A big part of my (Maggie’s) job as Community Engagement Manager is reading your comments and messages and taking them to Sarah and Beth. Since Wednesday, it’s been really clear that our community is confused and hurting. We wanted you to know that you’re not alone out there, so our team decided to share our Thursday bonus episode (that we call our “spicy” bonus because it’s where Sarah and Beth get a little looser and have more space to work out ideas in progress) with all of you.
But first, here are some (but not all) of the facts as I understand them on Thursday, January 8th.
On Wednesday, January 7th, a 37-year-old woman named Renee Good was shot and killed by a federal law enforcement official.
In the immediate aftermath, the Trump administration officials claimed that the officer acted in self-defense and called the driver a terrorist.
Video of the event shows a car blocking traffic.
There have been organized efforts by citizens in Minnesota to protest ICE enforcement.
Depending on where you get your news, what kind of algorithm you see, and how much attention you pay, the facts — “a woman was shot and killed by a federal officer” — are getting to you in different ways. We live in a country that is divided almost as much, if not more, by the information we get about the headlines as we are by our actual political preferences.
In today’s episode, Sarah and Beth are doing what (I think) they do best. Processing what happened, how they feel about it, asking questions, acknowledging what we don’t know, and letting the hard news settle before we put on a jersey, so hopefully, we can make better decisions about what comes next.
We’re always grateful for the space to hear from you and process the news together. You can join us to share what’s on your mind outside of politics if you read our Friday newsletter. Make sure you are subscribed to get that later today and every week.
Want more Pantsuit Politics? Subscribe to ensure you never miss an episode and get access to our premium shows and community.
Episode Resources
What We Know About the Fatal ICE Shooting in Minneapolis (The New York Times)
More to Say About Noriega, Maduro, Bush, and Trump (More to Say)
How Many People Have Been Shot in ICE Raids? (The Trace)
Episode Transcript
Maggie Penton [00:00:00] This is Maggie Penton. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. I am the Director of Community Engagement here at Pantsuit Politics, which means that a big part of my job is reading the comments and messages that you guys share with us and taking them to Sarah and Beth. Since Wednesday, it’s been really clear to me that our community is confused and hurting. We wanted you to know that you’re not alone out there, and so our team decided to share our Thursday bonus episode that we call our Spicy Thursday with all of you here. But first, here are some, but not all, of the facts, as I understand them, on Thursday, January 8th. Yesterday, a 37-year-old woman named Renee Good was shot and killed by a federal law enforcement official. It appears that she was participating in organized efforts by citizens in Minnesota to protest ICE enforcement there by blocking traffic with her car. In the immediate aftermath of this event, Trump administration officials claimed that the officer acted in self-defense and called Renee a terrorist. Depending on where you get your news, what kind of algorithm you see, and how much attention you pay, the fact that a woman was shot and killed by a federal officer is coming to you in different ways. We live in a country that is divided, almost as much, if not more, by the information that we get about the headlines than we are by our actual political preferences. In today’s episode, Sarah and Beth are doing what I think they do best, processing what happened, talking about how they feel about it, asking questions, acknowledging what we don’t know yet and letting the news settle before we decide what we’re going to do about it so that we can make better decisions together. We are always grateful for the space to hear from you and process the news together and you can join our conversation at pantsuitpoliticshow.com. Our email is also always open to you at hello@pantsuitspoliticsshow.com. And without further ado, here are Sarah and Beth sharing their conversation about ICE action in Minnesota.
Beth [00:02:09] We had a different plan for our first spicy bonus episode of 2026, but the world has dealt a different hand and we know that what’s preoccupying us is what’s pre occupying you. So today we are going to just as we do process the news together coming out of Minnesota. Sarah, I was really struck that yesterday we recorded a conversation with the wives of two governors about political violence, and the first thing that I saw when we finished that conversation was the news that a federal agent of some variety seems likely that it’s ICE, but I am sketchy on all the details here, shot and killed a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis.
