think because the investigation really got a lot of attention, I’ve gotten a lot of tips from people and, you know, threads to follow, and it really does seem like this is sort of the tip of the iceberg, the world of Christian finance seminars that people are, you know, spending a lot of money and at times losing a lot of money. This is a real wing of, I guess, the right-wing Christian movement that I had not explored before. So I think it’s something to keep an eye on going forward, for sure. GH: I think so, Kiera. I’m excited to see more of what you uncover. Okay, before we let you go, I want to ask you the question that we’re asking all of our guests here on this show: After all of your Christian nationalist reporting and all of that, what’s stressing you out the most? KB: What’s stressing me out the most? Fundamentalism in all of its forms. You know, I think—and that is not unique to Christianity, of course. To me, when I look around and I see people who are against religious pluralism and who are actively trying to undermine the separation of church and state, that’s what freaks me out. GH: Listen, to our viewers and our listeners, Kiera has another Doug Wilson story in the works, along with some of the excellent sneak preview reporting that you heard here today. It’s important, it’s fascinating. These stories are so, so important. They have incredible impact, as you already heard. So make sure you follow her reporting on MotherJones.com. Kiera Butler, thank you. KB: Thank you so much for having me. GH: That’s all we have for you in today’s episode. If you missed the previous episodes of Stress Test, you can watch them on our YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts. Our great journalism here at Mother Jones—Kiera’s reporting, Russ Choma’s reporting, Ari Berman’s reporting—all of that is made possible with your support. Your views, your subscriptions keep us going. So don’t forget to like and to share and to subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you have any questions or suggestions, please leave them for us down in the comments below. Our producers love reading your comments. We’ll be back in just a couple of days with another edition of Stress Test. Until then, take care.

On Friday, federal agents arrested Ian Austin, an Army veteran and ICE protester who was featured in a recent viral Mother Jones video. Austin was among the dozens of protesters who, nearly two weeks ago, interrupted a service at a church in St. Paul, where a local ICE official serves as a pastor. Since then, federal officials have been targeting those involved in the demonstration—including, today, journalist Don Lemon—and arresting them on federal charges. > “It’s fucking emotional as hell, and it’s scary,” he said over the phone > earlier in the week, “but I’m not going to live in fear.” I met Austin last week outside the Whipple Federal Building, where ICE operations are based and where there has been a standing protest for weeks. I was struck by the honesty and vulnerability he brought to the conversation; he was brought to tears by how betrayed he felt by the government he had fought for. “When they say, ‘Why would you be out here?’ How the fuck could I not be out here?” he said at the time. “My nation is under attack.” A few days earlier, Austin had been tackled and arrested for peacefully protesting outside the same building. He was detained for several hours—in shackles—before being released without charges.  In the days after we met, as news broke that some protesters from the church demonstration had been arrested, I checked in with Austin. Was he worried that he’d be next? “It’s fucking emotional as hell, and it’s scary,” he said over the phone, “but I’m not going to live in fear.” He added, “You guys want to arrest me for protesting and expressing our First Amendment rights in a church?…I’ll go down with the ship.” Austin was arrested on Friday outside the Whipple Building. Sarah Gad, a Minneapolis defense attorney who was there to see another client, happened to witness the arrest and was able to speak with him afterwards for a few minutes. “Federal agents just kind of swarmed this young man,” she said. “He wasn’t shouting or being boisterous. It just seemed like they were looking for him and they found him and they just kind of pounced.” Neither Austin nor Gad knew what he was being charged with. Austin is being held at the Sherburne County Jail, about 40 minutes from Minneapolis.

“No work. No school. No shopping. Stop funding ICE.” That’s the rallying cry behind the campaign for a nationwide general strike on Friday, seeking to galvanize opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. This week, I went to the University of Minnesota, my alma mater, to speak to some of the students behind the effort that lists hundreds of endorsements from organizations and celebrities like Pedro Pascal and Hannah Einbinder. Events are planned across the country, from New York to San Francisco, where businesses are announcing they won’t open their doors. “We can do even more,” said Austin Muia, the vice president of the Black Student Union. “We want to bring it to the national stage and see it happen all over the country. We want everyone to feel that solidarity that we felt last week.” “Let’s try to get people from the East Coast, West Coast, from the South,” said Pamela Gray, founder and president of the university’s Liberian Student Association. Federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse and U.S. citizen, a day after the first general strike that sent thousands of Minnesotans marching in the frigid Minneapolis winter. Students began organizing almost immediately for a second general strike, using their website to call on other states to join Minnesota in protesting Trump’s violent and increasingly unpopular immigration crackdown.

