Episode 223

In January of 2026, ICU nurse Alex Pretti was killed in a violent confrontation with border patrol agents carrying out their duties in Minneapolis and corporate media pundit turned Youtuber Don Lemon allegedly participated in an anti-ICE protest inside of a church during a service. Pretti, who had been involved in violent encounters with ICE previously, became the new face and martyr of the political left, while others were quick to point out the violent bad-faith tactics of Minneapolis leadership, riot organizers, and Pretti himself. The country found itself in a feverish debate about ICE tactics in a political climate that overwhelming voted a more hardline approach to immigration enforcement. What power does the state have to push back against federal power? How do we handle radicalized protestors? Not to be outdone, Don Lemon filmed himself coordinating with professional protestors planning to disrupt a church service for ties one of the pastors has to ICE. Parishioners were subjected to loud, angry, profanity-laced chants from protestors and Youtubers alike while he weaseled himself from person to person in the name of “journalism”, asking questions that basically amounted to “how do you feel about being an evil person who supports ICE?” The stunt shocked Christians everywhere in the nation, raising questions about the role of the church during civil unrest and where the limits are regarding the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. In this episode of the Removing Barriers podcast, we discuss all these things and more.

[MCG]

But this is what I think in terms of me inserting myself in this. What would I do? Well, I try to follow the rules of stupid. So I don’t go to stupid places at stupid times with stupid people doing stupid things.

[Jay]

Thank you for tuning in to the Removing Barriers podcast. I’m Jay and I’m MCG. And we’re attempting to remove barriers so we can all have a clear view of the cross.

[MCG]

This is episode 223 of the Removing Barriers podcast, and this is the 16th in the series of This World Has Gone Bonkers. And in this episode, we will be looking at Alex Pretti and Don Lemon.

[Jay]

Hi, this is Jay. MCG and I would like for you to help us remove barriers by going to removingbarriers.net and subscribing to receive all things removing barriers. If you’d like to take your efforts a bit further and help us keep the mics on, consider donating at removingbarriers.net/donate. Removing barriers, a clear view of the cross.

[MCG]

All right, Jay, well, let’s start with Alex Pratty. Do you have a news article we can bounce off of?

[Jay]

I do. It’s an article from abc.com, but just as…

[MCG]

You mean ABC News?

[Jay]

ABC News, yep, ABC News. And just by way of reminder, I don’t think anyone needs this reminder because this name is well known nationwide. Alex Preddy was a 37-year-old American attensive care nurse. for the VA that was shot and killed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 24, 2026. His death has ignited widespread protests and riot. Well, I don’t know if I should use the word riot, as some people would call it just protests. So we’ll be magnanimous here, just call it protests. Because of dash cam and pedestrians holding a video,

[MCG]

Cell phone.

[Jay]

Cell phone video of what they call his execution, what others would call the interaction with Border Patrol that ended his life. This comes on the tail of Immigration and Customs Enforcement receiving much backlash and resistance in that same city. And of course, to Minneapolis, to the protesters in Minneapolis, ICE, Border Patrol, federal agents, they’re all the same bag and they’re all being resisted. They are all in the same…

[MCG]

Cut from the same cloth, I guess.

[Jay]

Cut from the same cloth. They’re in the same crosshairs. That’s the word I was looking for. Because the argument is that ICE and Border Patrol are both Machiavellan and just dark in how they carry out their orders. They apparently, according to the protesters, they’re just rounding people up and taking them away without due process. Many people have been killed so far, or I should say a handful of people have been killed. There’s the potential for many more to be killed as more and more people believe the propaganda and the spinning and the framing of this particular issue. And so, sadly, I think that more people will die unless someone gets ahead of it and addresses this issue, which is what we’re hoping to do today to establish the facts. Who was Alex Preddy? What were the circumstances surrounding his death? And how will that affect how we talk about ICE and border patrol and immigration and fill in the blank from here forward?

[MCG]

So I want to talk a little bit on the narrative surrounding his death and the narrative of who he is, because I’m getting conflicting. should I say quote-unquote facts about this man?

[Jay]

Each side has its own set of facts.

[MCG]

Well, that’s the sad part about it. So he almost don’t know who to believe. So he’s considered to be a nurse, a VA nurse, and a good man in the society. One pundit even put it that it would be the type of guy that you’ll want your daughter to marry. Now, so I’m going to play a clip here of someone given what she would consider the facts of Alex Purdy. Because, of course, you overheard Jay said the fact that he, 37-year-old man, peacefully protesting ICE, Customer Border Patrol, federal agents in Minnesota, Minneapolis, basically saying, hey, leave the people of Minnesota, Minneapolis alone, and whatever the case may be. So I’m going to play this clip, and then I want to dive into his confrontation with federal agents.

[Audio from X]

So now we know the truth about Alex Pretty. And it’s exactly what you’d expect. Not a nurse, not a peaceful bystander, not an innocent man gunned down by a tyrannical government. He quit his job months ago. His own parents say he was showing unusual behavior. They told him, don’t do anything stupid. He scrubbed his social media the day before. He had a loaded gun on him with no permit and no ID. He spat on a federal agent and kicked out a taillight in footage from 11 days earlier. This a man caught in the crossfire, this was a man looking for a fight. And here’s the thing, this is the same story every single time. The media runs the emotional headline first. Nurse killed by ICE. wall-to-wall coverage, tears on late-night TV, then the facts come out, quietly. Days later, and suddenly no one wants to talk about it. His parents warned him, the footage warned us, and the narrative fell apart the second anyone bothered to look. This is why you never give an inch, because the truth always comes out, always.

[MCG]

All right, there’s someone that obviously is on the right, and she’s given… she will consider the facts of Alex pretty. Now, one thing I will clearly disagree with her on is the fact that he wasn’t a nurse. I don’t think you have to be working to be identified as a nurse. That’s one thing that I guess is more of American culture. But I’m a software engineer, whether or not I’m employed by someone working, quote unquote, as a software engineer, doesn’t change my identity. I’m a software engineer. That’s what I do. A carpenter is a carpenter, whether or not he’s employed or he has a business building and making stuff. Being gainfully employed does not determine your identity or should not determine your identity of saying that he’s a nurse. So if he has a nursing degree or whatever, RN or whatever the case may be, Whether or not he’s working, he’s a nurse. He might have left his job, but that doesn’t change anything. So I’ll say that for her. I want to also dive into the fact that she mentioned that he was there about 11 days ago, and the video of this him kicking out the taillight of SUV ICE agents or customer border patrol agents were in. He had a conversation with him as well. And I think the biggest thing that I want to touch on is the fact that he had a gun. So basically what happened in a very layman’s non-newsy way is that he was protesting. And in my book, and again, I’m not trying to choose a political side here, but in my book, he was rioting. What I saw was… was not protest.

[Jay]

You mean what you saw the day of or 11 days prior?

[MCG]

The day of. Even 11 days prior when he kicked out the taillight. That’s not protesting. That’s rioting. I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on. If your so-called protest is not peaceful, in my book, it’s rioting.

[Jay]

What did you see in the day of that would tell you this is not protesting, this is rioting?

[MCG]

Well, firstly, he was in the street and supposedly direct traffickers, stuff like that. But secondly, he was basically in the middle of the operation. He was way too close to the operation. And of course, if you listen to the video, there’s people blowing their whistles and everything. The way I describe this is a goat rodeo. It’s just one of those crazy things that so much going on, so much happening that you don’t even know where to look, what to do, whatever the case may be. This is just a full on goat rodeo, right? So imagine all the noise going on, people blowing whistles, people’s stuff. So for some reason, One of the ICE agent, customer Border Patrol person, push a lady.

[Jay]

We don’t- Push her pretty hard too.

[MCG]

Right. Push her pretty well that she fell in the snow. We don’t know why he decided to push her. We just saw the video upon the fact that it’s starting that he pushed her. Alex Fretti stepped into the middle of that. And I think that he didn’t mean any harm when he put his hand back. basically under Customer Border Patrol agent. I think he was just trying to break up a fight. But putting your hand, whether slightly or whatever the case may be, on a federal agent in the execution of their duty is a federal crime. So if Alex Fetty was peacefully protesting on the sidewalk, documenting what happened, that would have been way better than trying to go in and quote unquote, protect this lady if that’s what his intention. Let’s give him the benefit of doubt saying that was his intention. So upon him doing that, the agent decided that he’s going to push Alex pretty now, trying to put him in custody. bunch of other agents joining into the fray, trying to keep the two ladies that were there away, trying to get Alasfreti into custody. They pepper sprayed him a couple of times. He was down on his hands and knees and then at one point going to like a fetal position. I guess he was protecting himself or he was in pain because of the pepper spray coming in. Upon all the struggle, they realized that he had a gun. And to me, it looked like one of the agents took the gun off. I don’t know exactly what happened, but maybe either they saw a gun or they heard gun, gun, gun, and one shot, then another one shot. Some people said that the gun he had was one of those SIGs that go off and it actually went off. Some say it didn’t go off. When I watched the video, I didn’t see the gun that was taken over Alex pretty went off. So it could have been, you know, the sight of a gun. It could have been, it was a gold rodeo. So, and then the AI enhanced version of it and all kind of stuff. If there’s anyone out there that can say for sure that, hey, I know exactly what happened based on what is now currently available, I will call them a liar because this has been so wild, so goat road-ish, if that’s such a term, that what do you do? I’m going to show my hand here. I’ll be okay if the agents are charged and convicted. I’ll be okay also if they’re not charged. that’s how up in the air this is for me, because one of the big things some on the right is saying and wanted to dive into this is the fact that he had a gun on him. I think that you can exercise your First Amendment right protesting and also your Second Amendment right at the same time. They’re not mutually exclusive of each other. That if you’re protesting exercising your First Amendment right, then you can also be excited with your Second Amendment right. For me personally, Would I go to a protest? Absolutely not. Would you go with a loaded gun? But if I would go to a protest, I would go with a loaded gun. But you know the saying, if you won’t go someplace without a gun, don’t go there with a gun. But if I’m going to have to go to a protest, especially ones like these that in my book are not protests but are riots, I definitely want to have a gun. But this is what I think in terms of me inserting myself in this, what would I do? I try to follow the rules of stupid. So I don’t go to stupid places at stupid times with stupid people doing stupid things.