Sarah [00:03:09] We’re in the middle of a crisis, absolutely from Minneapolis and definitely a intense moment for the country. You and I both talked about how this is bubbling up even in conversations with our low information news consumers or news avoiders. And it always makes me nervous in these moments because we don’t know everything. I mean, even this morning as I was reading more about Venezuela, they are now like, oh, maybe his vice president was in on it. After all, I’m working with Washington this whole time. We don’t know everything. It feels like we know what we need to know because there’s pretty horrific video of this interaction between ICE officers and Renee Good, the woman that was shot and killed. But I just keep thinking the responsible reacting from leadership is this is heartbreaking. This is tragic, and we’ll wait for an investigation. And, listen, the borders czar said that for all his $40,000 exchange on the border. He said that we’re going to wait for the investigation. And instead, if I read one more article that says it’s a Rorschach test, I’m going to scream. Instead, it’s like, well, wait, let me check my party identification and then I’ll tell you how I feel about it. Even at the highest levels of the government. And with him, with Trump in particular, I just have to remind myself like, yeah, it’s normal because we live in the Trump era, but it’s not normal. This is not how presidents used to behave. They didn’t just go, oh, I saw a few seconds and people told me some information and I’ll just shoot off my opinion in a two hour interview to the Times. That’s not leadership. It’s not ethical. It’s no moral. It’s not true. It is what he has been from the beginning. It is divisive. It is incendiary. It lacks empathy. It escalates the situation. It’s disgusting. I don’t know another word for it. It’s disgusting. This is a very intense situation and it takes incredible emotional depth and moral clarity and intelligence to lead people in a moment like this. And good lord he lacks all three.
Beth [00:05:53] I feel so much stress in my body right now. Like my heart is beating fast. My shoulders ache. I feel like tension in my jaw. And I just think I feel those things, one, because I feel like I don’t yet have all the information and so I want to be really careful. Two, because I’m emotionally overwhelmed by what has happened here. And by the way I can feel everyone else’s emotional overwhelmed with it. And three, just because a person is dead and that is serious. And I had the same thought, Sarah, even if you believe that these operations are completely justified, that this is what you voted for, this is should be happening, can we not all be sad together that a woman is dead? That a child is left without a mother and father? That a community is on edge? Can we not all just be sad together? Even if you think the officer shooting was justified, where is, in Kristi Noem’s remark, in Tricia McLaughlin’s remarks, in Donald Trump’s remarks, that initial expression of just sadness? You can even be sad that this young man is going to have to carry around this woman’s death for the rest of his life. Even when you shoot in self-defense. Most people, it is a serious, serious thing to be involved with another person’s death and a terrible trauma. And it’s sociopathic how there’s none of that.
Sarah [00:07:28] To clarify, the reporting from the Minneapolis Star Tribune is that the father of the child had died previously. And so the child of Renee Good, who I think is six years old, is now an orphan. And that is heartbreaking under any circumstances. The way this administration throws around the word terrorist just so quickly [inaudible] and it always rests on something like these assumptions that you have-- like if you are just consuming this in like CNN, Fox News, playing in the waiting room kind of way, it’s so easy to miss it. The boat strikes and it’s here again. Well, she was behaving rudely. I’m sorry. Is the punishment for disrespecting a police officer death? Did I miss something? Is the punishments for drug running death? It’s like, well, you weren’t perfect and so whatever happened to you is fine because we say so. That’s not the rule of law. That’s not how it works. It is deeply dehumanizing to put everyone’s fate in the hands of Donald Trump, Kristi Noem, these officers. I’m asking the same thing to Nicholas. I’m like, these ICE officers are also being dehumanized. This is a deeply de-humanizing role. This is not the first person that ICE has killed. This is the fifth person that ICE killed. And there’s even like a lot of interesting, disturbing, whatever adjective you want to use, reporting about as they continue to expand and go after people showing up for their green card appointments with their babies in their arms, married to an American citizen, the officers themselves are crying because they don’t want to do that. This is not what they signed up to do.
[00:09:54] What that officer did was monstrous because this administration and the philosophy of Donald Trump is monstrous. And it corrodes and destructs everything it fucking touches. And it is a completely predictable outflow of the way they, like I’ve said, expanded these assumptions. Not only if you’re not perfect we can justify whatever, but vehicles or weapons and it’s totally acceptable to shoot someone in a car as they’re trying to get away from you? Everybody just stop for a moment, take a deep breath, and remember, it didn’t used to be this way. It’s not like policing or ICE enforcement was some utopia, and there was not always room for improvement, as evidenced by the fact that this took place a mile from the murder of George Floyd. But the way they have so sneakily, almost, except for in broad daylight, expanded all these assumptions so that we’re debating on a continent we didn’t used to live on. You know what I’m saying?
