The Weekly Wrap | ICE’s Plummeting Popularity, Breaking NATO & Trump Teases the Insurrection Act

Welcome to The Weekly Wrap, Lincoln Square’s newsletter bringing you summaries and transcripts from our most important shows and interviews each week.

How Will RFK Jr.’s New Vax Schedule Impact Public Health? | Dr. Rob Davidson Joins Susan J. Demas

Vaccines have saved the lives of countless Americans and people across the world. They keep children from debilitating diseases like measles, mumps, and hepatitis – a true miracle of modern medicine. Those vaccines are under attack by RFK Jr. with the CDC reducing the recommended vaccine schedule while some states are seeking to remove requirements altogether. Dr. Rob Davidson of Paging America joined Lincoln Square Executive Editor Susan J. Demas to discuss.

Susan J. Demas: We’re into 2026, the midterms are upon us this year — do you continue to see healthcare as being one of the driving issues for elections across the country?

Dr. Rob Davidson: Yeah. We thought in 2018 it was a massive wave year, and that was just because the Republicans held a vote. The House did, in 2017, pass a bill to repeal the ACA. The Senate famously didn’t do it by one vote because of the last minute John McCain thumbs down. So, even just flirting with gutting the ACA, they paid a political price. And now we’re looking at Trump’s second term, this midterm with a trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts for tax breaks for billionaires without passing the ACA subsidies.

Even if they dig something out of all this in the next month or two — and a number of people are gonna be stuck in state exchanges — they’re going to be stuck not being able to get health insurance, even if they retroactively pass something. I think that is huge. I think you saw after the Dobbs decision in 2022, that election was supposed to be a big red wave and it turned out to be kind of a nothing burger. The Dems retained control or maybe picked up a seat and retained control of the Senate.

See more of the discussion here.

CITIES FIGHT BACK: The Growing Movement Against ICE | California State Assemblyman Isaac Bryan Joins Sam Osterhout

Protests across the country are growing as ICE is being used to tighten the Trump regime’s grip on the country. The American people aren’t having it and they’re mobilizing. California State Assemblyman Isaac Bryan joined Sam Osterhout to discuss the growing protests.

Sam Osterhout: I think the public is tired, and I think moderates or people who weren’t paying attention – a lot of them are starting to pay attention because you’re having citizens killed. But when people, like me in the media, say this feels like a secret police force that’s being formed with zero accountability, with total power, total immunity.

Am I exaggerating that? Do you find your constituents are reading this moment correctly?

Isaac Bryan: I think you are under-describing it. See, a police force is manageable in size. What we have done is we have empowered the Trump administration, unknowingly, through the big beautiful scam to turn this into one of the world’s largest militaries. This isn’t a secret police. This is an unaccountable military with well over $100 billion. They have $900 million in bonuses that they are giving out for this terrorizing work that is happening to our communities.

Vice President J.D. Vance mentioned last week, the administration believes they have absolute immunity. I don’t even know what that term means for people that are supposed to be serving the people of this country. I don’t know when our laws were crafted to protect institutions at the expense of American citizens. We saw an American citizen murdered in her car, in front of her wife, in front of her dog, on the street that she lived on. And then we saw them deny physicians nearby the ability to render aid that could have potentially saved her life… this is a very scary time and folks need to wake up.

See more of the discussion here.

The New Gestapo Roving American Streets | Frank Figliuzzi Joins The Strategy Session

Remember when people who called out the danger of this were said to have “Trump Derangement Syndrome” for sounding the alarm? We were told to calm down and now we’re seeing ICE run wild on our city streets. Frank Figliuzzi joined Rick Wilson and Stuart Stevens to discuss this and more on The Strategy Session.

Stuart Stevens: There’s been these long-term trends in law enforcement of accountability, of transparency, of what gave us body cameras, to try and build faith, self-governance, that there’s not some conspiracy of silence. And this seems to just go back to the era of mistrust of police.

It reminds me of when I grew up in Mississippi and civil rights workers couldn’t trust the police. It turns out when Chaney and Goodman were turned over to the Klan by the deputy sheriff. And it took the FBI to come in and solve that. It just seems like, where do they think this ends?

Frank Figliuzzi: Rick has written recently about the difference between needing to stop this and needing for this to end. And I found the distinction very interesting because I think people who think ‘well, if we just vote the right way in the midterms, this will stop’. And maybe, but if I understand Rick’s point, it may not end. So ending requires pain and a lot more accountability than I think many people are ready for. Do I have that right? Where does this end?

