BEN STILLER

 

Trumpworld at War Over ICE as MAGA Erupts: “Race Traitor!”

 

Transcript: Trumpworld at War Over ICE as MAGA Erupts: “Race Traitor!”

With Trump advisers trading blame for ICE horrors even as MAGA figures demand more brutality, The Contrarian’s Jennifer Rubin explains how Democrats can exploit this moment to split the Trump coalition.

 

Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

There’s been a shift in media coverage of Donald Trump and ICE. What’s happening now is being treated as a real political crisis for the president. He’s treating it like one. He just demoted Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino and basically put him in a box. And Republicans are admitting to reporters that they’re in real trouble. Yet meanwhile, MAGA media figures are not just demanding that Trump continue on his current course—they’re demanding that he escalate the cruelty and brutality and carry out more atrocities against Americans. It’s now very clear that the Trump coalition is getting badly splintered by these ICE horrors. So how should Dems exploit this moment? We’re checking in with Jennifer Rubin, editor in chief of The Contrarian, who has a new piece arguing that Dems have a very rare opportunity that they mustn’t squander. Jen, good to see you.

Jennifer Rubin: Good to see you too.

Sargent: So here’s a sampling of headlines on Trump and immigration right now. Politico: “The GOP is losing one of its best issues.” New York Times: “On immigration, the GOP finds itself in a shocking place—on defense.” CNN: “Trump is scared of the politics of ICE and it’s showing.”

Jen, not long ago, we were still being told that Trump and the GOP are “strong” on immigration and that Democrats don’t dare engage on it. Funny how quickly this turned around, isn’t it?

Rubin: It really is. You and I, a lifetime ago—which was, I think, last summer when they were invading Los Angeles—told them that this was not a popular thing. People don’t like brutality. They don’t like these extreme measures. People may have voted to get rid of the “worst of the worst,” but they didn’t vote to get rid of grandma. They didn’t vote to have a five-year-old taken into custody, and they sure didn’t vote to have people murdered on the street.

So I think they have come around. But in fairness, Trump also overplayed his hand again and again. And that’s what he does. That is the big advantage that we have, is that he doesn’t know when to stop. He can’t stop himself. And as you pointed out, there’s some in his base that want him to double down again.

Sargent: Well, we’re going to get into a lot of that, but first let’s go through some of these Republicans who are sounding the alarm. Per Politico, Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt says what Trump is doing inside the border seems to be “not working.” New Jersey Republican Jose Arango, from a heavily Latino area, says, “We’re losing in the public relations campaign.” House Republican Glenn Grothman suggests that the latest ICE shooting is murder. And Texas Governor Greg Abbott, of all people, says it’s time to “recalibrate.”

Jen, Republicans are violating Trump’s first commandment, which is that you always portray Trump as formidable and dominant and never admit Trump is on the losing side of anything. What happened here with these Republicans?

Rubin: They are in panic. The elected Republicans—whether it’s Rand Paul, who now admits that Kristi Noem is a “despicable liar,” or whether it’s city mayors or governors or, frankly, members of Congress—are now running in the other direction. They see the polls, which are horrific. They saw what happened in 2025 in the election and they understand they have blown it.

According to Chris Murphy, whom I spoke to earlier today, his colleagues report that this past weekend they received the largest number of calls to their offices ever. And that’s considering healthcare, that’s considering COVID, a zillion other issues over the past decade or so. This has really touched a nerve and they are running scared.

Sargent: Yeah, I think you get at something important here, which still, I think, eludes a lot of people: that this is actually a really incendiary cultural moment as well. It’s extremely rare for low-information voters to pick up on what’s going on in politics. Like, most normal people—unlike you and me—don’t want anything to do with this shit. They can’t stand it. You and me, we love it. Because we’re crazy—but they aren’t.

And yet they are hearing all about this stuff day in and day out. They’re seeing videos of it. They’re seeing videos of Kristi Noem lie about it. They’re seeing videos of Stephen Miller call murder victims a “domestic terrorist” and worse. This is penetrating into information spaces where low-information voters hang out. And that, I think, has got people in a panic.