Beth [00:11:08] Yes, I do. I have so many thoughts. It’s hard to know where to start in responding. I’ll say that as to the officers-- and I know that people did not click play on this to hear sympathy for the officers. And it’s not exactly sympathy. It is my belief that the (I’ll use your word) monstrous philosophy that runs through this administration exploits everyone. And I’ve seen a lot of people on social media posting like these ICE agents are basically the SS, they’re Nazis-- and maybe some of them are. You know what I mean? Maybe some of are really disturbed people who wanted to go be in a video game and thought it would be all fun and games. A local police department would interview that person and say, it would not be right to give you a gun and a badge. It would not right to the community, it would be right your fellow officers, it would right to you. We should not exploit someone who doesn’t have their head screwed on straight by empowering them to go out and take another life. That is what the United States government is doing every single day. Because Donald Trump wants to juice these numbers and wants to have his own private police force, and wants to provoke protests in response. What is the difference? If it’s that she was a terrorist because she thought I shouldn’t be there and she protested in her vehicle, how far are we from me saying on this podcast that I think ICE has no business in our neighborhoods and them bombing my car? Like, what is the different?
Sarah [00:12:44] How about just seizing our business records, seizing our business funds? You don’t have to play it all the way to the end.
Beth [00:12:50] That’s right, but you can, it’s a pretty short line. It’s a short line; these things escalate really quickly. This is the Department of Homeland Security. The job is to make the homeland safer. That’s the job, to make homeland safer. Who is being made safer by this? And what is the cost that we’re willing to endure for that? I understand some people would respond to that by talking about Lake and Riley. Or other people who have been harmed, who’ve been victims of crimes by people who are not in the country legally. That would be their answer. Okay, how many American lives are you willing to lose to try to guarantee that those particular crimes won’t happen again? How many? Who’s expendable to you in the process of pursuing justice, vengeance, prevention? We need to have a serious conversation about that. Are you happy with neighborhoods just being on edge, being invaded by masked officers with little training. They look lost out there. That’s what I see in the video. Those officers look lost. They don’t know how to handle this situation. They don’t know what to do.
Sarah [00:14:01] They don’t know what to do. I 100% agree. It was sloppy. I just want to say that it was sloppy and someone lost their life because that’s what happens when you don’t have a professional force. Like that’s the biggest improvement in policing from my mind over the last 50, 60, 70 years. Because the truth is still probably there are police systems out there that are like sure we’ll give you a gun, but they’re a lot less than they used to be because they have emphasized a professionalism. A professionalism. Nothing that went down on that street was professional.
Beth [00:14:34] Remember in Kentucky, not long ago, when a professional golfer rolled over the foot of a police officer with his car?
Sarah [00:14:42] And the guy didn’t shoot him.
Beth [00:14:43] He was ignoring the officer’s direction. He was driving in to the club to play golf against the officer’s direction and actually rolled over his foot and people wore Halloween costumes about it. They thought it was hilarious. He goes to jail very briefly. It all gets worked out because of course it does. Because we’re all on the same team here. Because the police are here to make us safer, not to take our lives if we spook them. And that’s what happened. Those officers, I think, what I see with my eyes-- and again I hate that we are all staring at our stupid phones watching a murder from multiple angles so that we can all be a jury and figure out in five seconds what we think happened here. I hate it. But what I seen with my eye, at the at the minimum, are two guys who don’t know about what they’re doing and are scared themselves. When you dress them up like that and you put the masks on and the guns and they feel the edginess, they’re scared themselves and that’s what causes someone to die. She’s dead. There’s nothing we can do about that. There’s that will bring her back. Because of what? For what?
Sarah [00:15:53] Well, and here’s the thing. I know what they’re going to say. They’re going to to say, well, they’re harassing officers. Yeah, and you know what? The punishment for that is not death. I don’t know how to say this.
Beth [00:16:01] He got elected harassing people. He got elected by being rude.