[Jay]

Okay, let’s see how many of those he broke.

[MCG]

He broke all of them.

[Jay]

No, it wasn’t a stupid time because it was broad daylight.

[MCG]

No, it was evening.

[Jay]

No, it was.

[MCG]

I think it was evening based on the video. It looked like nighttime to me.

[Jay]

No, it wasn’t.

[MCG]

Oh, yeah, it was daytime. So, okay, it wasn’t necessarily stupid time.

[Jay]

But all of the other ones, he went to a protest with protesters in order to meddle with customs and federal ICE and border patrol, the federal government to protest. That’s stupid places, stupid people, stupid things. So he broke three of the four rules.

[MCG]

Well, they normally say you can get to a rule one. You know, let’s say, okay, Alex Fretti is a nurse. I’m sure you have some, when he was working, he had some weird shifts. So you have to get up four o’clock in the morning to head off to work. That’s a stupid time, but you’re not going to stupid place. You’re not going to be doing stupid things. And, you know, you’re not going to be with stupid people. But if you break two or more, you’re looking for trouble. I just try not to violate the rules of stupid. So I’m not going to go to a protest, much less to a riot. Secondly, growing up in the islands, we have a saying, do not trouble trouble. unless trouble trouble you. Or if you want to put it the more American way, don’t start none, won’t be none. I think even if you want to say Alex Betti was innocent in all of this, somewhat. He started, and that’s what caused it.

[Jay]

Devil’s advocate. He wanted to protect the lady from the mean and aggressive border patrol agents. He wanted to do something to stand between the the tyrannical government arm that is, in this instance, Border Patrol. He wanted to be that one that stands in the gap to stop the unlawful, you know, seizure of illegal immigrants in the country.

[MCG]

Well, the Border Patrol agent did push that lady pretty hard. However, again, I don’t know what happened, why he pushed her. Would I put myself in that situation to intervene? most likely not unless it is my wife or daughter or someone I think would be under my care if you’re not someone that I would continue to be under my care I most likely wouldn’t step in unless it’s so egregious that I can’t but step in I don’t think at least for me it rose to the point of so egregious because this lady that was pushed was also in the middle of the melee why are you so close to the federal agent doing the operation you can also blame the the local police because they should have been there with the area taped off and doing call control. So blaming them as well. There’s a lot of blame to go around. We just did the Renee Good episode. The same people I blame for Renee Good that is basically the same people I’ll be blamed for Alex Berti, Jacob Fry, Tim Waltz, the Minnesota State Police, Minneapolis local police. The whole gamut of not working with the federal agents, not providing basically crowd control and stuff like that, the whole gamut. So it depends. If that was his girlfriend, his wife, his mother, his sister, something along the line that he was stepping in, I was the man, maybe die for the folks you love. I’ll reach out and learn, I said, that’s a total stranger. And both of them technically doing illegal stuff. Why? Why step in? Anyways, I’m just saying. You know, don’t start none, won’t be none. So I wouldn’t go to a protest, but if I would go to a protest, I would go with a gone on. But you know the sign as well. Gone on, ego off. Alasperti knew he was armed and still had a whole bunch of ego and a whole bunch of agitation to law enforcement officers.

[Jay]

Let’s see what the article says. This is from abcnews.com. What we know about Alex Preti, VA nurse killed by federal agent in Minneapolis. First paragraph here says, as investigations continue to gather evidence on Saturday about the second fatal shooting this month of an American citizen in Minneapolis at the hands of a federal agent, more information is emerging about the victim, Alex Preti. I find it interesting how they completely frame this. Before you even get farther into the article, they already frame it as the person that died is the victim. Border Patrol are the bad guys. And this is happening with alarming frequency. It’s the second shooting this month of an American citizen, et cetera, et cetera. Seems like in this article, they’re already priming you and teaching you what you’re supposed to think about what happened.

[MCG]

Well, I’m not 100% sure that Alex Ferte is not a victim. He could be, because I didn’t see a situation that necessary rise to a deadly threat but at the same time I don’t know what was going through the agent’s mind what they saw what they didn’t see and also when Alex was I don’t know if he was trying to get up or again you talk about someone who was pepper sprayed several times so who knows what he was trying to do but he did look like he was trying to reach for the gun that was previously taken off of him so

[Jay]

Wait, okay, you’re saying it looked like he was reaching for the gun after it was taken off of him?

[MCG]

It did, but I don’t know if that was a response because he was trying to get up through the pepper spray. As again, go to rodeo.

[Jay]

The gun was on his back, was it not?

[MCG]

No, I think it was more like 4 o’clock. So it was, 3 o’clock would be

[Jay]

right on the side.

[MCG]

Right on the side, so it would be a little bit more around to the **** streak kind of thing. So, hey, I don’t know. That’s why I say he can go both ways.

[Jay]

Right. What I’m saying is the certainty with which they say it, I think, is more meant as a framing tactic or a priming tactic. If you have questions about what happened and everyone else is looking at it and saying, man, that’s really difficult to tell what actually happened, then how is it that they can say with such certainty what happened? Is he the victim by means of the fact that he’s the one that’s dead? Okay, fair. Let’s say, fine, he’s the victim. We’ll say that. But to say it in such a way that presupposes that wrong was done unto him, I think perhaps that That’s where I’m getting a little bit of the right from, and then it says, Preddy, thirty-seven, worked for the Minneapolis VA Health Care System as an ICU nurse, according to… the AFGE Professional Local 3669, which represents professional employees affiliated with the Minneapolis VA healthcare system. And this organization is quoted as saying, A member of our union lost their life today, and that alone is devastating. Our hearts are heavy, and we are deeply stricken by this tragedy that has befallen one of our own. Multiple videos of the confrontation Saturday showed federal agents spraying Petty with a substance and pinning him to the ground before the shooting. The Department of Homeland Security alleged that Preddy approached border control agents with a 9-millimeter semi-automatic handgun and violently resisted when agents tried to disarm him. Local officials have disputed that characterization. This is something that I think warrants criticism. It seems to me that when these things happen, both sides are rushing to get the most dramatic angle of what happened in order to shape the narrative to their advantage. It’s kind of like when Renee Goode was shot and killed by, who was it, Jonathan Ross, I think his name was, by ICE. You have people on one side saying that she was executed and she was, you know, this was all unnecessary. And then on the other side you have, oh, she ruthlessly ran him over. The truth gets lost because it’s typically somewhere in the middle. I think this is a lot of what’s happening here. To say that he was charging at them with a 9 millimeter semi-automatic handgun would conjure up the image in someone’s mind that he was the aggressor with a gun in hand ready to attack when that’s not actually what happened. We could see from the video that’s not what happened. He was armed. He had the gun on him, but he didn’t approach them with the semi-automatic. I guess you could say technically he did because he He was armed when he approached them. But the way that it’s said here makes it sound like he was the aggressor seeking to, I guess, pray and spray with the gun in hand, ready to go. Neither of which are true.

[MCG]

Two things. If you have a gun and you get in a fight, you’re in a gunfight, basically. So whether you draw the gun or not, I guess you’re in a gunfight, because at some point, well, you know you have your gun on you, but if the other person has a glimpse that the gun is on you, then who knows? So yeah, I think they could have maybe described it a bit better because the idea that they’re giving you is that the gun was drawn. When the gun wasn’t drawn, the gun was holstered. Not only holstered, but concealed. So they didn’t even see it until maybe he was on the ground when they realized, hey, there’s a gun on him. So he didn’t draw the gun or whatever the case may be. I can’t say that he wasn’t the aggressor, even though I give him the benefit of the doubt that the fact that he touched the agent was not necessarily an aggressive touch, but it was more of a touch of like, hey, you know.

[Jay]

You just stay there alone or back up or break up the fight.

[MCG]

More of breaking up the fight than anything. But again, if I’m going to a protest man, I’m going to find out the laws, what I can and cannot do, because it’s not just law enforcement. In this country, in the U.S., if you make contact with anyone who doesn’t want you to contact them in terms of physical contact, whether it touch or not, or is it touching the shoulder as soft as it can be? or a punch in the face is assault. One might be simple assault and nothing might come of it, but he should have known he can’t put his hand on a law enforcement officer.