Rubin: Absolutely. We see reports that it’s in the gamer community. When you have people like Martha Stewart and Bruce Springsteen both coming out with—in one case, a statement and the other case, an anthem—then you know something is going on. It is a long time before politics gets into the popular culture, but you have now, I think, a phenomenon that is frightful for the GOP.

They have always thought they control the culture wars, but in fact, they control it in a very narrow stratum of their own base. And when it gets out to the population at large—when what Richard Nixon called the “silent majority” hear about this stuff—they don’t like it. There was just a poll out today from Pew. Trump’s approval ratings on everything from the economy to immigration are in the toilet.

And these people for the first time understand it is not in their interest to be tied to Trump at the hip. We can bemoan the fact that it took this long. We can bemoan the fact that they’re not motivated by morality or by the Constitution. But at some point, it does break through. And I think what we saw this week was a demonstration of what you and I have always known: politicians follow, they do not lead.

And when you have the entire country in an uproar, and when you have, as you say, these low-information voters suddenly activated, then and only then do Republicans get a clue. And so I think we are at this inflection point. And the question is what we do with it.

Sargent: Well, let’s talk about what MAGA media is doing right now, because they’re lurching violently in the other direction. They’re demanding more brutality. Media Matters had a good roundup. Here’s white supremacist Nick Fuentes talking about murder victim Alex Pretti:

Nick Fuentes (voiceover): You feel bad about this race traitor? If you’re out there throwing yourself in front of ICE to die for these dirt bags, let them. Let them. One less asshole in the world. One less traitor in the world.

Sargent: Here’s Megyn Kelly:

Megyn Kelly (voiceover): I know I’m supposed to feel sorry for Alex Preti, but I don’t. I don’t. Do you know why I wasn’t shot by Border Patrol this weekend? Because I kept my ass inside and out of their operations.

Sargent: Here’s Matt Walsh:

Matt Walsh (voiceover): The first conclusion is that Alex Pretti was part of an organized campaign to legally obstruct law enforcement operations on behalf of open borders communists who want to destroy the country. He was a domestic terrorist.

Sargent: Here’s Steve Bannon:

Steve Bannon (voiceover): President Trump, you’ve got that opening salvo...you should now invoke the Insurrection Act and flood the zone with troops, either federalized National Guard or good old bring in go to Fort Bragg where Todd Wood is and bring in the good old 82nd Airborne.

Sargent: So, Jen. There’s lots more like that. They actively want Trump to escalate. They want him to kill more liberals and more Democrats. Is there any other way to read that?

Rubin: No. It seems like just yesterday, by the way, anyone who said a harsh word about Charlie Kirk was fired, set upon by the media horde, and all the rest. Remember when we were hearing that the left is responsible for all of this vitriol and all of this violence? I guess we were right—it’s really projection on their part.

It is very interesting that even within the right-wing media space, you see a splintering. You have those characters, but you also have characters like Laura Ingraham, who suddenly reminds herself that she doesn’t really like DHS, which was this hodgepodge of entities, bureaus, ordinary and unordinary entities that were created and thrown together during the aftermath of 9/11.

So on one hand, Fox now sounds semi-normal at times as they’re panicked on behalf of Donald Trump. You have the bomb-throwers, literally and figuratively, who are egging this on. And by the way, we haven’t talked much about the Second Amendment crowd. Trump, of course, has made the mistake of very visibly throwing one of his key constituents under the bus. And that is the Second Amendment crowd.

We’ve gone from lionizing Kyle Rittenhouse to indicating—arguing—that Alex Pretti was a legitimate target because he had a licensed firearm in a state that permits concealed carrying.

Sargent: Right. If you lawfully carry a gun and you show up at a protest, God, you’re asking for it.

Rubin: Exactly. Well, you—you and I have not been in favor of concealed-carry laws for exactly this reason, but this is the world they created and now they don’t like it. Well, I think it’s this sort of infighting that will eventually destroy—I don’t even say the Republican Party, because the Republican Party doesn’t exist anymore, but the MAGA movement.