Sarah [00:16:04] You’re allowed to protest. You’re allow to disrupt. That is the freedom of speech. That is what this country was founded on. Listen, go watch the fucking American Revolution. You want to talk about what we did to loyalists? Tarred, feathered, uprooted their business. We’re ready to go to some extreme lengths with a long history when we don’t like your opinion. But again, the punishment for that is not death. There’s no justice with Donald Trump. There’s no Justice. It’s what I feel. What do I think is right in this moment? What do I decide? And then every single MAGA influencer or MAGA loyalist just follows-- again, you can see with Venezuela, all these people who’ve been crowing about isolationism for nigh on 10 years are now like just kidding, it’s our hemisphere. Shut up! It’s so transparently **** to use the mayor of Minneapolis’ words. Like, it is. It’s just, come on. First of all, I just hope America can tap. You know what, not to be flippant, but forget our long history of protest and freedom of speech and rule law. I hope all of you can just tap the decades of fucking law and order you’ve been watching in True Crime Podcast. Look at the video and tell me what you see. Please, please, I would love you to. Don’t try to justify this shit to me. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear it. Stop telling me the sky is green. Stop pissing on my leg and calling it rain.
Beth [00:17:42] A self-defense justification falls apart if the person who shoots has made the situation more dangerous for themselves. You can’t provoke self-defense. And again, I’m not looking at these individual people. They may be terrible. Things may come out where it’s like, oh my God, and then they were celebrating her death. I don’t know sitting here today. I hope not. But if I assume the best, which is all I ever want anybody to do for me, assume the best of you in this circumstance. If I assume the best of these guys, I still think the government that they work for created this whole situation. They created the danger, they escalate the danger and then they shoot and say, well, it got dangerous for us. And that to me falls apart.
Sarah [00:18:32] Well, and not for nothing, what he did escalated the danger of the situation. If you are standing near or in front of a vehicle and you shoot the driver, like what happens? She accelerated into a pole because you killed her and her foot fell on the accelerator. So it didn’t even de-escalate. Certainly, drawing your weapon and fire never de-escalates the situation, but it didn’t even remove the danger.
Beth [00:18:58] Yeah, what if she had run into someone and killed them?
Sarah [00:19:00] Right, there’s a reason that police officers involved with a chase don’t just pull up next to the vehicle and shoot the driver. First of all, you’re not supposed to kill people.
Beth [00:19:11] You’re supposed to make them safer. That’s your job.
Sarah [00:19:14] You’re protecting her as well.
Beth [00:19:15] You’re there to make people safe.
Sarah [00:19:16] Yeah, but they’re not teaching ICE officers that like-- again, even to this bullshit with the not funding, like pulling back the federal funding from democratic states, the message is over and over again, I’m not tasked with protecting you. I don’t represent you. Forget the word service. God, the words public service when it comes to Donald Trump or anybody who works for him disappeared. It was never present, forget disappeared. You certainly don’t serve her. You don’t represent her. You don’t try to protect her because this is a state in Minneapolis that there’s been tons of conflict with from the fraud situation, with Walz as the former VP. I’m sure he just has it out for him because he deigned to run against Donald Trump in an election. Not to mention this took place a mile from George Floyd’s murder. Like there’s just so much like we don’t care, ICE rolls in, we owe you nothing. You’re all you are is an obstacle. That’s it.
Beth [00:20:29] Yeah, other people aren’t real to them. I mean, they are categorizing us as with them or against them. And that’s it. I think even with Walz it’s as personal as him calling them weird. I think that hurt and stung and stayed with them. He won a couple of media cycles over it. And Donald Trump is a petty ****. He keeps score on things like that. And I think other people weren’t real to them and so they got him back harder, the end. And that’s the governing philosophy right now. And it’s outrageous to me. Again, I want to be careful in describing this incident. There are investigations for reasons. Like even with video, we should surely have learned and need to keep learning because we’re going to have lots of video for tons of things now that is slightly altered here and there, whatever. We got to be super careful being like, well, I saw it and so this is what it is.
Sarah [00:21:26] Yeah, I have lots of questions after watching that video.
Beth [00:21:28] I do, too. I have many, many questions.
Sarah [00:21:29] I don’t understand the car that was right in front of her. I want to know what happened. Was she blocking traffic? She was also waving cars. A car drove around her quickly in that moment. Like what cars were the ICE agents in? Who was in the other cars? I have tons and tons of questions, and so should the President of the United States when viewing a video like that.