[Jay]

I disagree with you.

[MCG]

Federal or local.

[Jay]

He wouldn’t know that because he’s living in a city and in a state where the leadership are deliberately not making it clear to their people what’s lawful and what isn’t. Governor Walz and Mayor Frey, Frey? I can’t.

[MCG]

It’s Frey.

[Jay]

Frey are still not telling their people what they can and can’t do. You can’t expect people that are so emotionally charged and so emotionally triggered to, you can’t trust them to go and logically look up what they can and can’t do online and go out and conduct themselves in a respectable and however passionate and yet controlled manner because they are deliberately agitated into a state of frenzy where they believe that they’re being invaded and put upon by the federal government doing illegal things, and so they’re going to react accordingly. So, you know, this is probably not 100% accurate to say, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me that Preddy, along with all of the other protesters out there that are carrying all of this protest that politically benefit Walls and Fry, it’s safe to say that they don’t really know what the rules are. They don’t really know what the law is because they’re not operating on.

[MCG]

Well, they’re grown adults, so I don’t.

[Jay]

Fair enough.

[MCG]

I don’t think they should be depending on the governor and the mayor or whoever to let them know what the law is. I don’t depend on my governor, no politician to find out what the law is. I don’t seek out the law. And if.

[Jay]

But you’re saying moral prudence, right? Well, these people are not.

[MCG]

I’m talking about people with agency. So I’m talking about a grown man. At least if you’re going to go protest, do it peacefully. Again, in my book, and I’m not just picking out Alex Perti, what I’m seeing is not protesting. What I’m seeing is rioting. I can say the same is true for for January 6th for most part. A lot of those folks weren’t protesting.

[Jay]

They were rioting. Sure.

[MCG]

So it’s on both sides. You can claim that some were truly peacefully protesting on January 6th, just like some in Minnesota and Minneapolis are truly peacefully protesting. But what we see based on the videos that we see, and of course, they’re not going to show us the peaceful ones because they’re boring, I guess.

[Jay]

Right.

[MCG]

So from what I see, from what Alex Presley is doing, this lady that got pushed, they weren’t protesting, they were rioting. That’s my opinion. Anyways, I guess he should have known not to put your hand on a law enforcement officer, federal or local or state. No matter what, you’re going to get yourself in a little bit of an issue if you put your hand on them, especially in a heated situation. Because these people are human too. You don’t think the whistling and the honking and everything annoys me and I wasn’t even there. I just listened to a video.

[Jay]

Not to mention the fact that they’re being followed everywhere they go. They’re being met with resistance and being blocked and everywhere they go.

[MCG]

They’re humans too. Don’t think that annoy them. So when you’re going to come in their face, they’re going to push you. They’re going to create space.

[Jay]

I think the pushing is to create space.

[MCG]

Maybe not to create space, just because get out of my face, you’re annoying. And of course, we should hold our officers to a higher standard, so they should be able to resist that. But I also want to think that they’re human too. Just like I want to put some humanity on Alex pretty and realize that he may have meant that touch under officer for good. Me just wanted to break up a fight, just wanted to help that lady and me no harm.

[Jay]

I think this is where it’s something that we can’t even say with certainty, because the video that I saw, now granted, I don’t have social media, so I don’t see what’s floating around on X. I can only see what’s been chopped up and put up on YouTube for free without having to log in. But the video didn’t show what happened before the woman was pushed. So if we’re willing to say that any type of touch in this country is considered assault, particularly by someone who doesn’t want to be touched or interacted with, then if you would see the video as it is on YouTube, We could say that the officer assaulted the woman first, but she might have spit on them for all we know. We don’t know why the officer pushed.

[MCG]

Well, we saw Alice Freddy kicking out the taillight and spitting at them or spitting on them, all the case may be.

[Jay]

So I wouldn’t put it past them because they are doing these things. It’s more like a, hey, you know how kids fight in kindergarten where, don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me, or I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you, until you finally snap and then they cry to the teacher. It’s one of these situations that they’re doing, these childish tactics that they’re using. So again, we didn’t see the video. video where whatever happened beforehand that caused the officer to push the woman. But also, like you said, I could see your point as well, where it’s simply not wise to get in between the agent and the woman, no matter how altruistic your intentions are, especially being armed and the situation being as volatile as it was, that just wasn’t prudent. And of course, we’re Monday morning quarterbacking and we weren’t there. We only see what videos are allowing us to see. Who knows if these videos have been modified? Can’t even tell what videos are what anymore. Did you see that one of the, I believe it It was a congressman that was on the floor giving a speech about Alex Pretty, this or the other. He put up a picture of supposedly Alex Pretty being executed by Border Patrol, but it was AI generated.

[MCG]

Yeah, there’s a bunch of AI stuff out there.

[Jay]

Right. So how do we even know that what they’re saying is the video, is the actual video? How do we even know it hasn’t been modified? We don’t know. So this is my point. So for the article to come out strong, to come out hot like it is. on the side of Freddy being a victim and that we know everything and that the border patrol agents are right. When there’s so much misinformation out there, I think perhaps maybe we need to take a few steps back and approach everything the way that I think you are. We don’t know everything. We don’t have access to everything. Let’s look at everything with more of a level-headed.

[MCG]

Well, I just said go to rodeo because I wouldn’t be at no protesting rioting unless it comes to my street or I get caught in it. because I was driving somewhere and didn’t know it was there.

[Jay]

What if it was about a thing that you actually cared about? What if it was something along the lines of.

[MCG]

There must be another way of.

[Jay]

They want you to burn your Bible.

[MCG]

Making my voice be known rather than.

[Jay]

They want you to stop going to church. Some type of riot where you feel.

[MCG]

I’m not going to no riot.

[Jay]

Okay.

[MCG]

Again, I’m not saying that it’s unbiblical or wrong to protest. I think it’s wrong to riot. I’m not saying it’s unbiblical or wrong to protest. I’m just not. I’m not a crowd person to begin with. So if you go to be a place where proud match, you know, one of the kids may be, I’m I’m not going. I remember there was a match close to where I was and it was for something that I would have cared about, but I didn’t go. Why? I’m not inserting myself in that kind of thing. If I need to reach out to my congressperson or vote or whatever the case may be, there are other ways to make my voice be heard rather than to… going to stupid places at stupid time with stupid people doing stupid things.

[Jay]

Well, here’s the thing, though. People can be easily moved to go out and do those, break the four rules of stupid. We saw that on January 6th. We’re seeing that right now. We’re seeing that Black Lives Matter. We’re seeing that Trayvon Martin and all that. We’re seeing all of that. It’s easy to whip people up in a frenzy right now, especially with social media being what it is. It’s very easy to whip people up in a frenzy.

[MCG]

It’s all politics, to be honest.

[Jay]

Okay, well, here, the article continues that border patrol commander at the time, he’s no longer in this position, but the border control commander at the time, Greg Bovino, declined to give more details about the confrontation, claiming, quote, the situation is evolving. The investigation is ongoing. Those facts will come to light. I think that’s a level-headed approach to what’s happening, what he said there. But Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Frey, Frey, I’m sorry, I am not doing that on purpose. However, they questioned the claims and they admonished the federal government for a rush to judgment without spending more time gathering evidence. That is rich coming from these two. Yeah, remember when Renee Goode was shot and killed? Within a few minutes of the situation, she was mercilessly executed.

[MCG]

They’re doing the same thing.

[Jay]

They’re doing the exact same thing. And so that’s the whole projection and telling people not to do things that they are blatantly doing. They’re doing very much the same thing. And that’s what you said. This is all politics. See, this is why it’s even worse. Because for them, it’s not someone was just shot and killed in the street in broad daylight. Someone lost their life. For them, It’s more, okay, how can I use this to my advantage? How can I use this politically? How can I use this to make my particular ideology succeed? They don’t care about the foot soldiers that are out and about writing on their behalf and creating these favorable terms for them. They don’t care about them. You can see in how they respond. Preddy, who worked as a nurse at the Minneapolis VA Healthcare System, was issued a Minnesota nursing license in 2021 that remained active through March of 2026, according to state records. So I guess.

[MCG]

March of 2026 or 2025.

[Jay]

2026. So his nursing license was going to expire in March of 2026. He previously served as a, quote, junior scientist at the University of Minnesota Medical School, according to his LinkedIn profile. Dr. Dimitri Draconja, who worked with Preddy, told ABC Saturday. To those of us who know him, it’s galling and enraging to hear the way federal officials are portraying Freddie.

[MCG]

Well, let me say this along the line, because talking about the politics and how they portrayed him. When Renee Goode was killed, the pictures they put out of Renee was… younger pictures where, quote unquote, she looked more attractive. They didn’t put current pictures of her where now she is living as a lesbian. They put up pictures of Alex Pretti. I think it was either ABC or MS Now.

[Jay]

MS Now did that.

[MCG]

They shortened his neck, gave him broader shoulders, shortened his nose, improved his stand for him to look more attractive.

[Jay]

Gave him veneers, darkened his hair, filled in bald spots, were on his head, changed the contrast on the picture, shortened his jawline a little bit. Gave him that tan, removed some of the crinkles around his eye. I’m looking at the picture right now. They made him look a lot more handsome and engaged. You want to know why they did that, too?

[MCG]

Politics.