A version of this story was originally published by The Watch, Radley Balko’s Substack publication, to which you can subscribe here. Conservatives are fond of invoking the American founding, the framers of the Constitution, and the principles that drove the fight for independence. Those invocations have always been selective and opportunistic, but they’ve grown downright farcical as right-wingers contort themselves into knots to defend executive powers explicitly contradicted by the Constitution. The Republicans’ veneration of the founders is particularly rich at the moment because, of all the abuses England heaped on the colonies, nothing angered them more than the Crown’s deployment of soldiers on city streets—and the streets of Boston in particular. Anger, resentment, and violence simmered in Boston for years before the Boston Massacre in 1770. The Declaration of Independence Trump hangs in his office came six years later, followed by the American Revolution, then the birth of the United States. The rage from those pre-revolution clashes in Boston continued to linger for years into the Constitutional Convention, and then the debate over the Bill of Rights. The founders were also students of history, and saw how the domestic use of the military led to the fall of the Roman Republic. This, in large part, is why we have the Second, Third, and Fourth Amendments, and why the Constitution splits control of the military between the president and Congress. You really can’t overstate how much the founders worried about, well, exactly what we’re seeing in Minneapolis. When I was researching my first book, Rise of the Warrior Cop, I found a remarkable archive of colonial-era newspaper articles published as a collection in 1936 by a historian named Oliver Morton Dickerson. The articles are from A Journal of the Times, a pro-patriot, anti-monarchy paper published in colonial Boston. Dickerson’s published archive, which runs from 1767 to 1769, documents the rising tension as English troops patrolled the streets of Boston. The accounts are clearly biased in favor of the angry colonists, but they’re also consistent with other contemporaneous accounts of the occupation. They read like a social media feed—if social media had existed at the time. They also depict scenes remarkably similar to those captured in smartphone videos coming out of the Twin Cities. The full engraving by Paul Revere depicting the Boston Massacre. We’re now at two dead in Minneapolis, with at least five killed by immigration officers overall. We’re at 42 dead since Trump was inaugurated last year if you count the soaring number of deaths in ICE custody, many of which appear to be from either neglect or abuse. Even as I was working on this post, there were two alarming new developments: First, the Associated Press reported that the administration has been keeping a secret memo authorizing immigration to enter homes without a warrant to arrest people who have final removal orders (the memo itself suggests even a final removal order may not be necessary). This is remarkably similar to the general warrants or “writs of assistance” the British crown issued permitting soldiers to forcibly enter any home they suspected of harboring untaxed imports. I’ll just state the obvious: If the Fourth Amendment permits the government to tear down your door with nothing more than an administrative warrant, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t exist. The argument that this only affects undocumented immigrants is both legally dubious and utter garbage—they’ve already used this policy to terrorize an American citizen. The second alarming new incident was the murder of Alex Pretti. And within hours of Pretti’s death, administration officials promptly did what they’ve done after the previous shootings: slandered the victim, brazenly lied about what happened, and prevented local law enforcement from conducting their own investigation. They’ve also refused to release the names of the officers who killed Pretti, publicly praised those officers, and then quickly announced that those officers have been returned to the field. The latter is a particularly sociopathic attempt to project strength. From the officers’ perspective, it’s a hell of a thing to kill someone. The notion that they’d bounce back within a couple days to go out and round up more immigrants is incomprehensibly callous. It’s also a demonstration of this administration’s contempt for human life and its dearth of basic humanity. From the perspective of the people of Minneapolis—and the rest of the country—the message is clear: This administration believes that killing protesters is a thing to be celebrated and encouraged. They believe that performatively lying about these killings in the face of directly contradictory video evidence is a display of strength and power. And they believe that the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments forged after the violence in Boston are mere suggestions. So, here are some excerpts from those newspaper accounts of the siege of Boston, along with comparative examples from the siege of Minneapolis. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > We now behold Boston surrounded at a time of profound peace, with about 14 > ships of war, with springs on their cables, and their broadsides to the town! > If the people of England could but look into the town to see the utmost good > order and observance of the laws, and that this mighty armament has no other > rebellion to subdue than what existed in the brain or letter of the inveterate > governor and commissioners… Minneapolis: From the complaint the state of Minnesota filed in federal court: > In December 2025, the federal government initiated “Operation Metro Surge,” an > unprecedented deployment of federal immigration enforcement agents…to the > State of Minnesota, including into the cities of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. > Operation Metro Surge has instilled fear among people living, working and > visiting the Minneapolis Saint Paul metro area. Thousands of armed and masked > DHS agents have stormed the Twin Cities to conduct militarized raids and carry > out dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional stops and arrests in sensitive > public places, including schools and hospitals—all under the guise of lawful > immigration enforcement. > > Defendants claim this unprecedented surge of immigration agents is necessary > to fight fraud. In reality, the massive deployment of armed agents to > Minnesota bears no connection to that stated objective and instead reflects an > alarming escalation of the Trump Administration’s retaliatory actions towards > the state. > > Defendants claim to have deployed over 2,000 DHS agents to the Twin Cities—a > number that greatly exceeds the number of sworn police officers