Beth [00:21:50] And here’s what makes me like I can almost vomit thinking about this as a person who tries to talk to lots of people about the news in a way that I feel has a sense of integrity. We are going to get dramatically conflicting official accounts of what happened here. It’s already happening. We are going to have a completely different response from Minneapolis and Minnesota police officers and investigators and elected officials than the federal government. And that sucks. Like there’s been tension between state and federal law enforcement forever in some very high profile and again extremely dangerous situations. But to have it this quickly over the death of a civilian, this was not a criminal, she was not target. From everything that I’ve read, she was not at target of ICE there. And if she was, we got even more questions and bigger problems, but she was not a target. And so to this quickly not even have the decency as a country for our leaders to all just kind of be like this was horrific and we will get to the bottom of what will happen and the public will get those answers, I’m so sad about it.
Sarah [00:23:06] And what is official? What does that even mean? I don’t even know what that means anymore. I wouldn’t call a truth social post official, but it clearly directs policy. I just think that’s the other thing. Kristi Noem doing a press conference is not official to me. It’s officially a performance, but that’s about all I’m willing to call it. And so it’s like there’s no process, there’s no structure. There can’t be because the ruling philosophy, as much as it is, is his emotional reaction. The governing philosophy of the Trump administration is his emotion reactivity. That’s it. That’s what we are at the mercy of. I hate it. I will not become monstrous in response. I can tell you that much. I’m not going to do that. And one of the first things I thought is, dear Lord, let this woman not have posted about Charlie Kirk. Maybe she did, maybe we’ll find it. I’m sure she leaves a large online footprint as we all do in the year 2026. And then I thought the fact that I thought that upset me. You know what I mean?
Beth [00:24:20] I do.
Sarah [00:24:20] The fact that I was like I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this because this is what they’ve trained us to do. Well, I thought, there will be people who hear that this was a mile from George Floyd’s murder. And that’s all they’ll need to know. That’ll be like enough. Either direction. Either it’s a complete injustice; that’s all I need to know. Or I’m sure it was justified; that’s all I need know. And that, not to overstate it, is bad. That’s bad. We don’t want that. And so, I’m angry but I also don’t want to feed this rage cycle where everybody just finds the little piece of information that just-- again, I don’t want to be a part of the Rorschach test. I think it is corrosive. And I do not think that you-- but again, there’s no process. So the only thing you’ve left the citizens of the United States to do is decide, okay, what team am I on and what are they saying? And that’s the path I’ll follow. And we have got to get out of this. Now, I’m going to be real honest with all of y’all. I don’t know how we do that with him still in power. My prayer every day is just let us get to the midterms. I do think that he is less politically powerful than this time last year. And I think he feels that and that matters. But I think he is also strangely like more administratively powerful. He seems to be more and more comfortable with exercising his will however he feels like it. And that concerns me. The reason we’re also emotionally escalated is not only because of what happened in Minneapolis, but because we’re coming off of an invasion of another country and now he wants to do it to Greenland and dissolve NATO. I’m like good Lord, let us just survive this man.
Beth [00:26:47] I think that you’re right that he is more administratively powerful, completely unchecked within his own administration. Congress looks--
Sarah [00:26:56] He’s given two-hour interviews to the New York Times and interviews to The Wall Street Journal. He’s just like feeling himself
Beth [00:27:04] And even if he’s not, he’s also dangerous in panic mode. Maybe he’s giving the two-hour interviews because he’s feeling himself. Maybe he is doing it because he thinks, “I’m the only one who can fix this mess. I got to go out there and flood the zone with me because that’s how I fix things. That’s how clean up when things have gotten bad.” He’s going to feel a lot of pressure this year from a lot different direction. If he’s now feeling it right now, some screw has genuinely come loose in his mind. Because just the situation in Venezuela is so precarious and on such a knife’s edge and then you hit these ships in the North Sea so provocative to Russia in addition to Greenland. And you’ve got a new cycle that an adversary dreams of. How great for Xi Jinping for Kim Jong Un for Vladimir Putin, how great for them right now to tell the story of the United States government executing one of their own citizens. They tell you it’s democracy. Look at this. Think of what can be said about the United States right now correctly. What can correctly be used in other countries by regimes that wish us harm. What can used against the United States right now, and they’re creating it everywhere. And we haven’t even mentioned the Epstein file pressure, which clearly gets to them. Whatever you think about that whole situation, it matters to him. He has shown us over and over, it matters to him. And so all of these factors, we’ve seen this with him. If he gets pushed in a corner, he is going to lash out and lash out and lash in all these different directions. And it just gives you that sense of dread, like, God, what is tomorrow going to bring?