[Jay]

Well, yes. The women on the left that are in love with Luigi Mangione, because they consider him to be handsome, would more likely support Alex Preti if he’s more physically attractive. It’s just a means of manipulating people to support their particular side or their particular ideology.

[MCG]

Anyways, I have a video here that I find to be a very fair take on the entire consideration. I don’t agree with 100%, but I think it’s a very and it’s coming from Fox News of all places.

[Fox News Audio]

A couple of things. Number one, the Second Amendment is a right. I’m our Second Amendment absolutist. You have the right to carry a weapon to defend yourself, not the privilege. It is a right. Those rights come with restrictions. I think you would understand that more than anyone at this table. One of those restrictions is you have to have your ID and your permit on you. We don’t know. Current reports are he didn’t have either one of those on, at which point he’s not carrying legally.

[MCG]

But number two, even beyond.. I don’t think that’s especially disagreement at this point. You have a right. Where is your license and your permit for your freedom of press, your freedom of speech, your freedom of expression, your freedom to worship? You don’t need any of that because it is a right and shiny in the Constitution. That should be the same for the Second Amendment. It is a right, not a privilege that you said. So therefore, you should not need a permit. You should not need an ID to be exercising your right legally. I disagree with that. Now, to extend an olive branch to him, I understand what he’s saying, because most states, and I’m sure Minnesota is one of them, is that if if you do carry conceal and you have a concealed carry permit, you’re also required not only to have the permit on you, but also to have a picture ID on you. And that’s what he’s saying. But I’m simply saying it shouldn’t be that way for a right. It should be, the Constitution should be a right. If the police officers can’t find the fact that you have done something for that right to be taken away from you, because we do take away those rights when people are placed in prison on felonies or whatever the case may be, convicted of felonies or whatever the case may be. We do take away some of those civil rights and amendment rights that they have. But I disagree with him in terms of that. A right is a right. As I said, the Second Amendment is not the cousin of the Constitution or whatever the case may be. So you shouldn’t need to have ID and all those things. I know that might sound a little bit radical, but I think We should not be treating the Second Amendment as a cousin to the others, because we don’t require all those other things for the other constitution amendments. Anyways, he continues.

[Fox News Audio]

With the right to carry a firearm comes the responsibility to do it correctly, and to do it with foresight, and to do it understanding the situation you’re walking into and what could happen once you get there. Just about every state offers a class on that, and if you carry your firearm, you should take that class, and if your state charges you for it, you should go protest for that class to be taxpayer-funded, because is a right. So that’s important. We can talk about policy all day long. There’s only one person in this world that could have absolutely prevented Alex Pretty from getting shot that day, and it’s Alex Pretty. That doesn’t mean I think he should have been shot. I don’t think it was necessary whatsoever to shoot Alex Pretty to save a life. But I get to watch that incident from behind Alex Pretty, not as one of the arresting officers, and not as potentially the person that I believe, from looking at the video, did shoot him. Why does he have 10 rounds in him? Because if you have to shoot anybody, he wants You better shoot them enough to kill them because if you’re shooting somebody, you think they’re trying to kill you. Every police officer in this country has taught that. If you want to change that, go lobby to have it changed. Why was he shot? He was shot because of the reasonableness clause, the reasonableness doctrine. The Supreme Court decided this. which is the fact that if you are a police officer conducting police work, and it’s explicitly outlined, someone has resisted arrest, violently or not, disobeyed orders, and shown the means to harm you, then you have the ability to protect yourself. Now, do I think he should’ve been shot? No, ’cause I see 10 things that happened before that happened that could have been handled differently. But what I don’t see are the 10 minutes before that happened. You call him a protester, I call him an agitator. He showed up with a cell phone, he showed up in the middle the street in the middle of an operation. That’s common sense. I don’t care what your passions are. To carry a weapon on your person and to get in the middle of a police operation, whether you believe it or not, that is lawful 100%. Another way it could have been prevented is if there was a police cordon from Minneapolis Police Department stopping people like Alex Pretty from getting in the middle of the operation rather than holding a sign and speaking loudly and proudly from 100 feet away. That is the end of the story. There might even be a federal agent goes to jail because some jury or a federal investigation decides he acted prematurely or shot him and shouldn’t have, that I’m not arguing or disputing that because I haven’t seen the investigation. But I know for a fact Alex Pretty had no business where he was in that moment. I know for a fact that he did resist arrest. And if you are carrying lawfully, the moment you resist arrest, you are now carrying unlawfully to the point that in the state of Minnesota, your carry permit is revoked in that moment. So, the point here is, Nobody’s condemned in this, other than the politicians that let it happen. And if for you, that’s Donald Trump, and if for you, that’s Tim Waltz. As an American citizen, I’m glad both of them talked today. This doesn’t ever need to happen again. Border Patrol agents need to get to the border and do their job. Minneapolis Police Department, all 600 of them if they need to, need to be there to help. I surgically distract people like, what’s his name, Jose Huerta Chuma, who is what violent rap sheet that includes domestic assault involving intentional bodily harm. I don’t care who you are in this country, but if you’re willing to risk your life for that person, whatever happens to you, my sympathy goes down quite a bit. I don’t want anybody to get hurt. I love people. I even love bad people. But for God’s sake, have some common sense. That’s your responsibility, especially if you’re carrying a weapon. And that was not exercised, and I can’t help that.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[MCG]

All right, so I agree to him for most bad. Again, that’s the nitpick, the gun rights stuff, but he’s right on point.

[Jay]

He’s definitely right about the police officers that should have been there for crowd control and to help border patrol. That was done by the leadership in Minneapolis to withdraw them and not allow them to help. So for him to put the blame on them and also on Trump, I absolutely agree with that.

[MCG]

Yeah, the problem, this country is starving for good leaders, the state, the county, city, from the White House to Christian, we’re starving for leadership because when things like this happen, we run to a side and communicate to our base. As I said, I look at this thing, go to rodeo. I don’t know who’s in the wrong or who’s in the right in terms of that. I personally did not see the need for deadly force. However, again, I don’t know what was going through the agent’s mind. I don’t know what they saw, what they didn’t see, what they feel didn’t feel. The laws does not call them to be perfect. Call them to be reasonable. And would another reasonable person being fearful their life based upon the situation they have been in probably think about it filando Castile was also in Minnesota of all places when he was shot by a police officer I think police of the name was yanez or something like that and he got off And Philancia Castile had a concealed carry permit. It was later found out that the concealed carry permit, he lied on his application. But regardless, the officer did not do it at that time. And he legally had a, at this point, had a concealed carry permit. He told the officer he had a concealed carry permit. And because he did. what they would call a furtive movement, which I don’t think he was even going for his gun. He was shot and killed with his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s daughter in the backseat. And that officer got off. So you want me tell me in this goat rodeo that these officers are not going to get off. They’re probably going to get off. But again, if they were charged and convicted, I’ll probably say, I don’t really have any issue with that, so to speak. But if they walk for free, I would go, I don’t really have a problem with it neither because It’s a good rodeo. And again, there’s a lot of blame here also pays on Alex Pretty, because you went to a riot, in my opinion, it wasn’t a protest, with a gun and insert yourself in police operation. Not saying you should be shot and killed for that, but if you’re starting on, there won’t be none.

[Jay]

I’m going to go ahead and make this a little bit even, too, and place some blame on the right side of the aisle as well. The way that the Trump administration has handled this, has not been the best. You are dealing with people that you know are not playing by the rules. You know that they are being dirty and underhanded in their tactics. For the life of me, I don’t understand why, from the get-go, ICE and Border Patrol agents were not given body cams in order to identify and document everything that’s happened, knowing how they were going to encounter fierce resistance, particularly in Minneapolis. If you don’t do body cams in the rest of the country, since no one else in the, no other state is having this issue except for Minnesota, at the very least, have your agents that are operating in Minnesota have body cams. I have an article here that says DHS Secretary Noem announces that body cams will be deployed immediately to all agents in Minneapolis, rolling out nationwide soon. This is an article from from February 2nd. Trump has been in office for a year now. You didn’t have the foresight to see that this was going to be necessary in order to execute the mandate to get the illegal aliens out in the forceful way that they’re doing it?

[MCG]

Well, they did say that there were no money in the budget, but I think now because the budget was just passed and approved or whatever the case may be, one of the stipulation was to put that in the budget so that they can get it.

[Jay]

Here it says Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem. I think they mean the head of the Department of Homeland Security. Anyway, Kristi Noem announced Monday that body cams would be deployed to all federal agents under her agency who were in Minneapolis, a key demand from protesters and Democratic members of Congress. The tactics used during President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown have been loudly criticized and sparked nationwide protests, especially after the two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, Renee Goode on January 7th and Alex Preddy that we’re talking about on January 24th. Video evidence taken by witnesses to both shootings has contradicted claims made by Trump administration officials and have been cited by those calling for reforms to immigration enforcement, including prohibiting federal agents from wearing masks and requiring the use of body cams. Now, I agree with requiring the use of body cams, but prohibiting the agents from wearing masks, especially the way that they’ve been doxxed and they’ve been personally attacked, I don’t think I agree with that. But anyway, anyhow, on Monday afternoon, the article says, Noam posted on social media that she had spoken to Tom Holman, Trump’s border czar, recently sent in to oversee the situation in Minneapolis after Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino was removed, and sent back to California, and they had decided that effective immediately, they would be deploying body cameras to every officer in the field of Minneapolis. And I’m saying that is long overdue. And I don’t even know if that was a funding issue, because from since, let’s see. since Trump took office. ICE and Border Patrol and all of these different federal agencies have been expanded and growing and hiring at an astronomical rate.