Look, I know where Trump wants it to end. I truly believe, and boy, I’m the last one on board, that this is a strategy to mess with midterm elections, declare civil unrest, invoke the Insurrection Act, and put military boots on the ground, even seize voting machines.

Rick Wilson: Trump said it yesterday. He came out and said we should have ICE seize the voting machines. The National Guard wasn’t ready to do it. This is the predicate for his claim that ICE and DHS will have to supervise our elections. He’s looking for it right now. And Frank, thank you for the kind words on the piece. I wrote it yesterday and it’s called, This is How It Stops. This Is How It Ends.

Stopping this is civil action. It’s a legal action. It’s political pressure on DHS and ICE, but ending it is going to require that the architects of this unconstitutional effort not to throw immigrants out of the country, but to use a domestic law enforcement agency to stop free speech by Americans and to suppress the civil liberties and rights of Americans.

See more of the discussion here.

How MAGA Makes You Feel Like You Matter | First Draft with Author Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

Susan J. Demas was joined on this episode of First Draft by author Dr. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. Her new book The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us And Divides Us, examines how humans deal with a longing to matter. She spoke with Susan about her book and how it relates to Donald Trump’s presidency.

Susan J. Demas: I think that self-doubt plagues so much of us, especially writers, and it’s very easy to let that take over. The fact that you didn’t, I find very inspiring. It’s fascinating how the concept of the mattering map that you wrote about in your novel decades ago, you are now exploring that in a different way with this current book. I’m curious, as you’re going back to this subject, do you feel like individuals are locked into a type of heroic striver or transcender? Or do you feel like we can actually consciously redraw those maps as we age?

Dr. Newberger Goldstein: We can. We can do it. I, myself, did it when I was born into a very religious family — Orthodox Jewish. In fact, I went to a high school where we weren’t even encouraged to go on to college, but to get married and have children. So, one’s gender very much determines the course of your life. Until the age of 12, I believed everything and I felt that I was created for a particular purpose — that God himself had a plan for me or I wouldn’t be here.

That’s great for a sense of mattering. Like if I would violate some little law by not waiting long enough to have milk after meat, God himself was taking note. So there was a sense of some sort of cosmic mattering and it can be very terrifying, but it’s also a huge feeling of mattering.

We were strict Sabbath observers, of course. I was allowed to read, go to the public library and take books out for Sabbath. That’s pretty much all I did. My parents trusted the library that they wouldn’t let me take out any dirty books, but I came home one week with a book called, Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell. My parents said, “Okay, we don’t want you to be christian, you’re jewish.” Well, that book goes through all the arguments for God’s existence and he kind of picks them apart. And I had been very bothered by the existence of God, and that kind of liberated me. It was kind of my salvation.

But, I was no longer what I call a transcender, trying to look for my mattering in terms of God’s purpose for me. So I was like, “Okay, what do I do with my life now?” And what I realized I wanted to do was try to know everything.

See more of the discussion here.

The Insurrection Act & More on the Minneapolis ICE Shooting & Coverup | Protect & Serve with Michael Fanone & Maya May

Renee Nicole Good’s shooting by an ICE officer in Minneapolis has ignited a fire in the American people that has the president threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act. Michael Fanone & Maya May discuss the latest on this episode of Protect & Serve.

Maya May: We were talking before the show… they only have five, six hundred cops for the city of Minneapolis or something like that. They’d be vastly outnumbered (by ICE).

Michael Fanone: Yeah, that’s absurd. What I’m asking for and I think what people are asking for is to investigate crimes when they come about. Not every single ICE agent is committing a crime when they go out and try to enforce policy. We see a lot of brutality that’s happening. I think what’s clearly excessive force in a lot of cases, and I think what people are looking for is some degree of accountability. Somewhere to go to file a complaint that will be investigated. And if a crime was committed, somebody will be held accountable.

Right now, you have an agency that is completely unaccountable to the American people. They can do whatever the hell they want to do. They’re not answering to the American people. They’re not upholding the Constitution. They are Donald Trump’s personal militia and that goes against every principle of America. I think that most level headed Americans would agree with the idea of having law enforcement held accountable.

See more of the discussion here.

‘I Think We Are All F*ck ICE’ | Congressman Mark Pocan Joins Susan J. Demas

Mark Pocan, who represents Wisconsin’s 2nd district said what we are all feeling, Fuck ICE. These masked agents are terrorizing American cities and the Congressman made the clear connection to going door to door asking for papers like the Gestapo. Things are getting scary for people across the country and Rep. Mark Pocan joined Lincoln Square executive editor Susan J. Demas to discuss.