Sarah [00:28:52] Well, and you know what I keep thinking about? This one moment that is like stuck in my head, which was the interview about Venezuela Ezra Klein did. And the reporter was like, well, what I understand-- which again, I’m thinking us on little side quest here. But the first thing I want to shout out is this is why it matters that we have actual reporters and not just let’s watch the video and decide what it means or let’s watch the TikTok of the summary of the Venezuelan attack and then just spiral into we’re entering World War III. This little moment comes only from a real life reporter. I think it’s hyper relevant, but shout out to the reporters. He said some of Venezuela was just about Pete Hegseth impressing and getting on Stephen Miller’s good side.
Beth [00:29:56] I clocked that as well.
Sarah [00:29:57] And I thought, what? And then I thought, of course. And I found it gross, but also weirdly humanizing. Like those moments to me helped me stay out of the like they’re the SS spiral, which I don’t think is helpful. And I don’t think it’s true to the journalism of it all. Like sitting down for two hours-- when I was listening to your Noriega More to Say I was thinking about like in moments on a march to dictatorship, you shut down the press. You don’t invite them in and talk to them for two hours. I’m not praising him. I’m just saying I do cling to the freedom of press and the role of reporters is important. And I think it’s still there and it’s working. So that is like a glimmer of hope. And it was like humanizing because I’m like, oh, right, you can get in this space with them where the way they function I think is meant to perpetuate this idea that they’re like this all powerful. The monstrousness can contribute to a feeling of powerlessness. But you can also acknowledge the monstrosity and realize it’s like standing on a bed of bullshit interpersonal stuff because they’re also just human beings. I try to hold all that because I think it helps me.
Beth [00:31:27] No, I think that’s a really good point. And the other thing that I think pairs with it from this week in terms of context is that he told the Republican conference, you guys got to win in the midterms or I’m going to get impeached. Like it’s still a democratic country. There’s still elections that matter. Public support still matters for him. So we are not without any leverage here as citizens. Ultimately, we still have a lot. And I do believe that part of the reason he’s talking to press is to do some cleanup. I think he is going to look around eventually and say like, oof, Kristi Noem is not doing well. I mean, there are reports that he’s feeling that about Cash Patel. The public scrutiny is really, really important.
Sarah [00:32:16] It matters.
Beth [00:32:17] It matters a lot. And that does distinguish us from other regimes and it’s worth holding onto and we shouldn’t give that away by talking about this like we don’t have it. We could give it away. In some ways it works to their advantage for us to talk about them like the Nazis. It is much, much more powerful to talk about them like a disgrace that we are going to check and remove, that we will not have this in our country. What a mockery of what they’re supposed to be doing in these positions of public.
Sarah [00:32:50] It matters deeply what people are doing in the face of these ICE enforcements. This observation like no the video is not the beginning and end of the investigation. And dear God I’m so glad there are people out there filming. And whatever we learn about Renee Goode and what she was trying to do, I think every person who has gone out there and filmed and questioned and put their bodies in the way of these ICE enforcements, it takes my breath away. I don’t know if I would do it. I’m just being honest. I don’t know if I would do it.
Beth [00:33:47] Yeah, you think about your kids and what’s my responsibility here. Yeah, it’s hard.
Sarah [00:33:51] It’s clearly very dangerous. They know they’re going up against these guys with a lot of guns and very little training. And it is both anxiety producing to watch these videos, but also comforting is not the right word. But like, I don’t know, supportive to watch Americans go, no. No.
Beth [00:34:17] Yeah, when I hear the woman say shame in that video of every time, it just moves me. You know what I mean? It really overwhelms me because I do think that that’s the power. To call that what it is, shame. Where is your sense of shame? That’s right. What I really fixated on when I was doing the Noriega research was how the Bush administration kept talking about thugs in high places. Because that’s what we have right now. We have thugs and high places and that’s the orientation I want to have toward them. That this is despicable, but ultimately as a country, we can decide that. We can decide it’s despicable and say we’re not going to have this anymore.