[MCG]

But remember, they fired a lot of folks. But think about it. We’re talking about a DHS, Department of Homeland Security. Either it is the first or the second largest federal agency. If it’s not the second, it’s definitely up there within the top five or even, I would say, top three largest agency. Can you talk about DHS? You’re talking about USCIS. You’re talking about ICE. You’re talking about customer border control. You’re talking about FEMA. You’re talking about TSA. And I probably missed one or two. The Coast Guard, I think, is also on the DHS.

[Jay]

I think they’re DHS.

[MCG]

I think they’re DHS. So you’re talking about a huge agency, some of which are funded, actually, not by the federal government, like USCIS. Most of the funding comes from application fees and all that stuff that folks pay to be legal in the country. So when you apply for a green card and a H-1B and all that stuff, you have to pay hundreds or even sometimes thousands of dollars to get these things. USCIS is funded through that. And of course, a good percentage of their budget also come from the federal government. So did they have the money? I don’t know. It could just be a bargaining trip for the Democrats and give and take. I have no objections to the body cam. Yeah, we would like to see exactly what’s going on if there’s going to be such a melee over it. But…

[Jay]

Man, I just learned something. I didn’t know that DHS was that big. You are absolutely right. I have it pulled up here. What falls under DHS? USCIS, the Coast Guard, US Customs and Border Protection, that’s the CBP. US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. So what is that? CISA is what they call that. FEMA falls under it. FLETC falls under it. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers falls under it. ICE falls under that. The Secret Service falls under that. And the TSA. That is huge. Oh, wait a minute. DHS Management and Science and Technology Directorate. This is huge. This is an absolutely gigantic arm of the government there.

[MCG]

All right, well, I’ll just conclude by saying, hey, I’m saddened for the loss of life, and I would hope that things have turned out differently. But in this bunker situation that we saw happening, I’ll go through the situation that we saw happening. I think there’s a lot of blame to go around, but I sadly have to put some at the feet of Alex Pretty as well. And I wish the agents would have reacted a little bit differently, you know? And maybe things would have turned out a little bit differently, but I think to be fear-minded, there’s a lot of folks that could have done things differently. Anyways, you’re listening to the Removing Barriers podcast. We are in the middle of another bonkers episode. We’ll be right back.

[Jay]

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[MCG]

All right, Jay, well, why don’t we start talking about your favorite former host, Don Lemon? up this iteration for us.

[Jay]

No, I think for this one, you should probably take most of it because I’m not sure I could talk about this particular thing without losing my mind.

[MCG]

All right, so…

[Jay]

I mean, I’ll set it up, but just be prepared. I’m not going to say much. Okay, so Don Lemon, I think everyone knows what’s going on here, but Don Lemon was recently arrested and taken into custody for partaking in a protest that that actually took place inside of a church building while services were taking place. They disrupted the service in order to protest ICE. They actually walked into the church building, disrupted the service to protest ICE.

[MCG]

All right, so remember, let’s give a little bit more information here. They went into a church in St. Paul’s. Minnesota Minnesota to protest because they believed it has not been confirmed if this is true right but they believe the pastor or one of the pastor of the church was the ICE director for that area something to that effect so they went in the church as you said what a surface to go on to protest in in the middle of the service.

[Jay]

Yes, and so this was a Southern Baptist church in Minnesota that they protested in. And you’re right, the reason that they did that was because they believed that the pastor, one of the pastors, one of the pastors. was a director or involved with ICE and whatever. Even if he had worked for ICE 20 years ago, they probably would have done the same thing. Anyhow, there was about three dozen protesters that entered this church. It’s called the City Church in St. Paul. During a Sunday service, some walking right up to the pulpit, and they were chanting, ICE. ice out, ice out, and they were saying Renee Good’s name over and over, chanting it, because she had been killed on January 7th. And the pastor that was preaching at the time, or at least that was behind the pulpit at that time, his name is David Easterwood. And apparently, he does lead the local ICE field office. I don’t see, outside of liberal sources, I don’t see any confirmation that this is the case. Maybe I just need to dig a little bit deeper. But apparently, he leads the field ICE office, and one of the leaders of the protest are prominent activists, one named Nekima Levy-Armstrong, and the other, we’ll get to that person in a moment. But what makes this very interesting is that Armstrong says that she’s an ordained pastor, too. And so because you had a pastor, a Southern Baptist pastor that’s apparently ICE field, you know, leader, the head of the ICE field office, she felt that as a pastor, as a leader, that was inappropriate. You shouldn’t be supporting it. It’s not Christian, it’s this other or the other. She sets up this protest, marches into the building, walks right up to the pulpit, along with a few dozen others, and disrupt the service. The people, the congregants, were frozen in their chairs. I saw that a few were prevented from leaving, or at least they were obstructed or it was difficult to do so, but I don’t think there was an organized effort to keep them in the church. I think it was more like, hey, that person just happened to be standing in the way. Children were crying because they were startled and upset by the loud noises and the chanting and all these different things taking place in there. And so, anyhow, there’s apparently a Baptist convention of that area. It’s called the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention. They spoke about what happened and they said that it was an unacceptable trauma, saying that the service was forced to end prematurely and that the protesters actually shouted insults and accusations at everyone, youth, children, families, people sitting in the pew. Everyone got it from these protesters, which I can actually see on the video. And so he’s been arrested because his argument is that he was there covering the protest as a journalist, but there is proof Well, at least we believed we would characterize it as proof that he not only knew what they were about to do, but facilitated their doing it and supported them in their doing it.

[MCG]

All right.

[Jay]

So that’s why one of the reasons he was arrested.

[MCG]

I have some clip of the happenings, but I’ll say this first. I’ve thought about this and I imagine if this would happen at my church, what would I do? And for a while, everything that came to mind ended with me being led out by the local PD in connected bracelets. So I figure I need to figure out a way of what I would do without crossing over to become friendly with the local PDs, you know, so I imagine the doors were closed. I don’t know. At my church, 10, 15 minutes after the service started, I think the doors automatically closed. I don’t think they got there early. So I don’t know if the doors are closed or not. Some people don’t close their door. This is off topic, but if you look at the weather that morning, most churches in the south probably would be closed anyway, because that was a snowy day. It was actually still snowing when they got there. And so I guess Minnesota, St. Paul’s is a different beast. But anyways, I I imagine the doors were closed. I don’t know if they’re presenting themselves as worshipers and they got let in. I don’t know how they actually get in. I think the first thing that we need to do is to protect children, the elderly and the ones that are vulnerable. Of course, the service has to end the service and try to get people out of the building. I’m in a leadership position at my church, so I probably would get my family out and probably stay just because if I’m needed for whatever witness gathering or whatever the case may be. I think I’ll definitely get my family to a safe place. I don’t know if they didn’t have like a children wing or something where the kids could have been isolated from this. I don’t know. I’m not passing judgment. I’m just spitballing here and comparing it to my church and what we probably would do. The best thing here is to prevent the entry because once they get in, I don’t know if there’s much you can do legally to get them out besides calling the local PD and have them trespass them off the property. I don’t know. What would I do? It depends. If they interfere with me and my family, then maybe all hell might break loose. If not, and it’s just verbal abuse or whatever the case may be, and I can get my family out and I stay or whatever the case may be, I’ll prefer doing that. Hopefully I’ll have something like a pepper spray or something that maybe I can bless the deserving with some hot sauce. But I don’t know. I think the most up to the mouth part of this is maybe keeping them out. if they arrive late enough with the doors already locked and you see a crowd of people coming in. But to me, they didn’t present themselves as maybe protesters or writers until they get in. So who knows? So I’m not passing the judgment on cities, church. I’m just wondering what I would do. And for most part, I think the best thing to do is maybe to keep them out. But that’s me Monday morning quarter bargain. Anyways, I’m going to jump into some of this stuff Don Lemon was saying, and then we can comment on the videos. But I do, and I’m glad that not only the so-called journalists that were there and the leader, Miss Armstrong and some others, I’m glad they have been arrested and charged because you don’t want to set this as a precedent for anything else. And a lot of folks are being hypocritical, especially those on the left, because if this was a mosque, this was an abortion clinic, this was any other places that is protected by the Faith Act, I’m gonna get to the Faith Act a little bit later, it would be a different ballgame, but because this is a permanently white church, And a Christian church, they don’t have a problem with it, regardless of who they imagine the pastor would be, whether or not he’s a part of ICE or not. Anyways, here’s Don Lemon interviewing the pastor. Actually, you know what? Before I do that, I’m going to kind of play a mini audio of the events and hear what Don Lemon has to say.