And the aim should be to exploit these divides, to widen the gap and get them pointing fingers at each other. You now have Kristi Noem pointing the finger at Stephen Miller, Stephen Miller backtracking and saying, “Well, maybe these people didn’t follow protocol after all.” [In doing this, Miller is in effect blaming Noem, since she runs DHS, and CBP is under DHS]. This is what we want. It’s usually that the finger-pointing is on the Democratic side. Republicans are notorious for being lockstep in unanimity with one another, but this is one of those instances where they won’t be. And Democrats have to exploit it. They have to push and push and push.

Sargent: Let’s talk about the nature of the schism here. I think it’s clear right now that those far-right voices represent real constituencies in the Trump coalition. And I think we need to be clear about this point: they want a violent race war. That’s what they mean when they say that stuff.

But these other Republicans who represent swing territory—or suburban or exurban areas—they want Trump’s crackdown to proceed without too much obvious violence. “Keep it clean, guys.” And without too much white nationalism making swing voters uncomfortable. That’s the split. What do you make of it?

Rubin: I think that’s right. And that’s the difference between Kristi Noem—slash—Stephen Miller on one side and Tom Homan on the other. Tom Homan is just as much of a white nationalist as the others, but he knows better than to say these things out loud after the murder of two individuals. So I think we shouldn’t kid ourselves that there are any moderate Republicans left, or any multicultural Republicans, or anyone on their side who really believes in democratic pluralism.

But they are absolutely panicked for exactly this reason. All those people whose quotes you read care about ratings. They don’t care about getting elected. And that’s the difference. Even people who are in, quote, “safe districts” understand that if you have a shift in the electorate as big as what we are seeing, there will be people who are swept out of power who they never imagined would be.

We are talking about congressmen who never had competitive races; we are talking about senators who never had competitive races—and they understand how bad this is for them. They don’t know how to compete other than in a closed-circuit universe where the media is all on their side, Republicans are all unified, and Democrats are either cowed or nonexistent. And once you get into competitive politics, lo and behold, many of them are now changing their tune.

Sargent: Well, so to your point about the need to exploit this moment to really exacerbate the split—which is a real one within MAGA—let’s talk about that. Beyond the sort of very short-term deal-making around funding DHS and restricting ICE and so forth, what can Democrats do to exacerbate the split?

I think maybe one thing would be to highlight the fact that Trump and Noem and Miller are fundamentally ethnonationalists, and that they’re trying to carry out an ethnonationalist purge with state violence, and then make Republicans defend that. That’s one thought. What do you think of that, and what else could Democrats do?

Rubin: I absolutely believe in that. And that’s one reason I think that it’s actually useful to impeach Kristi Noem—not because you’re going to get someone better, but you make Republicans defend her and make them go on record. Let’s see how Susan Collins is gonna vote. Let’s see how some of these swing Republicans in upstate New York are gonna vote.

Make them take the hard vote and defend the indefensible. So yes, I think part of it is tying it to personnel. And part of it, I think, is also making the case that Trump has set up a lawless, violent secret police. And the problem cannot be solved simply by putting controls on them. But you have to break up DHS, you have to redesign our immigration system, and you have to push for realistic border control—just like the Democrats and Republicans agreed to, if you remember, before the 2024 election.

And they can’t be afraid to call out this lawlessness, this violence, and to make them put themselves on the side of freedom. First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Second Amendment—my gosh—and to make the case that this is what Republicans used to tell us we should be afraid of. The government is going to come to your door. Tyranny is going to knock. Guess what? The tyranny is them. And the people who are going to protect you are not Republicans; they are the Democrats who do not think the state should be all-powerful.

So I think making this, yes, about immigration—yes, about what kind of country and what kind of morality we want—but also simply making this about tyranny finally may pierce through the consciousness. We have talked so many times about how it’s difficult for people to care about democracy. Well, I think they are beginning to see what tyranny looks like, and that’s where the conversation, I think, has to go.

Sargent: Well, the country really is awake to what’s happening. And you wrote in your piece that one of the critical things that has to happen right now is that Democrats have to figure out how to feed and sustain this mass movement—this big cultural moment that’s sweeping the country. What can Democrats do to keep that going?

Rubin: I think, first of all, they have to go to these places. They have to show what’s going on. They have to physically stand in these communities and support them. They have to tie the actions of ICE and the Border Patrol to the Republicans who voted for all this money for them. And I think they have to be aggressive, bold—even maximalist—in their demands.