that > Minneapolis and Saint Paul have, combined. Operation Metro Surge is, in > essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities. > > This operation is driven by nothing more than the Trump Administration’s > desire to punish political opponents and score partisan points—at the direct > expense of Plaintiffs’ residents. Defendants’ actions appear designed to > provoke community outrage, sow fear, and inflict emotional distress, and they > are interfering with the ability of state and local officials to protect and > care for their residents. After weeks of escalation, including a DHS agent > shooting into an occupied vehicle on December 21, 2025, in Saint Paul, a U.S. > Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) agent shot and killed a > Minneapolis resident on January 7, 2026. Other federal courts have already found that Trump’s justifications for sending troops into Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland were based on lies and gross distortions of the reality on the ground. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > [It] appears that the Commissioners of the Board of Customs had repeatedly > complained of being obstructed in the execution of their office. > > The proceedings of Council that “what happened on the 10th of June, seems to > have sprung wholly from those who complain of it, and that it seems probable, > an uproar was hoped for and intended…and there was no occasion for men of war > to protect them.”… > > [In] their unanimous opinion, the civil power does not need the support of > troops; that it is not for his Majesty’s service, nor the peace of this > province, that any troops be required…” Again from the state of Minnesota’s complaint: > Defendants have targeted Minnesota for the latest unprecedented surge not > based on any real or legitimate concern for the enforcement of immigration > laws or promotion of public safety, but rather in service of Defendants’ goal > to score political points. If the Defendants’ true goal was to detain and > deport dangerous individuals, they would not accomplish it through what DHS > describes as “consensual” (namely: random) encounters with people on the > street. And if the Defendants’ true goal was to prioritize detaining and > deporting the highest number of immigrants with no legal right to remain in > the U.S., they would not be targeting Minnesota for what Defendants refer to > as the largest ever immigration operation. Data suggests that just over 1.5% > of Minnesota’s total population are noncitizen immigrants without legal > status, less than half the national average rate. > > On information and belief, that small percentage includes individuals whose > presence has been long known to DHS and who have kept regularly scheduled > appointments with DHS. Many states have higher rates of reported non-citizens > relative to their populations, including Utah, Texas, and Florida. The > administration has made no similar efforts to surge federal immigration agent > deployments into cities in Utah, Texas, or Florida. Incredibly, the reported > non-citizen population of Utah, Florida, and Texas (combined together) is > nearly the size of the entire population of Minnesota… And as for the pretext that the immigration crackdown was about combatting fraud in the Somali community: > [W]hile the “Feeding our Future” fraud case was in no way new, and in fact was > a case involving collaboration between state and federal resources to bring > perpetrators to justice, President Trump and others in his Administration have > repurposed the case in recent months in order to use the pretext of “fraud” > concerns as an excuse to engage in all manner of unlawful actions. > > Pertinent to this lawsuit, the Trump Administration recognized that the > Feeding our Future scheme involved a large number of Somali immigrants, and > since then, have used the case to disparage the entire Somali community, and > Minnesota’s Democratic politicians and policies. > > On November 21, 2025, President Trump posted on social media that Minnesota > “is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity,” and that he was therefore > “terminating, effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS > Program) for Somalis in Minnesota.” Then, on Thanksgiving Day, President Trump > posted a lengthy screed, falsely claiming that “Hundreds of thousands of > refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of > Minnesota. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey’ as our > wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against > hope that they will be left alone…” > > The White House has similarly expressed that the 2,000 deployed DHS agents > have been sent to Minnesota to help with “targeted, door-to-door > investigations at locations of suspected fraud.” But Defendants’ > investigations have not been “targeted.” DHS agents have been conducting raids > at job sites and businesses, detaining and deporting individuals while they > perform essential work that directly benefits Plaintiffs’ communities. > > DHS agents also appear to be conducting general sweeps and detaining people > within their path based on their race and ethnicity. Defendants’ conduct > further undermines the notion that they are focusing efforts on individuals > with violent criminal histories or known targets in fraud > investigations—particularly where fraud allegations are primarily investigated > via reviewing documents, not by roving groups of DHS agents dressed in riot > gear and military fatigues. Multiple federal courts have found Trump’s pretexts for occupying other cities to be wholly without merit, from the claim that violence from protesters was preventing immigration officers from doing their jobs in Los Angeles, to false claims about protest violence at a detention center in Portland, to Trump’s deranged declaration of war on Chicago and claims that the city was fomenting an “insurrection.” The above passage from colonial Boston also speculates that England may have wanted a violent reaction from the colonists in order to justify more oppressive measures. That’s an authoritarian scheme that’s as old as authoritarianism. Here too, there are parallels to the occupation of Minneapolis and other cities. Former ICE and DHS officials say the administration is encouraging the sort of tactics and aggression prohibited by most police agencies, in a way that seems designed to provoke violence and backlash. And of course we know that Trump has been itching for an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act since the summer of 2020. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > Several persons have been taken up within these few days by the soldiery, and > confined without warrant Minneapolis: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > Gentlemen and ladies coming into town in their carriages were threatened by > the guards to have their brains blown out unless they stopped. Minneapolis: > Amid heated protests in Minneapolis following the killing of Renee Good by > Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross, federal agents have > repeatedly invoked Good’s death to threaten the lives of observers and > demonstrators in Minnesota. In multiple confrontations in the Minneapolis > area, agents repeatedly referred to civilians learning their lesson—in an > apparent nod to the use of deadly force in Ross’s killing. Two US citizens detained by immigration officers said one agent told them, “You guys have got to stop obstructing us. That’s why that lesbian bitch is dead.” Another woman, a former Marine who says an ICE agent rammed her car, says agents warned, “Have you not learned? This is why we killed that lesbian bitch.” We also now know that Alex Pretti was coming to the aid of a woman who had been assaulted by an immigration officer when he was assaulted, tackled, disarmed, and shot. (You can see the video evidence here.) His reported last words: “Are you okay?” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > At about noon the inhabitants were greatly alarmed with the news that the > sheriff, accompanied by the soldiery, had forced an entry sword in hand . . . > Mr. Brown one of the inhabitants, in attempting to disarm him, received > several thrusts in his cloaths, the sheriff’s deputy entered with him; he then > gave possession of the cellar to some of the troops: A large number of > soldiers immediately entered the yard, and were placed as centinels and guards > at all the doors of the house, and all persons were forbid from going in and > out of the same, or even coming into the yard. The plan of operation being as > it is said to terrify or starve the occupants out of their dwellings. > > The sheriff refused giving Mr. Brown a copy of his warrant or orders for > this doing… Minneapolis: > A federal judge in Minnesota on Thursday ordered the release of a Liberian > man four days after heavily armed immigration agents broke into his home using > a battering ram and arrested him. US District Judge Jeffrey Bryan said in his > ruling that the agents violated Garrison Gibson’s Fourth Amendment rights > against unlawful search and seizure. “To arrest him, Respondents forcibly > entered Garrison G.’s home without his consent and without a judicial > warrant,” he said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > This night the sheriff procured guards of soldiers to be placed at his house > for his protection, a measure that must render him still more ridiculous in > the eyes of the people. Minneapolis: > White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is one of a handful of > President Donald Trump’s Cabinet members who are hiding out on military bases > so they don’t have to be exposed to the public that hates them. The > Atlantic reported Thursday that Miller, his wife, and their two children have > relocated out of their home north of Arlington, Virginia, to a US military > base after local activists embarked on a campaign to shame Miller for his role > leading Trump’s fascistic crime and immigration crackdown. Kristi Noem and Marco Rubio are also reported to now be living on military bases. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > [T]here was a general appearance of the troops in the Common, who went through > their firings, evolutions, etc. in a manner pleasing to the general…The > glitter of the arms and bayonets, and this hostile appearance of troops in a > time of profound peace, made most of the spectators very serious, and reminded > me of what a late traveller relates in his account of Turkey, “That being > present on a day when the Grand Signior was passing from his palace to his > mosque, and observing that the Janissaries stood without their arms, and with > their hands across, only bowed as the Sultan passed; he was led thereby to ask > a captain of those guards why they had no arms? Arms said he, thou infidel, > they are for our ENEMIES; we govern our subjects with the LAW. This passage expresses frustration at the British troop’s performative shows of force. We saw that early on in Los Angeles, when Border Patrol conducted a showy, militarized raid on a mostly empty public park to intimidate an immigrant neighborhood. Minneapolis: We’ve also seen this in Minneapolis, with the now-recalled Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino strutting through city neighborhoods bedecked in his fashiest trench, baiting local residents into confrontations. Last week he and his entourage showed up at gas stations, always with a garish show of force to draw angry crowds. DHS then put out a indignant statement complaining that the city’s “agitators” won’t even led immigration officers urinate in peace. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > Lord Bottetourts, ordered [the soldiers] to their several stations in the > colonies, in order to exert their whole influence to carry down the late > regulations. In pursuance of this ministerial plan of policy, we now behold a > standing army and swarms of crown officers, placemen, pensioners and > expectants, co-operating in order to subdue Americans to the yoke. Minneapolis: > This is what happened in our neighborhood yesterday. ICE snatched a human > being off of our streets, roughed them up badly, and then pepper sprayed legal > observers as they documented it all. This is a daily occurrence happening all > throughout Minnesota right now. > > — Elliott Payne (@elliottpayne.org) 2026-01-19T15:46:56.285Z -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > The inhabitants of this town have been of late greatly insulted and abused by > some of the officers and soldiers, several have been assaulted on frivolous > pretences, and put under guard without any lawful warrant for so doing. A > physician of the town walking the streets the other evening, was jostled by an > officer, when a scuffle ensued, he was afterwards met by the same officer in > company with another, both as yet unknown, who repeated his blows, and as is > supposed gave him a stroke with a pistol, which so wounded him as to endanger > his life. Minneapolis: Protesters clash with agents outside an ICE facility after the killing of 37-year-old Renée Good by a US immigration agent, in Minneapolis on January 8, 2026.Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty A person is detained after confronting Border Patrol agents who were arresting two teenagers after a car accident on January 21, 2026 in Minneapolis.Stephen Maturen/Getty An agent threatens photojournalists with pepper spray on January 14, 2026 in Minneapolis.Scott Olson/Getty -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > Here Americans you may behold some of the first fruits springing up from that > root of bitterness a standing army. Troops are quartered upon us in a time of > peace, on pretence of preserving order in a town that was as orderly before > their arrival as any one large town in the whole extent of his Majesty’s > dominions; and a little time will discover whether we are to be governed by > the [military] or the common law of the land. Minneapolis: > Nasra Ahmed, a 23-year-old US citizen, was arrested and detained by ICE. She > was held for TWO DAYS.ICE agents handcuffed her, called her a racial slur, and > she was knocked to the ground so hard she got a concussion.This cannot > continue happening. ICE needs to leave. > > — Minnesota House DFL (@mnhousedfl.bsky.social) 2026-01-22T01:42:12.898Z -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > The unhappy consequences of quartering troops in this town, daily visible in > the profaneness, Sabbath breaking, drunkenness, and other debaucheries and > immoralities, may lead us to conclude, that our enemies are waging war with > the morals as well as the rights and privileges of the poor inhabitants. Minneapolis: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: After noting that local grand juries had attempted to indict several soldiers for “detentions, assaults, and robberies” on Boston residents, the paper lamented that servants of the British crown refused to honor the indictments. > Our young King’s Attorney, refused…alleging as it is said, that “If a soldier > should with his fixed bayonet at the breast of an inhabitant stop and detain > him two hours, it would not in law be adjudged an assault.” It is hoped a > court and jury will otherwise determine it, and that it will no longer be a > doubt even in the minds of the most sceptical that the law of the land is to > yield to the maxims of a meer economy of the military, in civil communities. Minneapolis: Here’s Stephen Miller, incorrectly telling ICE soldiers that they have complete immunity from prosecution. He said this in a Fox News appearance last fall. Miller’s admonition was then amplified by the Department of Homeland Security after the killing of Renee Good: Vice President JD Vance has also wrongly claimed that federal immigration officers have “absolute immunity” from prosecution. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > Last Wednesday night several officers of the army, sallied out of a house in > King Street, and meeting with one of the inhabitants of the town, they beat > and wounded him very cruelly Minneapolis: A Getty photographer throws his camera to a colleague as he’s swarmed and tacked by federal immigration officers.Pierre Lavie/Instagram -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > Abuses are daily offered some one or another of the inhabitants, who are > generally for seeking redress in a legal way; and we cannot but hope that > those of the military, who oppose themselves to the law of the land, will find > the predictions of a great lawyer verified; “that in so doing, they gnaw a > file which will break their teeth.” Minneapolis: > Worth every second > > — Adam Parkhomenko (@adamparkhomenko.bsky.social) 2026-01-15T14:50:46.050Z -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > [S]ix more regiments may be soon expected from Ireland, and another from > Halifax. If pensions of £10,000 sterling per annum had been settled upon the > [public], rather than making so unnecessary a military parade, it would have > been a vast saving to the nation. Minneapolis: > Koh: Trump has now spent $30 billion from the last bill for 10,000 more I.C.E. > Agents that are going to be on the streets. That $30 billion would cover all > the ACA subsidies for a year. It would eliminate all co-pays for prescription > drugs for people from a year, and eliminate all medical debt. > > — Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) 2026-01-15T03:08:22.836Z -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > The old honest music master was roughly handled by one of those sons of Mars; > he was actually in danger of being throttled, but timously rescued by one who > soon threw the officer on lower ground than he at first stood upon; the > inoffensive keeper of the house for the Commissioners, presuming to hint a > disapprobation of such proceedings, was, by an officer, with a drawn sword, > dragged about the floor, by the hair of his head, and his honest Abigail, who > in a fright, made her appearance without a head dress, was very lucky in > escaping her poor husband’s fate. Whether our Governor will so resent this > behaviour of the military, as to collect affidavits, and make it a subject of > representation to the Crown cannot as yet be determined… Minneapolis: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > As some sailors were passing near Mr. Justice Ruddock’s house, the other > night, with a woman in company, they were met by a number of soldiers…this > soon brought on a battle in which the sailors were much bruised, and a young > man of the town, who was only a spectator, received a considerable wound on > his head; a great cry of murder, brought out the justice, and his son, into > the street; when the former who is a gentleman of spirit, immediately laid his > hands upon two of the assailants Minneapolis: Federal officers detain a person during protests in a residential neighborhood in Minneapolis on January 13, 2026.Octavio Jones/AFP/Getty Protestors face ICE agents near where Renée Good was killed by a federal officer the previous week in Minneapolis.Elizabeth Flores/The Minnesota Star Tribune/Getty -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > [H]e was presently surrounded with thirty or forty soldiers, who had their > bayonets in their hands…they then made at him with their fists and bayonets; > when he received such blows as obliged him to seek his safety by flight; they > struck down a young woman at his door holding out a candle, and followed him > and son into the entry-way of his house with their bayonets, uttering the most > profane & abusive language, and swearing they would be the death of them both… Minneapolis: > Federal immigration agents bashed open a door and detained a US citizen in his > Minnesota home at gunpoint without a warrant, then led him out onto the > streets in his underwear in subfreezing conditions, according to his family > and videos reviewed by the Associated Press. > > ChongLy “Scott” Thao told the AP that his daughter-in-law alerted him on > Sunday afternoon that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were > banging at the door of his residence in St. Paul. He told her not to open it. > Masked agents then forced their way in and pointed guns at the family, yelling > at them, Thao recalled. “I was shaking,” he said. “They didn’t show any > warrant; they just broke down the door.” DHS would later claim that Thao was living with two convicted sex offenders. That still would not have justified a warrantless raid on his home. But it was also a lie. Thao lived alone. The man the agents were looking for, it turned out, was already in prison. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > The other evening a petty officer of one of the ships of war, who had knocked > down a married woman of this town as she was quietly passing the streets, was > bro’t before him; and being reproved for his indecent speech & behaviour, on > trial, he swore that he would run his jack-knife thro’ the magistrates heart, > whereupon the justice committed him to goal: soon after as several fishermen > were coming out of a tavern in the same part of the town, they were assaulted > by a corporal and some soldiers, who wounded one of the fishermen very > grievously… Minneapolis: > View this post on Instagram -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: Here’s some pushback in the form of a sardonic letter to the editor written by a resident of the city. > “I am glad the troops are come and, believe their arrival will be for the > health of this country. There is a great deal of oratory in the glitter of > arms; and a few ships of war contain all the arts of persuasion. A cannon ball > carries with it, solid and weighty arguments; and a thrust in the side with a > bayonet, will give conviction in a moment…and as we can’t be persuaded into > such a wholsome practice by lenitive and moderate means, we must be brought to > the exercise of reason by vigorous measures, and the point of the bayonet > becomes necessary to fix the conviction. Preparations of steel and surgical > instruments, when lenitives fail, often times produce wonderful effects, and > are frequently used in opening the eyes of the blind. If we were not a dull > stupid race of mortals, and had seasonably relinquished the trade to > Great-Britain, the operation of cutlary ware, and the rhetoric of red coats, > would be of no service; but as matters now stand, the eyes of many want > couching, and these surgical operations must take off the film, and bring us > to our senses, and to measures that are so confessedly for our interest.” Minneapolis: A homeowner collects footage as neighbors confront ICE agents following arrests in a Minneapolis neighborhood on January 13, 2026.Stephen Maturen/Getty A man flips off Border Patrol agents as they detain an unidentified man of Somali descent in Minneapolis on January 8, 2026.Octavio Jones/AFP/Getty -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > A young woman lately passing thro’ Long Lane, was stopped and very ill treated > by some soldiers, the cry of the person assaulted, brought out another woman > into the street, who for daring to expostulate with the ruffians, received a > stroke from one of them, and would probably have been further abused, had not > her husband, and some other men came up timely to her assistance; the soldiers > were then soon beat off and the young woman whom they had seiz’d as their > prey, rescued. Minneapolis: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > A girl at New-Boston, was lately knock’d down and abused by soldiers for not > consenting to their beastly proposal; a gentleman hearing the cry of murder, > ran to her assistance, one of the villains, immediately made off, the other > the gentleman seiz’d, tho’ upon his stiffly denying the fact, and charging it > upon the other soldier, the gentleman suffered him to depart; presently after > the same men assaulted a young gentleman of character supposing him to be the > person who had rescued the girl from their violence; their oaths, and insults > brought several people out of their houses, upon which the soldiers made off, > but return’d a few minutes after with a number of others, and a sergeant at > their head, calling out a riot! A riot! They then drew their bayonets upon the > people, and with many oaths and execrations, threatening to confine them in > the barracks if they did not immediately disperse, accordingly, they began to > put their threats in execution by seizing one of the company and drag’d him > towards the barracks, but the rest being resolute, the soldiers were obliged > to quit him; upon which the whole dispersed. Minneapolis: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > Last evening after church service, there was a considerable gathering of > children and servants, near the Town House, drawn by the music of the fife, > &c. which is again heard on the Sabbath, to the great concern of the sober and > thoughtful inhabitants; some of those youth’s having behaved so as to > displease the officer, orders were given the guard to clear the parade; they > marched up with bayonets presented—one of the lads was pursued by a soldier to > some distance, who made a thrust with his bayonet, which passed thro’ his > coat, and had he not thrown himself on the ground that instant, its thought he > would be run thro’ the body… Minneapolis: Liam was detained as he returned home from preschool The ICE agent in the photo then used him as bait to lure his father out of their home, after which both were arrested and sent to a detention center in Texas. Here is a photo of teenage girl confronted and detained by Border Patrol: A young woman sits in her car on Blaisdell Avenue after being rammed by a Border Patrol vehicle in Minneapolis on January 21, 2026. Stephen Maturen/Getty The girl and another teenager riding with her were arrested after what was initially described as a “collision” with immigration officials. Here’s what that collision looked like: A Border Patrol vehicle rear-ended a car driven by a teenage girl on Blaisdell Avenue in Minneapolis on January 21, 2026.Stephen Maturen/Getty A journalist saw the incident, and reported that the immigration agents struck the girl’s vehicle, as the photo suggests, and not the other way around. It isn’t clear why the two were arrested. (Even if the girl caused the accident, a traffic violation is not a federal crime.) The journalist says the girl handed a US passport to federal officials. Details about her passenger are unclear. What we do know is that there have now been multiple incidents in which ICE, Border Patrol, and DHS have been caught lying after agents rammed into the cars of protesters, observers, and people they suspect of being undocumented, then arrested the occupants of those vehicles on the lie that they intentionally assaulted the officers with their vehicles. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: Here, A Journal of the Times article explains why it decided to publish the names of Boston merchants who were cooperating with the Crown… > Fellow Citizens and Countrymen: Inasmuch, as some persons among us have in a > case of the utmost importance, preferr’d their own supposed private advantage > to the welfare and freedom of America, it is highly proper you should know who > they are, who have at this critical time sordidly detach’d themselves from the > public interest. May this disgraceful, but necessary, publication of their > names, lead them to reflect on the baseness of their crime; and when they find > themselves slighted and shunned by their neighbours and acquaintance; when > their shops are deserted, and they feel their fortunes miserably impaired by > prosecuting the plan of purblind avarice; when their guilty consciences have > rendered this life insupportable; may they seriously attend to the concerns of > another: And altho’ they must suffer the punishment due to their parricide in > this world, may a humble and sincere repentance open the way to their > forgiveness in the next. Minneapolis: > The identities of thousands of federal employees working with Immigration and > Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol have been leaked online, raising safety > concerns. > > According to a report from The Independent, the leak includes the identities > of about 4,500 federal employees working with ICE, including 2,000 agents. > They were shared with the website The ICE List, which calls itself a > “journalistic project” meant to share information to “hold ICE members legally > accountable.” > > The site, which accepts user-generated data, includes photos and descriptions, > and is indexed by state. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, who is > included on the site, told NewsNation that the leak “would constitute 4,500 > felonies.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > [A] tradesman in an alley was without the least provocation knocked down by a > grenadier of the 29th Regiment; he soon came to himself, and having recovered > his cane, was quietly walking off; but soon perceived was followed by the same > soldier, who he called upon to stand back, but this not being regarded he made > so good a use of his cane, as to protect himself from any further abuse for > that time; [the soldier] dared to assault & wound him with his bayonet, in a > most cruel manner, a number of soldiers looking on, and had it not been for > the timely assistance of some of the inhabitants passing by at that time, he > would probably have been murdered: This person was confined to his house a > considerable time, by means of the wounds received. Minneapolis: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > The soldier had a bill found against him by the grand jury, but this being > suspected before it was given in, the criminal deserted, or rather was > concealed for a time, and then, as is supposed, conveyed away, as others had > been before him, out of the reach of the law… Minneapolis: > Gun-toting Feds swarmed the home of the ICE agent who fatally shot protester > Renee Good on Friday morning, the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal. > > A Special Response Team arrived at the suburban Minneapolis home, where Jon > Ross, 43, lives with his wife and children, early this morning. > > Daily Mail images captured half a dozen Federal officers wearing masks and > balaclavas, one carrying pepper spray and another wielding an assault rifle. > > They entered the smart five-bed home before carrying out five large plastic > crates, a computer tower and a stack of picture frames. Also: > After Good’s death on Wednesday, the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension > announced that they would be investigating Good’s killing in tandem with the > FBI. But on Thursday, Superintendent Drew Evans said he’d been told that the > FBI would be the sole investigator and that the state agency had “reluctantly > withdrawn” from the investigation. > > “The BCA would no longer have access to the case materials, scene evidence or > investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent > investigation,” Evans said. “Without complete access to the evidence, > witnesses and information collected, we cannot meet the investigative > standards that Minnesota law and the public demands.” We’ve also learned that the FBI agents who initially began investigating Good’s death recommended opening a civil rights investigation. That was then vetoed by the administration, which ordered a criminal investigation of Good’s wife instead. Six federal prosecutors resigned, as did the FBI agent. I expect we’ll see similar stories about Alex Pretti in the days ahead. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston: > A country butcher who frequents the market, having been in discourse with a > grenadier of the 14th Regiment, who he said had before abused him, thought > proper to offer such verbal resentment as led the soldier to give him a blow, > which felled the butcher to the ground, and left other proofs of his violence. > The assaulter was had before Mr. Justice Quincy, convicted and fined, and upon > refusing to make payment, was ordered to [jail]; but rescued out of the hands > of the constable, by a number of armed soldiers, in the sight of the justice, > when they carried their rescued comrade, in triumph, thro’ the main street to > his barracks, flourishing their naked cutlasses, giving out that they had good > support in what they were doing, and that they defied all opposition. Minneapolis: After killing Renee Good, DHS and Trump administration officials—including Trump himself—celebrated Jonathan Ross, Good’s killer, as a hero. Meanwhile, immigration agents teargassed and flash-banged a car with six children inside, sending two to the hospital, including six-month-old who had temporarily stopped breathing. After the incident made national news, DHS posted this: The family was driving home from a basketball game. I’ll sum up with this: The day before the murder of Alex Pretti, somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 Minnesotans braved below-zero temperatures to protest and demand that Trump end his occupation of Minneapolis. Their resolve, bravery, refusal to abandon their neighbors, and defiance of a tyrannical federal government is the best of us. Our founding is fraught with moral complexities. But for all its faults if the American experiment survives all of this, it will be because of the valor and courage of the people of Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Memphis, Charlotte, and Portland—and others like them all over the country. I also can’t help but admire their restraint. This administration has given them every reason to lash out with violence. They haven’t. Not yet. Perhaps that’s in part because, as noted, they know that this is exactly what Trump, Vance, Miller and the other ghouls in charge want. This administration wants an excuse to declare war on our cities. This administration should probably learn our history.