[Don Lemon Audio]

This is the beginning of what’s going to happen here. When you violate people’s due process, when you pull people off the street and you start dragging them and hurting them and not abiding by the Constitution, When you start doing all of that, people get upset and angry. And if you remember what the civil rights movement was about, the civil rights movement was about these very kinds of protests. And for some reason, in our modern era, people think that in order to have protests, you’ve got to be, you know, cordoned off to a certain area and, you know, what time you can protest. There’s nothing in the Constitution that tells you what time you can protest. You can protest at any time. That’s the whole point of it. It’s to disrupt. It’s to make uncomfortable. And that’s what they’re doing. And that’s what I believe when I say everyone has to be willing to sacrifice something. You have to make people uncomfortable in these times. If you see how uncomfortable people uncomfortably and how harsh people are being treated on the streets, you have to be willing to go into places and disrupt and make people uncomfortable.

[MCG]

Actually, that wasn’t a mini clip of it that was actually making people uncomfortable. And the chanting you hear in the background is actually the folks in the church chanting. And he’s saying, we should make people uncomfortable. You don’t have a right to protest or exercise your so-called First Amendment on private property. A church is private property. True, on a Sunday morning, when the doors are open, Sunday night, midweek service, when the doors are open, the public can come in. but it’s only open to you for a certain purpose. Just like Walmart. You can’t go to Walmart and do anything you want because it’s open to the public. They can ask you to leave their property because it’s a private property. But if you go there to shop, they will allow you to come in and shop. If you come to the church to worship, they’ll allow you to come in and worship. But if you go to come in and protest, it’s a private property, you can ask you to leave. So no Don Lemon. The Constitution didn’t give you the right to go into a church. There’s a place, manner, and time ruling from the Supreme Court. I’m going to get into that later when I play a clip from a lawyer that will tell you this. But anyway, here’s the mini event that I talked about earlier that I didn’t play.

[Don Lemon Audio]

Operation that is a secret that they invited folks out.

[MCG]

This is Operation Pull Up, more of a clandestine operation. So, that’s Ms. Armstrong talking about his clandestine operation. And, as they say, your secret, basically pretending like he didn’t know. But, anyways.

[Don Lemon Audio]

Operation that is a secret that they invited folks out.

This is Operation Pull Up, more of a clandestine operation.

We show up somewhere. They don’t expect us to come there. And then we disrupt business as usual. So, right now, it’s kind of mayhem. We’re not part of the activists, but we’re here just reporting on them. Did they explain to you why they’re here?

They did not.

[Don Lemon Audio]

They said that there is someone here in Easterwood, someone who is a member of ICE, and he’s a pastor of the church.

Our church had gathered for worship, which we do every Sunday. We asked them to leave, and they obviously have not lived.

So this is what the First Amendment is about, about the freedom to protest. There’s a varying array of views in this church on politics of immigration. Recognize the complexity of the issue. This shows you just how divided America is. When you look at the protesters here, and then you look at the people there praying, and you know what was an interesting thing? If these two groups could just get together, they figure out what to do. I don’t necessarily agree with everything that’s going on in the Twin Cities right now, but I don’t think it’s good to fight fire with fire. I think it’s good to speak up. I think it’s good to protest, but I think it’s better to do it in a peaceful way. Yeah, that was interesting to watch. This guy here, hugging his kid. And, you know, I imagine it’s uncomfortable and traumatic for the the people here, they think you lost and this didn’t accomplish anything, and you went into their house, the house of the Lord. The reality is the house of the Lord is a place where love lives. It’s not a place where you can have a pastor masquerading as the director for the field office of ICE in St. Paul.

[MCG]

Yes, so there you have it. Don Lemon, I think he knew he was trying to cover in his tracks and, oh, we’re not a part of it, what the case may be. Well, you were caught on video saying you know what they’re doing, but you’re not telling us. And I have another one. I’m just going to play this other one. Just get you the…

[Don Lemon Audio]

Okay, so we are…

[MCG]

And just to set this up, this is them in the car after he hugged and kissed Miss Armstrong, who’s the organizer of this and everything I did saying, how come you’re not going to say where they’re going? But in the car, he indicated that he knew. Anyways.

[Don Lemon Audio]

Okay, so… We are here. Now, do you think if you just had it, I think maybe if you just have it on the church, but if they see me, they’re gonna know. No.

I don’t, it just depends.

What? Don’t name the location. I’m not blaming name the location, but I mean, I’m just wondering if you see me. I mean, the folks inside are the congregants really on live instead of in service right now. No, but they’ll be like, why is Don Lemon here? Sunday morning church. Yeah. Okay. We’ll see. Well, what else? It’s Sunday. We already said the church. No, we didn’t. Yes, you said it. No, I did. I did not. We were saying in that church is going on during Sunday.

[MCG]

Okay.

[Don Lemon Audio]

That’s what we said.

[MCG]

Bro. So as you can see from that, clearly he knew what they were going to do. Clearly he was planning. And the reason why he didn’t go in initially, because the other video showing that he waited outside until he heard the service disrupted, then he went in. But from this video, from this audience as I played, well, I pulled the order from the video, indicated to me that the reason why he didn’t went in with everybody at first was because he was feared to be recognized.

[Jay]

Recognized, right. Not that he would be recognized, that the recognition would tip them off to what was about to happen and ruin everything.

[MCG]

Right. Firstly, how full of himself.

[Jay]

That anyone would care.

[MCG]

Like, I’m so famous. Anyways, I’m gonna leave that there.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[MCG]

But he’s, to me, a scumbag because he look at a child, be traumatized and say, trauma is a part of it. And a situation like this where you wish sometimes the laws will be a little bit more like the Wild Wild West, where you can…

[Jay]

Where you could bring the hammer down a little bit.

[MCG]

Where you can go up and maybe punch somebody in their mouth. Right. Because it’s part of the law. I guess we have civilized a little bit from the days of the Lone Ranger.

[Jay]

The Lone Ranger.

[MCG]

But anyways, to me, he’s a scumbag. And the sad part about all this, except for Miss Armstrong and the others that clearly organized this, The ones that are claiming under the banner of being a journalist and they didn’t know, I think there’s enough reasonable doubt for them to get off, sadly.

[Jay]

I can’t say anything about this without becoming heated. So I think all I can say is they knew exactly what they were doing. They are despicable for doing it. That was a line that they never should have crossed. And this is why, maybe I should be careful about saying this, but okay, let me say it like this. People wonder why More and more people are drifting toward the Christian nationalists, the Catholics, that organized structure that has a means to wield the sword, the means of having a Christian wield the sword against this kind of just foolishness. It makes a lot of sense why people will gravitate toward that. I think a lot of people are wondering, well, why are so many of the men that are becoming more and more conservative are going more the Catholic route, or maybe they’re going the Christian nationalist route, or the more they’re going more the Anglican route or Orthodox or whatever. I think it’s because of that, because there’s a structure there for wielding the sword. And in a situation like this, the only reason the left would behave like that is because they know they’ll face no repercussions. They won’t face repercussions from people that were in the service. They won’t face repercussions from the pastors and the leaders of that flock. And they probably won’t face any repercussions, like you said, from the justice system. And so why not do it? Look, Don Lemon was arrested and he got the perp walk and, well, they didn’t get the perp walk. He was arrested like at 4 o’clock in the morning and they snagged him early in the morning. But he was arrested and he’s been released. So they just made him a lot of money. He’s going to go write books about it and go on a media tour about it and talk about how I hope Trump is attacking me because I’m a journalist nonsense. And so he’s going to make a gazillion bucks off of this. And I don’t think anyone will be held to account for the atrocity that actually happened there. And I know that, you know, many people disagree with me, but there comes a time where the foot and the hammer need to come down and it’s okay for Christians to use force. I know that leaves a nasty taste in people’s mouth, because when you think of Christians using force, the first thing people think of is things like the Crusades and all of that. I understand that, but it seems to me that if people come to your house to start something, it only seems reasonable to finish it. or to at least stop them from what they’re doing. I don’t think that ceding the ground to these people is necessarily the right way. And that seems to be what happened in the video. Granted, we don’t know what happened afterward. We don’t know what mechanisms were put into place, what protection measures were put into place. We don’t know what was done after the camera stopped rolling. But it seems to me that the response was a wee bit too mild. And perhaps I’m just not looking at this trick. I’d love the feedback on that.

[MCG]

I wouldn’t agree with that per se. I don’t think it’s right to compare it to entering your home unless your home at some point is open to the public. Most people homes are never open to the public. So you can’t just decide you’re going to come in and walk in and protest. That’s a good way to be shot in the great US of A. The church, while also a private property, is at certain point of the week open to the public for a purpose. Of course, it didn’t come for that purpose. That’s why I say the greatest thing that we can do is preventing them from getting in, because once they get in, now it’s local PD that needs to come and take them out. Obviously, if they’re harming anybody or physically doing anybody any harm or stuff like that, the men of the church definitely need to step in there. And that’s something definitely that I would expect and I am willing to do if they needs be, especially if it’s towards children and the elderly. But To a certain point, if they’re in the church and they’re chanting and whatever the case may be, the pastor dismisses the service, the men of the church may be surrounded them or something or make something to protect members and whatever the case may be. But at that point, you need a local PD because… Sadly enough, criminals have rights too. So.

[Jay]

The same local PD that’s been told to stand down. The same local PD.

[MCG]

Maybe in Minnesota, think about it.

[Jay]

Not just.

[MCG]

It wasn’t Minneapolis, this was St. Paul. So.