It’s not enough to simply say, “We want judicial warrants when you go into somebody’s house.” How about no arrests, period, without specific warrants? And ICE should not be going after people who do not have criminal records. Push the advantage.

And what’s more, I think they have to begin to go into these communities and stand with the communities. One reason why Minnesota and Minneapolis were so successful is they had banded together—whether it’s the advocacy groups like Common Cause, whether it’s the moms who are going to these detention centers and giving clothing and coffee once these people are kicked out on the streets, whether it is the Native American community or teachers. They have to show common cause with these people and continue to put a human face on what has been going on.

What gets people motivated? The picture of a five-year-old in a bunny hat, quite frankly; the sight of Alex Pretti being beaten and executed in the street. We can bemoan the fact that it shouldn’t come to this, that we should have gotten the country much more riled up a long time ago. But the fact that they’re there now needs to make it an absolute priority for Democrats to stand by and alongside those people who are being victimized—and the victims are all of us. It’s not simply undocumented immigrants.

So I think a sense of solidarity, of unity, of going to these places, of making demands. And one thing I think that was wonderful that happened yesterday was this group of nine district attorneys. They have named themselves FAFO—a play on the slang phrase—but what they are doing is saying: “You know what? Absolute immunity is a canard. Even the Supremacy Clause does not entirely protect ICE and Border Patrol when they step so far out of bounds and they execute people. And we are going to go after them.”

That’s the kind of action that will get people to rise to the Democrats’ cause. Do not rely on the legal precedent that was in effect a year ago or two years ago. Push the envelope. That’s what Republicans do. Make the claims. Bring the cases. Bring the lawsuits. Demand that we get the evidence of this impropriety. And then people will understand that you are fighting for them and with them.

Sargent: I couldn’t agree more. I think at the most fundamental level, Democrats need to spend every second thinking about how to use every last lever of their power to defend the American people and American communities against this madness—against this paramilitary assault on them being mounted by the President of the United States and his conciliaries.

Jen Rubin, awesome to talk to you. Thanks so much for coming on.

Rubin: It is great to talk to you, Greg. Keep doing this great job. I love talking to you and you bring on the best and the brightest to talk to your folks.

Sargent: You as well. We’re loving The Contrarian; you’re doing great work.

The arrest of Don Lemon is an authoritarian assault on American democracy

 

Trump just crossed the line: The arrest of Don Lemon is an authoritarian assault on American democracy

When courts fail to stop an authoritarian leader, the press becomes the next target.

UnPresidented Jan 30

The arrest of Don Lemon should shatter any remaining illusions that the Trump administration is merely “flirting” with authoritarianism. This week, it crossed the line outright, and did so with chilling confidence.

Lemon was taken into federal custody after covering a protest at a Minnesota church linked to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, despite the fact that a magistrate judge had already rejected the Department of Justice’s attempt to charge him. An appeals court had backed that decision. In any functioning democracy, that would have ended the matter. Instead, Lemon was arrested anyway.

The immediate reaction from legal experts wasn’t rhetorical, it was pure panic.

“What was Don Lemon arrested for?” asked Cardozo Law professor Kate Levine. “I thought the church protest indictment was dismissed by magistrate and appeal court? Like what are the actual charges?”

Others echoed the disbelief, noting that magistrate judges, district court judges, and appellate courts had all said the government couldn’t arrest Lemon, yet somehow an arrest warrant materialized anyway.

“Damn. Don Lemon was snatched up by the feds last night,” wrote attorney Yankee Mack. “Didn’t a federal magistrate and appellate court tell DOJ that they had no probable cause to arrest Lemon? So what changed between two weeks ago and last night?”

Donald Trump had publicly demanded Lemon’s arrest, amplifying MAGA calls for Lemon to face prison time by boosting a post that compared Lemon to anti-abortion protesters sentenced under the FACE Act and declaring, “I would like to see the same kind of sentence for Don Lemon.” Lemon has consistently maintained that he was doing what journalists do: reporting on a matter of public concern. A magistrate judge agreed and rejected DOJ’s attempt to criminalize his coverage.