On January 24, a US Border Patrol agent shot and killed 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis after he was held down by multiple federal agents. The Trump administration alleged that Pretti threatened agents with a gun. But videos appear to show Pretti, who was carrying a licensed handgun, holding only his phone in his hand when he was tackled and agents disarming Pretti before he was shot and killed. Subscribe to Mother Jones podcasts on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. The Trump administration has since signaled that it’s scaling back the federal immigration operation in the city. Multiple news outlets are reporting that Gregory Bovino, the top US Border Patrol official, has been demoted and will leave. Tom Homan, the White House border czar, is now expected to manage immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, according to multiple reports. Following Pretti’s death, thousands of protesters once again flooded the streets of Minneapolis. One of them was Rob Schenck, an evangelical minister who once routinely lobbied legislators to adopt a Christian conservative agenda and worked to persuade Supreme Court justices to rule in favor of the religious right. But Schenck began doubting the movement and his own role in it—especially once President Donald Trump came to power. Since then, he’s made a moral and political 180 and is now working to undo his decades of activism that he believes helped lead to this moment.  On this week’s More To The Story, Schenck sits down with host Al Letson to talk about what led him to the streets of Minneapolis, his emotional visit to Renée Good’s memorial, and why he’s become “guardedly optimistic” about the ultimate direction of this current political moment in America. Find More To The Story on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, or your favorite podcast app, and don’t forget to subscribe.

You might’ve seen the video: a Minneapolis resident defiantly stands up to ICE, filming as they persistently question her. Nimco Omar, a citizen and long-time Minneapolis resident, was on her way to work when federal agents demanded to see her ID. Her viral video shows agents repeatedly asking her where she was born, with Omar calmly refusing and stating her rights. They finally gave up. “You’re terrorizing people, and it’s unacceptable,” Omar tells the agents. “I’m a citizen, this is my home.” Mother Jones senior reporter Julia Lurie spent last week in Minneapolis talking to community members, protesters, and people confronted by ICE, including Nimco. Follow along for more updates.

He helped build the religious right in the United States. Now he’s in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to join the clergy’s fight ICE’s siege of the city. “Being here, in solidarity, is part of the repair work in my own soul,” said Rev. Rob Schenck, an Evangelical minister who spent decades commingling church and state to advance conservative causes like the anti-abortion movement. One example: Schenck’s organization, Faith and Action in the Nation’s Capital, created “Operation Higher Court,” which trained wealthy couples as “stealth missionaries” to befriend Supreme Court justices to preserve, in his words, a Christian nation. Now, he says he must confront the damage he helped cause, including what he believes was his role in delivering “the entities that are now inflicting all of this suffering on so many people”—extending to the rise of President Donald Trump. “We made this terrible deal with Donald Trump because we were already demoralized,” he told Mother Jones in 2018. “He didn’t demoralize us—he is the evidence of our demoralization.” So, here, braving subzero temperatures, Schenck told me, “I have to do the work of repair.” The video above was taken on Friday, during the city’s “Day of Truth and Freedom”—a citywide strike and march in which clergy played a prominent role. “These folks are showing more grace in accepting me than I would have ever extended to them,” he said, flanked by organizers shouting, “Whose streets? Our streets!” The next day, after learning of federal agents shooting and killing Alex Pretti, Schenck extended his stay in the city. I’ve been following Rob on his journey over the last few days and the clergy’s fight against ICE, which we will feature more of in the coming days. “This is redemption,” he told me. “This is redemption.”

In December, Pastor Sergio Amezcua put out a sign-up for Minnesotans who were afraid to leave their homes and needed grocery deliveries. He thought 10 or 20 families would sign up. Since then, his church, Dios Habla Hoy, has delivered food to 17,000 families. “It’s really evil what’s going on,” says Amezcua. “And coming from the conservative government, ‘Christian’ government, I just think they’re reading their Bible backwards.” Mother Jones senior reporter Julia Lurie spent the week in Minneapolis talking to clergy, protesters, and people confronted by ICE. Watch the video for more and follow along for updates.

As US health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has drawn a lot of attention for promoting pseudoscience and disproven theories, especially on vaccines. He is using that playbook on another major public health issue: gun violence, which remains the leading cause of death for kids in America. When it comes to school shootings and other mass shootings, here’s what RFK Jr. wants you to believe: It’s not the guns, he argues, it’s the pills. The fringe theory that antidepressants can cause people to turn violent has been around for decades, focused primarily on selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, which are the most common class of these drugs. But extensive research by mental health and violence prevention experts has found no credible evidence that antidepressants cause or contribute to mass shootings. As I wrote recently, the history of how this failed theory gained attention online is also telling: > The generalized claim that SSRIs can make people violent—and that they > supposedly gave rise to the shootings epidemic—traces in part to an > unscientific anti-Prozac campaign in the 1990s from the Church of > Scientology and gained some traction in online forums after the Columbine High > School massacre in 1999. Disgraced conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who helped > create a miasma of lies claiming that the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook > Elementary School was faked, has also peddled the theory. > > > > Proponents of the SSRI theory use anecdotal, often unconfirmed details about > shooters’ health histories to argue causation. But multiple studies from > experts in psychiatry, law enforcement, and public health show that the theory > has no merit. Data on shooters spanning more than a decade from the FBI’s > Behavioral Analysis Unit has been used specifically to examine the claim that > psychiatric drugs are at the root of school shootings; independent > researchers concluded from the FBI data that “most school shooters were not > previously treated with psychotropic medications—and even when they were, no > direct or causal association was found.” In the above video, I show how RFK, Jr. has been using his top government post to continue spreading the failed theory—a misinformation campaign in which he makes at least a half dozen false or misleading claims about guns, psychiatric drugs, and mass shootings.