[Jay]

Not just Minnesota.

[MCG]

St. Paul’s, it was a little bit more, let’s put it in, St. Paul’s is not Minneapolis. The police probably would have been a little bit more heavy in St. Paul’s than in Minneapolis. Minneapolis, the police is basically, for lack of a better word, sissified. But in St. Paul’s, it’s a little bit different. They don’t share a police department, as far as I know. But anyways, All that. Here’s Don Lemon, the last one I have with Don Lemon.

[Don Lemon Audio]

Okay.

[MCG]

Interviewing the pastor. The pastor asked him to leave. So at minimum, he’s trespassing, but that’s a state crime.

[Don Lemon Audio]

What do you think of this?

I mean, this is unacceptable. It’s shameful. It’s shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship. What?

But there were folks.

I have to take care of my flaw. Listen, we live in a.

There’s a constitution in the First Amendment to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest.

We’re here to worship. We’re here to worship Jesus. because that’s the hope of these cities. That’s the hope of the world is Jesus Christ.

I’m very respectful. Please don’t push me, though.

We’re here. We’re here to worship Jesus. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re here. That’s what we’re about.

What do you think Jesus would be understanding?

And we’re about love these folks. We’re about spreading the love of Jesus.

But did you try to talk to them as a Christian?

Is willing to talk? OK, I have to take care of my church and my family. So I asked if you actually. would also leave this building. You don’t want us to… I’m always worship. I’m a Christian. We’re here to worship. We’re here to worship. Okay.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

[MCG]

So, again, it’s annoying, insufferable. He is. The pastor asked him to leave. He’s trespassing. And the thing that annoys me even more It’s the fact that he’s the one who go up to the pastor, stick a microphone in the pastor’s face.

[Jay]

Leaning into him.

[MCG]

Well, he didn’t even have a microphone. He’s one of those small little stuff.

[Jay]

Right, like the little microphones that podcasters use, like the little clip on.

[MCG]

Clip on microphone, he’s sticking in the pastor’s face and you tell him not to touch him. You know, I heard a black pastor in North Carolina said, Don Lemon, come, to my church. You see what happened. Again, I don’t think this rise to the level where you need to put hands on people. But There’s sometimes in my mind, sometimes, and this is illegal, so don’t do it, and I won’t do it. I myself won’t do it. But sometimes people just need a **** whooping, man. You know, I think about these old time TV where the bad guy lose and the good guy always win. And at the end, the bad guy want to fight. And the good guy say, okay, come on, fight and give him a good **** whooping. if it was legal to do so, I wouldn’t even object for him to get a good **** women.

[Jay]

Just presenting yourself as though you’re just trying to document it, trying to chronicle it, trying to understand what’s happening, when in reality you’re an agitator. You’re A passive-aggressive agitator. And then trying to throw the person’s face back at them. Wouldn’t you just want to talk to these people? Wouldn’t talk to who? The people that are shouting the house down? How do you talk to people like that? It’s insane. And anyone, okay, as you said, Sadly, I don’t think anything’s going to come of this. I don’t think anyone will be held to account. I would be surprised if it did. I think that I could just take the fact that these people were arrested and just smile at that, because that’s just about all we’re going to get from that.

[MCG]

All right, so let’s jump into this part, though. Do you think that he was protected by the First Amendment? Because the irony of this all, While violating others’ First Amendment right, he’s claiming protection for his own First Amendment. Not only that, I know I asked you the question, but not only that, he claimed, oh, I’m a member of the press. I’ve been a member of the press for the last 30 years. The First Amendment does not give a profession rights. The First Amendment give the people the right. So whether or not you can claim, I’m a member of the press, anybody can be a member of the press. Everybody have the same protection. They don’t have to be working. They don’t have to be independent press, whatever case may. Anybody can be depressed because all of us are protected with the First Amendment.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[MCG]

So claiming you’re a member depressed, violating other’s First Amendment rights while trying to be under the protection of First Amendment just doesn’t fly with me.

[Jay]

Well, you brought up the Face Act, right? So to answer your question, is he protected by the First Amendment? I would say no. You don’t have, no, I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t think that you can use your First Amendment rights to impede someone else’s First Amendment right. If you have the First Amendment right, because the argument there would be, if you have the First Amendment right to protest during a private worship service, then I guess the Second Amendment, I could exercise my Second Amendment right.

[MCG]

Nah, I don’t think so, but.

[Jay]

So, okay, the FACE Act. You’re going to go into the FACE Act.

[MCG]

We’ll get to it, but I do have an audio from William Kirk. He runs a YouTube channel called Washington Gun Law, but he does talk about other stuff. So he… gave a pretty good breakdown of the law at least for people who may be on the right who would think that Don Lemon violated their face act and also not only the face act but there’s another he was charged with 18 US code 241 conspiracy against rights so he was charged with violation of the face act and conspiracy against right as I said 18 US code section 241 funny enough that law come into being to prevent the KKK from burning churches.

[Jay]

Wow.

[MCG]

Because conspiracy against rights, preventing black folks from worshiping and whatever the case may be. So they charge him with this. So the irony of it, the woke Dan Lemon is being charged with a law that was placed.

[Jay]

In place for the KKK. If you need any more indication that you’re on the wrong side of history, there you go.

[MCG]

Anyways, here’s what William Kirk.

[William Kirk]

Now, as a very important side note and the reason we’re doing this, is a copy here of the federal indictment against Don Ronaldo Lamon under 2 counts. The first count…

[MCG]

Yeah, we should be calling Lamon, indeed….is.

[William Kirk]

A violation of 18 United States Code Section 241 Conspiracy against rights. And by the way, when you’re pleading conspiracy, you usually have to also plead at least one overt act, one act that a person took in order to accomplish the criminal activity. The federal government here has pled 29 overt acts in the indictment.

[MCG]

All right, before he continues, let me just read part of the that conspiracy against act. It says if two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any state, territory, commonwealth, possession, or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States or because of his having to exercise the same, we go on and say if two more persons go into disguise on the highway or on the premises of another would intend to prevent or hinder the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege I’m not going to read all of it, but the last paragraph I read, they shall be fined under the title of imprisonment no more than 10 years or both. And if death results from the act committed is in violation of this section, or if such acts include kidnapping or attempt to kidnap, aggregator sexual assault or attempt to commit, aggregator sexual assault or attempt to kill, they shall be fined under the title or imprisonment for any terms of years or for life or both, or may be sentenced to death. So therefore, what Dundamon is facing here is at least 10 years in prison if he’s convicted on the first part of the conspiracy act go ahead and read the face act because he also was charged with a face act.

[Jay]

Okay so this is according to Wikipedia just as a summary of what the face act is well.

[MCG]

You see if you find the actual law because it’s part two of the face act that he violated not the first part because the first part of the face act has to do with abortion clinics and stuff like that can’t prevent people from entering and doing that.

[Jay]

Okay so part two where it says by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction intentionally injures intimidates or or interferes with, or attempts to injure, intimidate, or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship, or, and then the third part goes into a facility for reproductive health rights. So it’s the second part.

[MCG]

That he violated.

[Jay]

That he violated. Right. Okay.

[MCG]

All right. Let me continue ruling. Those are the two things he’s been charged with, the Faith Act and the conspiracy of rights.

[Jay]

Just real quick, you want to go into the penalties real quick before William Kirk says something.

[MCG]

Yeah, but I think the penalty for the misdemeanor for the first offense. So that’s less than one year. So the real serious stuff is the conspiracy of rights.

[Jay]

Okay.

[MCG]

Yeah.

[William Kirk]

And there’s also a violation of 18 United States Code Section 248, also known as the FACE Act. Which means for those of you who geeked out on this video right here, we told you so because actually we said there were three potential statutes under which he could be cited and he has in fact been charged under two of those. Now everyone who’s coming to Don Lemon’s defense is saying that this is an attack on the freedom of press. That the freedom of press means that journalists, even Don Lemon, get to go do whatever they want, wherever they want, however they want. Is that true? Is the First Amendment absolute? Because we hear all the time from those that are proposing gun control that the Second Amendment is not absolute, is the First Amendment absolute? The answer is no, it is not. As a matter of fact, over the course of decades and decades of Supreme Court case law, there is a very well-delineated restriction on all First Amendment activities. But the restriction must always be limited to time, place, or manner. And these restrictions are born out of the reality that although First Amendment activity is immensely important, if we allow it to occur anytime, anyplace, anywhere, then it has the ability to literally break down governmental operations, destroy infrastructure, destroy streams of commerce. For example, if you wanted to protest against something the school board had done, barging into your children’s elementary school during school hours would not be an appropriate time, place, or manner for that activity. It’s not that the activity itself is regulated, but where it occurs, how it occurs, and when it occurs can be regulated to some degree.

[MCG]

No, that totally makes sense to me. And when Dan Lamar was talking to her at, oh, well, People need to be uncomfortable and disrupted, and whatever the case may be, and civil rights, blah, blah, blah, what he was saying. I think the time, place, and manner absolutely makes sense. And clipping quote, hit the nail right on the head there. Because otherwise, people are going to do whatever they want to do. So what will stop me from going on the White House lawn to protest? I have the First Amendment right. Why is it that you can walk into a church and protest whenever you want to? No, I think the time, place, and manner situation is very important here and I think he hit the nail on the head. Sure.