Susan J. Demas: I know there is another push to give ICE even more money as Congress is approaching another spending bill. Democrats are in the minority in both the House, where you’re at, and in the Senate.

Is there anything that you and your colleagues can do to delay or stop ICE spending?

Rep. Mark Pocan: Well, they’d have to pass a bill and Rosa DeLauro, the ranking member for the Appropriations Committee, has said not one dime more for ICE. Given the floor actions yesterday where they couldn’t even pass a bill and they had to pull their own bills that they scheduled, they don’t know how to govern.

Mike Johnson (R-LA) is clearly the weakest speaker in recent memory. I don’t see how they’ll ever get that bill to the floor for the end of the year. I don’t see how that doesn’t just wind up in some kind of a CR (continuing resolution) status because there’s too much public sentiment against them on this.

See more of the discussion here.

Is ICE an Heir to the Confederacy? | Steven Beschloss & Stuart Stevens LIVE

Could Andrew Johnson’s amnesty for Confederates be tied to the brutality of ICE raids in blue cities? Our country has failed to hold the powerful accountable for their crimes for centuries – from the Revolution through the Civil War and on to today. Steven Beschloss joined Stuart Stevens to discuss.

Stuart Stevens: Fortunately, there aren’t any states in America in which murder, kidnapping, and human trafficking are legal. So, every state attorney general and every state law enforcement has standing here to go against this. And to me, we’re going to need some coalition of attorneys general, sort of like they put together for the tobacco torch to finally bring down the tobacco companies to pay for that massive settlement.

They are going to have to decide how they’re going to proceed, who’s going to be prosecuted, what standing will they have to prosecute. Unless Stephen Miller is standing trial and Kristi Noem is standing trial, it will be a failure. And I think this is going to be a very tough thing for Democrats to do because they’re going to be accused of partisanship. And I think their response will be, “No, the Republican attorney general wants to join us.”

Steven Beschloss: Let’s hope so. I think one of the opportunities that’s happening now – opportunities and necessities – you have a lot of the state attorneys general, you have a lot of the governors, that have started to form different kinds of coalitions. There’s one for public health in response to the insanity of stripping away guidelines for the public and vaccines. I think there’s been a series of moves that a number of the governors and attorneys general have done – so maybe they’re building a little bit of that muscle around coalitions.

And surprisingly, they’re almost all blue state governors and attorneys general. You know, frankly, if that’s the way it plays out in 2029, you still have these other parts of the country that refuse to go along.

See more of the discussion here.

Trump’s Polling Collapse: Support for ICE Raids Is Tanking | Behind the Numbers with Rick & Andrew Wilson

Rick and Andrew Wilson are back with another episode of Behind the Numbers and this week they’re discussing not only the tanking numbers for ICE, but Trump’s worst impulses — to include the “taking” of Greenland.

Andrew Wilson: Trump wants the world’s largest island … This is sort of stunning in a lot of ways. You saw Don Bacon, the Republican from Nebraska, say that if Trump were to invade Greenland, there were grounds for impeachment on that. I still don’t think Trump’s going to invade Greenland necessarily, but this has put a strain on NATO and a strain on Americans in general — they don’t see this as something that’s worthwhile.

This is what blows me away about the whole argument. There’s never been a problem with Greenland. Even the mainstream media still sort of has that conceit that taking Greenland is some kind of national security policy. But that’s bullshit. We functionally own Greenland as a member of NATO. We have a military base there already. If we wanted to mine in Greenland, we would have to ask but that would be it.

Rick Wilson: And that is the whole thing. This is purely a backdoor way for Trump to break NATO on behalf of Vladimir Putin. And everybody who has ever experienced anything related to our defense presence there, we have a base called Puffick, it used to be called Thule.

It’s in the very, very, very, north of Greenland, which is even more inhospitable than the south of Greenland, which is pretty freaking inhospitable. There’s this fantasy that somehow Trump’s friends are going to go in there and mine rare earth minerals out of Greenland and that we have to stop the Chinese or the Russians from invading Greenland.

It’s pure fantasy, guys. It is absolute bullshit from top to bottom. I wrote a piece this week arguing that the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are being called upon to devise an invasion plan for Greenland, have to resign. They have to step down and say, “we’re not doing this. This will destroy NATO. It will make America less safe. It is an illegal order.” And I had a former Joint Chief, who I’ve known for 25 years, reach out to me and say it’s a good memo.

We’ll see if they have the stones to do it, because the people that are there now are not A-tier independent thinkers.

See more of the discussion here.