DAVID BROOKS DESCRIBES ICE IN MINNEAPOLIS AS ALMOST AN ‘ARMED OCCUPATION:’
On Friday’s installment of PBS News Hour, New York Times columnist David Brooks proved once again why PBS needs to find an actual conservative for their weekly news recap segment. While doing that rhetorical trick where someone calls for the lowering of tensions in Minneapolis while simultaneously hurling inflammatory accusations at ICE and the Trump administration, Brooks described the city as under “something like an armed occupation.”
Host Amna Nawaz thought Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was doing his part to lower the temperature, “David, we’ve seen tensions only rising on the ground in Minneapolis. We saw Governor Walz publicly come out and call for a lowering of the temperature, telling the protesters, don’t take the bait, don’t be violent, even as the administration says it’s going to surge more agents. Criminal subpoenas for the state and city leaders, does that lower the temperature?
Of course, that omits all of Walz’s previous “Gestapo” rhetoric and that Walz’s version of Frankenstein’s monster has led to rioting, vandalism, and assault of ICE agents.
As it was, Brooks was happy to play along with Nawaz’s framing, “Not exactly. We’re coming close to something like an armed occupation of an American state by the American federal government. There are 3,000 ICE officers in Minneapolis, which is like five times the number of police officers. And they are behaving with reckless and violent abandon.”
Exit question:
Does the median lib understand this?
If state and local authorities in Minnesota cooperated in handing over CONVICTED CRIMINALS to the feds none of what’s happening would be necessary. https://t.co/jKXzQR0XrF
— Coddled Affluent Professional (@feelsdesperate) January 17, 2026
Flashback: As Glenn wrote in 2016: How David Brooks Created Donald Trump.