Veteran journalist Mark Jacob spelled out what this really was: “The Trump regime has detained former CNN host Don Lemon.” He noted that just a week earlier, the regime failed to charge Lemon for covering the protest. Lemon himself predicted, that the Trump administration would try again. “Apparently he was right,” Jacob said.

The backlash from journalists across the country was immediate.

“They arrested Don Lemon. This is horrifying,” said Jemele Hill. “I don’t care what your political beliefs or leanings are… this absolutely cannot stand.”

Susan Gross echoed the creeping dread many felt: “This is truly insane… and then they came for the journalists.”

Others pointed out the administration’s grotesque priorities. “They went after Don Lemon faster than anyone on the Epstein Files,” noted Alex Cole.

A statement released by Lemon’s attorney, Abbe Lowell.

Sportscaster Jon Alba called it an “all-out assault on the First Amendment,” adding that America’s “de-evolution as a republic” was now impossible to ignore.

Jim Acosta pointed out that Lemon was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles, calling the move “outrageous” and warning plainly: “The First Amendment is under attack in America!”

Chicago Tribune reporter Gregory Royal Pratt went further, describing Lemon’s arrest as “a five alarm fire for our constitutional rights with endless and enormous consequences.”

This is not hyperbole. Authoritarian regimes follow a predictable pattern: delegitimize the press, portray journalists as criminals, then use the state to make an example of them. Hungary did it. Turkey did it. Russia perfected it. The United States has always insisted it was immune, but Trump is proving otherwise.

It remains unclear what crime Lemon is even accused of committing, and that uncertainty is not a bug, it’s the feature — arrest the target first, intimidate them publicly and justify it all later, if at all.

Court rulings, judicial safeguards, and press protections mean nothing if they can’t stand in the way of presidential retribution. This was a message to every reporter, editor, and publisher watching: you are only protected until you’re inconvenient. When a sitting administration shows it’s willing to put journalists in handcuffs to make a point, the real question becomes who is brave enough to make sure those stories keep getting told anyway.

If Don Lemon can be arrested for doing his job, then journalism itself is no longer safe, and silence, at this moment, is exactly what this administration is counting on.

HEATHER January 29, 2026

 