[William Kirk]

And although there was a litany of case law that began to develop it, was more firmly established in the matter of Hague versus CIO in 1939. and then absolutely and clearly delineated in the matter of Ward versus Rock Against Racism in 1989. And in fact, that latter case is what is known as the Ward test, because if we are going to restrict free speech activity, like, yeah, okay, you want to be a journalist, you believe you have the freedom of the press, you do. But does that mean you get to barge in with protesters during a religious service on a Sunday by people who are just trying to exercise their First Amendment right and forcibly interview the pastor? Let me give you another example. Let’s say you are a journalist who is immensely pro-life. and you decided that you were going to barge into an abortion clinic and try to forcefully interview patients sitting in the waiting room. Now, here’s the difference, is that the act of getting an abortion is actually not a constitutional right by recent case law. However, there’s no doubt about it that every single person in that waiting room has a First Amendment right of privacy in their medical records. So, Would we support that sort of interview? No, because the time, the place, and the manner actually violates the patient’s constitutional rights and privacy, and therefore, that can be restricted. And by the way, you see this in everyday laws. Take, for example, permitting requirements for parades that can only be done on certain days or certain times. How about noise ordinances, which will actually restrict you from making a certain amount of noise during certain hours of each day? Banning signs on utility poles or any other type of commercial speech which could block street signs and thus endanger motorists or pedestrians. And this is the big thing. Any time you’re going to try to restrict free speech. Like, let’s just say, okay, we don’t really necessarily want to have protesters barging into a religious service, and we don’t want some journalist coming in and claiming that he’s operating Under the First Amendment protection of a free press, in order to restrict that, there is a thing known as the Ward Test, and the Ward Test goes like this: The restriction must be content-neutral. It can’t be based on the message or the viewpoint, only the circumstances of it. Which, again, no one has a problem with what the folks were doing in Minnesota. The problem is where and when they chose to do it. The restriction must advance a significant government interest. It has to serve an important public goal, like public safety, preventing traffic jams, not just censoring speech. or the public interest of allowing every parishioner to exercise their First Amendment right of free religion. It has to be narrowly tailored. The rule can’t be overly broad. It must be specific enough to achieve its goal. Well, if the restriction is, hey, we don’t want you coming inside the church during church services, but what happens out on the sidewalks on the public street is a free-for-all, and that everyone can protest as much as they want, and the journalists out there can try to do interviews, well, then we’re talking about a very narrowly tailored restriction. We have limited it to a specific place during a specific time. And, of course, there has to be ample alternative channels. That means there must be other ways for this First Amendment activity to occur, which, again, There is no allegations that they were not allowed to protest in the parking lot, on the sidewalk, across the street, or engage in any of their journalistic activities in any of those locations. And for all of you who’ve suddenly become not only First Amendment experts, but rabid supporters of the First Amendment protections of a free press, let me remind you that the entire purpose behind time, place, and manner restrictions is to preserve public order. Because if we didn’t have time, place, or manner restrictions, we could end up with, I don’t know, protesters on a freeway. We could end up with protesters.

[MCG]

That’s a good point.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[MCG]

We already have protesters on the freeway.

[Jay]

They’re called just top oil.

[MCG]

Not just top oil. They’re called George Ford protesters. They’re called ICE protesters in LA. It’s already happening.

[William Kirk]

Banging on pots and pans all hours of the night, regardless of the peace and sanctity of any of the neighbors in the area. We could end up with people claiming to be journalists just intentionally injecting themselves into violent confrontations with ICE officers. Or worse yet, you could end up with someone claiming to be a journalist who intentionally and maliciously interrupts a church service. So was Don Lemon’s activity protected by the First Amendment protections of a free press? No, it was not. Just like all of those protesters activities was not protected by their First Amendment right of free expression. That is not how the First Amendment works. Does the First Amendment give you a ton of freedoms? It most definitely does, and it does that by design. But are there restrictions based upon time, place, and manner? There always has been, and there always will be, and that’s the only way we can ever hope to have some semblance of public order.

[MCG]

All right, so in.

[Jay]

To become a lawyer so I can learn to talk good like that. He explained that perfectly.

[MCG]

Well, I agree with him, but I also think that it’s going to be very difficult to convict Don Lemon and the other four folks that were there that claimed to be journalists, because he at least did say in his video, I’m not a part of them, even though I think they’re strong evidence to show that he was and he knew. But would I like to see him in jail for 10 years because of the conspiracy of act? Hopefully not. And I don’t think he would get 10 years. If he does get convicted, I would say one or two years should cool him down a little bit and put the fear of punishment into others that will think about disrupting a church service. But here’s some things I hate about everything that happened. The first one is that the first judge they took it to denied them. He didn’t see that they have a claim here. They took it to the judge above him. They got denied again. They took it all the way up with the appellate court. Appellate court said, hey, this is premature. Why are you bringing this to me? We don’t take stuff like this. And then they finally take it to the grand jury, and the grand jury allowed them to go and arrest Don Lemon. To me, it was almost like we’re going to get him at any cost, even though I personally, within myself, believe that he should be arrested. But I think they probably went too far on this, trying to get it, have to be denied. Who knows, maybe the judge…

[Jay]

Will that hurt their chances of…

[MCG]

I don’t know. Their chances are hurt just because it happened in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where they’re going to find 12 reasonable people. I don’t think.

[Jay]

No, St. Paul.

[MCG]

Yeah, but it’s federal, so. Oh.

[Jay]

I see.

[MCG]

Right. The jury pool is spread out a little bit more. But even so, in Minnesota, I don’t think there are 12 reasonable people in the whole state of Minnesota, much less to…

[Jay]

They’re there, they’re just not saying anything.

[MCG]

To have a jury.

[Jay]

Porsols.

[MCG]

Anyway, I’m just, I’m just kidding. People from Minnesota, I’m sure there’s probably 13 of you. Anyways, I’m just saying. out of a jury pool up there, they’re going to get a whacker one day, they’re going to say, oh, he was a journalist, let him go. Who knows? I do believe that he violated this stuff. Secondly, I don’t like the fact that the White House actually put out the tweets, begot Don Lemon or what the case may be, still out of it. Stay out of date. Make it at least look like that people did investigation, present a strong case to the grand jury, and the grand jury, without politics and interference, decided that he should be arrested and in charge. But no, the White House had to put out something. And I just didn’t like that. I didn’t like it when Joe Biden inserted himself into the January 6th thing. I don’t like it when Trump inserted himself into all these things. Just stay out of it. Let the rule of law. But in conclusion, do I think he violated the conspiracy of rights and the Faith Act? I certainly do. But do I think he’s going to be convicted? I think he’s going to be an uphill battle for the persecution. Because, yeah, a politics one and two, just everything that’s going on.

[Jay]

Although I will say this, I think you’re right to say that every Christian and every local church body should be looking at this and wondering, okay, not wondering, start developing a plan. What do we do if this comes to our doorstep? What do we do if this comes to our congregation? It’s probably a good idea to have an incident before that happens.

[MCG]

That’s true because I think a lot of time we in churches, we think about mass shooting. Someone coming in and shooting and what the case may be, how do we isolate, how do we do a lockdown and all this stuff. Right. But I don’t think sometimes we think about it in between. And it’s similar for self-defenders. You normally think about the extreme, what happened if someone happened, but do you have something between a harsh word and a gun? Lot of the competition you’re going to be in is not going to call for a gun. It’s going to call for maybe pepper spray. or walk away a cool head. maybe a lot of the confrontation in our church is not going to call for. Gandhi’s going to call for a walk away, call in the cops so that they can come and clear the building and whatever the case may be. I don’t know, but… At least for this, this kind of opened my eyes of different things that could happen in churches because I never thought about someone coming in and disrupting the service or group of people. If there’s one or two, the men of the church can kind of gently lead that person out. But if it’s three dozen, four dozen people, that’s a little bit more difficult. You want to be within the law with whatever response you give because you don’t want to be led out with connected bracelets by the local PD. Anyways, I think we can leave that right there. As we do in every bunkers, This is not the usual way we do bunkers, but as we do in every bunkers, I think we can make changes in our society, not through politics, not through fruitless and stupid protests like Don Lemon did with his group, but I think we can make a difference in our society. by preaching the word of God, seeking to win soul one by one. I think Christians need to be salt and light in this world. There’s so much we are failing at in terms of evangelism, in terms of winning people, that our country is becoming more and more secular each day, more and more whatever the case may be, anti-Christian day by day. And Christian seems to just be in the old little corner, enjoying their life, I guess, and not sharing the gospel that they should. So we’re just living right there. If you think the world is bonkers with us, go and tell someone else of the good news of Jesus Christ. Just being one beggar, telling another beggar where to find the bread. That’s the living bread of Jesus Christ.

[Jay]

This is the Removing Barriers podcast. If the podcast or the blog were a blessing to you, leave us a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform. And don’t forget to share the podcast with your friends. Removing Barriers, A Clear View of the Cross.

[MCG]

Thank you for listening. To get a hold of us, to support this podcast, or to learn more about Removing Barriers, go to removingbarriers.net. This has been the Removing Barriers podcast, we attempted to remove barriers so that we all can have a clear view of the cross.