Sarah [00:35:06] This is about all of us. And also I have a deep well of love and affection for the Minneapolis St. Paul area. I like that part of the country. I visit there a lot. A lot of schools my oldest child is considering attending are in that area. I would happily send them my most beloved child. We’re going to do a live show there in august. I love this part of country. I really do. And my heart just breaks. The fear, the sense of threat, the heartbreak. The Minneapolis Star Tribune piece about Renee in the end was like a neighbor saying, “I wish I’d gotten to know her better.” And it’s so sad and I hate that a part of the country that took so much trauma around the murder of George Floyd has taken so much heat and political vitriol around these fraud cases that is now going to be at the center of another intense moment in American public life. I hate it. I hate it for them. I really, really do.
Beth [00:36:52] I was looking at my notes yesterday, working on my More To Say series about special education. And in my notes, there was discussion from one of our longtime, very beloved listeners in Minneapolis in the context of special education about resource strain. About how the schools in Minneapolis are working to do their best for all these students when they do have a huge Somali population that’s a different cultural context, where you have a lot of parents who don’t speak English, they have really different expectations about what school is and about behavior and about where do we have a behavior issue versus something maybe diagnosable that we need some support with and what kind of support is appropriate. And then I went back when I talked about attendance with focus groups, that came up in Minnesota that you have a large indigenous population. Like this is a place that is trying to be what America is in a way that a lot of us kind of act like America’s done with. But we have been doing this the whole time we’ve been a country, that’s been the point. That, yeah, come here, we’ll figure it out. It’s hard, but we can all live together here because we believe other people are real, because we belief everybody should have the shot that we have here, and this is a place that’s been doing it. And that is bumpy, and it’s messy, and there was real fraud here. Like, it sucks what’s happened, and they know it, and they’re working on it. And instead of being a partner, and instead of asking, how can we make this better for everyone? How can we make this safer for everyone? The federal government has decided to come in like a bully and pick on them.
Sarah [00:38:42] Kick them while they’re down.
Beth [00:38:45] It is disgraceful. Like this is the opposite of honestly if you read the founders stuff, a mayor saying get the fuck out of my city should be enough. That was the point of this whole enterprise. That was point. And so they need to do that. And every member of Congress needs to tell them that that’s what they need do. I sent this to our group text, a local television outlet in Kentucky compiled this graphic of Democratic and Republican politicians in Kentucky’s response to Renee Good’s shooting. And the two Republicans in the graph were both like, this is what you get if you mess with federal law enforcement. I mean, disgusting.
Sarah [00:39:37] You do not deserve death. Oh my God!
Beth [00:39:40] And then side by side with that, Charles Booker’s like abolish ICE. Amy McGrath is like this is unacceptable. The public deserves accountability and transparency. But that split screen, I just thought like, man, what are we doing? That split screen was so devastating to me, that one graphic, because it’s so stark.
Sarah [00:40:03] Well, and I just think. I keep getting in my head about America’s 250th birthday and how I hate that we’re in the middle of a Trump administration and all this expansion of presidential power and just a tax on our fundamental principle. And I thought, you know what though? The last one was in 1976 coming out of Watergate. So we have most certainly in our recent history been in a place where there was stark conflict between state and local officials and federal officials during the civil rights movement. And because that example is so flipped in so many ways, I think it’s like a worthwhile historical examination. Like, okay, so when you’re on either side, what can we agree on? If we got Andy Barr and Charles Booker in a room and we said, okay, we have the civil rights movement and this. So what do we agree? Because we both have an example where we’re fighting for the federal government or for the state and local officials. Because that’s what they had to do. That’s what the founding fathers had to do, they weren’t in very different places about some very intense topics. So what do we agree on? If you’re standing on the shoulders of the civil rights movement and saying the federal government should be empowered to come in as law enforcement, and you’re saying under ICE the federal governments should be able to come in and stand on the shoulders of federal law enforcement, then what are the fundamentals of that situation that we agree on, or those two situations?
Beth [00:41:50] Such a hard exercise when everybody involved is acting in really good faith. When everybody involved really wants the best for the country, really wants everything to be safe. We got like just total cartoon villainy from a lot of members of this administration.
Sarah [00:42:08] Apparently the one that everybody wants to impress. God, help me.
Beth [00:42:13] And so incapable of that kind of discussion. But I keep telling myself we get to vote this year. At least there’s a call to action. We get to vote this year.