January 29, 2026 Heather Cox Richardson Jan 30 Public outrage over the violence of federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol has given Senate Democrats a powerful lever. Tonight they forced the Republican majority to split new funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) off from five other spending bills that must pass by Friday to keep the government funded. The Department of Homeland Security will be funded separately for just two weeks while the Democrats and Republicans negotiate the conditions of funding DHS. The funding measure passed the House before Saturday’s shooting of VA intensive care nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Seven Democrats joined the Republican majority in backing it to continue funding for other important agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), reasoning that since the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act had provided enough money to fund ICE and Border Patrol through September 30, 2029, there was no point in taking a stand against renewed extra funding. But popular anger over ICE shootings and the administration’s lies about them made Democrats in the Senate take a stand against the measure. They demanded accountability and reforms to current ICE operations. Republicans initially said they would not split DHS funding from the rest of the package, then proposed handling the excesses of ICE and Border Patrol through an executive order or through a new, different piece of legislation. Such a plan would avoid the necessity of taking the measure back to the House, which is out of session until Monday. Senate Democrats refused to pass the measure as it stood. They demanded an end to “roving patrols,” with federal agents required to use warrants and coordinate with local and state law enforcement officials. They wanted a uniform code of conduct for agents and independent investigations to enforce that code. And they wanted agents to use body cameras and to stop wearing masks. Senate Republicans wanted a longer period of time to consider these demands, but they settled on two weeks. The Senate did not vote on the measure tonight. NBC News senior national political reporter Sahil Kapur reported that, according to Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the holdup is coming from Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Graham was one of those Republican lawmakers who worked to help Trump try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, calling Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, for example, and suggesting that he should throw out some of Biden’s ballots in the state. His phone records on and around January 6, 2021, were among those examined by special counsel Jack Smith’s team. Now, according to Kapur, he wants the Senate to add back into the funding package necessary to prevent a government shutdown a measure that would let senators whose records were seized sue the government for $500,000. The House is out of session until Monday, and the fate of the measure in that chamber is not clear. House Democrats have said they will not support the measure without significant concessions and will leave the Republicans to pass the measure on their own. But the Republican majority has fallen to two seats and is expected to fall by another seat over the weekend as a special election in Texas is expected to add another Democrat to the House. Meanwhile, footage circulated today of a woman in Minnesota who left her home to warm the car for her kids and got taken by federal agents. The video shows her calling someone to look after her children, who were left alone in the house. In the last week, since federal agents shot Pretti, former presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden have all spoken out to condemn his killing and the violence of federal agents as well as the administration’s lies. They have warned that the nation’s core values are under assault and urged Trump officials to change course, while also calling on Americans to defend those core values. The criticism of all the living Democratic presidents, along with his disastrous performance in Davos, Switzerland, last week and his plummeting numbers—as well as the fact the American people have not forgotten that the administration is continuing to break the law by refusing to release the Epstein files—appears to have sent Trump back to the comfort of older grievances. Today he hit not only his Big Lie but also his complaints about the inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) into the ties between his 2016 campaign and Russian operatives. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard, who has been strangely invisible now for months, resurfaced yesterday when the FBI seized ballots from the 2020 presidential election from a warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia. The role of the DNI is to coordinate information from various intelligence agencies to make sure the president has good intelligence for making national security decisions, but Josh Dawsey, Dustin Volz, and Sadie Gurman of the Wall Street Journal reported today that Gabbard has been moved off of national security intelligence to chase down Trump’s allegations that the 2020 election was stolen from him, focusing on the idea that a foreign government was involved in such a theft. Two officials told the Wall Street Journal reporters that Gabbard’s report is designed to bolster executive orders about voting before the midterm elections. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “President Trump and his entire team are committed to ensuring a U.S. election can never, ever be rigged again. Director Gabbard is playing a key lead role in this important effort.” In reality, Trump’s claims about the 2020 election have been thoroughly debunked, and dozens of court cases his followers launched have been dismissed. In contrast, a grand jury actually indicted Trump for trying to steal the 2020 election. Yesterday, Trump’s account amplified a post claiming that Italian officials used military satellites to hack U.S. voting machines in an operation coordinated by China “all to install Biden as a puppet.” Gabbard is also trying to prove that former president Barack Obama and his staff were behind the accusation that Trump’s campaign worked with Russian operatives in 2016, although this conspiracy theory has no evidence at all and the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously agreed that Russian operatives had meddled in the election to help Trump. Trump’s social media account posted, under emojis of flashing red lights: “BREAKING: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has just released HUNDREDS OF BOMBSHELL RUSSIAGATE DOCUMENTS proving that Barack Obama personally ordered CIA agents to manufacture false intelligence on President Trump and was actively ‘working with the enemy’ to undermine and erode Americans’ confidence in our democracy and President Trump’s LANDSLIDE 2016 VICTORY. This was a coup attempt by Barack Hussein Obama and his cronies… As Jesse Watters said ‘Whatever happens to these guys is not revenge… it’s accountability. And it’s time for people to pay the price.’ ARREST OBAMA NOW!” Today President Donald J. Trump, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization sued the Internal Revenue Service for $10 billion, saying the government agency was responsible for an IRS contractor’s having leaked some of Trump’s tax documents to the press. Presidential candidates and presidents routinely release their tax documents to the public, but Trump has consistently refused to do so. The leaked documents showed that Trump paid no income tax to the U.S. for fifteen out of twenty years while paying almost $200,000 in taxes to China. The lawsuit says that the leak caused the Trump family “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump.” This lawsuit is different from the one seeking $230 million from the government for the FBI search of his residence at Mar-a-Lago to find retained classified documents and the investigation of the relationship between his 2016 campaign and Russian operatives. Brad Heath, who covers crime, justice, and investigations for Reuters, explained: “President Trump has filed a lawsuit against the IRS, in which he demands that the IRS, which he as president controls, pay him $10 billion.” Bluesky user Micah made the point more clearly: “the president of the united states should not be allowed to personally loot the treasury to the sum of ten billion dollars and that this is not resulting in immediate, unanimous impeachment is a dramatic indictment of what has become of our political system.”