Sarah [00:42:26] We get to vote and I want to hear from people. I understand the desire. I keep thinking about like, well, what would I have said if I was the mayor of Minneapolis or what would have said if I were governor Walz? And I understand that in these moments people want to feel like someone’s going to fight to protect them. And I don’t disagree, it is propaganda. And I’m not really sure the best way to fight propaganda. I’m really sure we figured it out yet. And so it is impossibly hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. And it is monstrous, but that doesn’t it mean we become monsters in response. And I understand that is not a satisfying call to action, but it’s all I’ve got.
Beth [00:43:14] It’s hard to do a conversation like this and know that like I’m escalated and I probably didn’t make anybody feel better. I hate that. I hate it. And also I hope that there’s something better. This is always true for me. And it’s just being here together, trying to figure it out and caring. Someone I know and respect very much said that could have been me in that car. If I were here in my community, I would use my car to try to block a street. I was just really moved by that, too, because I believe her.
Sarah [00:43:48] And what we’ve done here does matter. It’s the parasite theory. No one gets better, stronger, wiser, smarter, or more involved in their community by spinning in their own heads based on what they’re seeing on the internet. Of that, I am 100% confident. I don’t need founding father texts to know that’s the truth. The more we can sit and take the feelings from the feeling part of our brain, pull them over to the articulation side and put them out our mouths, the better we will all be. Do it in our comment in the safe comment section of our Substack with this community. Like let’s work it out because spinning in our own heads is not only bad for us, it is bad for our communities. It is bad for our states. It is bad for our country So I do think it is a worthwhile thing to put it into words because that’s what we’re supposed to be doing in America, is putting it into word. We didn’t say or do anything violent in the last 45 minutes. And that’s a success in my book. So the more we can put it into words, decide like I am going to be thinking about, okay, what could I get Charles Booker and Andy Bar to agree with when these situations in the sixties and now are so different? I want to think about that more. I think that’s a worthwhile thing to sit with and a worthwhile pursuit, generally.
Beth [00:45:17] I’ve seen a lot of sorts of New Year’s dunking on calling anything online a community because we’re moving in the analog direction and whatever. I do think of this as a community for real because I do see a lot of care for each other in the comments. And I know that as we discuss this and as we I think I like the way you said that, move this from one side of our brain to the other and put it out that people will do that with respect for each other and with a desire to support each other. And that means a lot to me. So thank you all for being here. Thank you for being with us. You may hear some or all of this again tomorrow because we do feel like this merits helping people process who aren’t part of the spice cabinet. So we’ve got some decisions to make after we record here about what’s on tomorrow’s episode, and we just know that you all will be supportive and grace-filled with us however that shakes out and we appreciate it.
Maggie Penton [00:46:16] Thank you so much for joining us for this conversation. As you know, we usually end our conversations with what’s on our mind Outside of Politics as a kind of like exhale after talking through the hard things. Since this episode was a little bit different, Sarah and Beth are putting their thoughts Outside of the Politics in our Friday newsletter. That newsletter is free for everybody. You can subscribe on Substack or, of course, visit our website over at Pantsuitpoliticshow.com. Everything we make is there. And we’ll be back in your ears on Tuesday, assuming the headlines agree with us. Sarah and Beth have recorded a really lovely conversation with Elizabeth Oldfield about community and ritual and tending to our souls in these strange modern days. I think that even though it’s not a headline grabber, it’s really important to how we approach the news in 2026. So we really hope that you will tune back in for that conversation on Tuesday. And until then, we really, really hope that you have the very best weekend available to you.
Show Credits
Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.
Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.
Our show is listener-supported. The community of paid subscribers here on Substack makes everything we do possible. Special thanks to our Executive Producers, some of whose names you hear at the end of each show. To join our community of supporters, become a paid subscriber here on Substack.
To search past episodes of the main show or our premium content, check out our content archive.
This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.
Beth, I respect and appreciate that you want to leave us feeling a little better about the darkness around us, but I don’t expect that from your work. This spicy episode is some of your best work as a team; I found it to be deeply empowering and inspiring. I truly find your premium content to be what keeps me as a member of the PP community and this episode is yet another example.
I may not have pushed play to hear sympathy for the ice agents, but the reminder of everyone’s humanity was what I needed (okay, almost everybody, struggling to see the humanity in anyone inside the regime leadership).