FEMA, ICE, DHS: A Confusing And Disturbing Alphabet Soup

We examine how the Trump administration's cutbacks impacted disaster aid.   We continue analyzing the impact of ICE raids on California.

Transcript

host-4ha0_3_07-11-2025_141513: 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Inside Golden State Politics. I'm Bill Bosky, former city editor and columnist for the Los Angeles Times. And with me is. Nancy Bosky, our producer director, and I'm Sherry Bi Jeffrey, political analyst and self-styled media Maven coming to you from, oh. Who the hell knows anymore. It just feels like the world has indisputably, tilted, totally off its access. And with all this chaos and confusion, how do we know where we'll be landing? Over to you, bill. We won't be landing on Mars if Elon Musk has anything to do with the spaceship gonna get us there. This has been several days of continued turmoil in the Trump administration. On immigration he said that we're going to have the greatest deportation in American history, and then he made an exception for the farm laborers in the, in California, in the Central Valley. Which is a considerable number of people. It is. It's the way we do agriculture here in, in California. It's the the migrant workers are the backbone of the whole system. That's right. And we're still uncertain. Another switch. He was going to, abolish fema. That was at the beginning of his term, he was gonna abolish fema. Now with central Texas in this horrible state. He's changed his mind on that. Has he truly changed it or is he just saying maybe not. I hadn't heard that they were free at last. No., he never completely changes his mind on anything. Taco. Taco, yeah. Yeah. So the thing that's. Keeps this continuing on though. Eventually the Texas cleanup will proceed, but what's continues on and on is immigration correct? Forever it looks like. And it poisons the atmosphere. poisons our society, there are almost 60,000 people in detention right now. What? 60,000? 57,861, according to Syracuse University's tracking system. Where are they holding them? They're around. How good? Excellent. And 71.7% of those people have no. Criminal record. Yeah, that's true. With the new detainees too. The ones that are coming out of California, about 70% of those who were detained have no criminal record so much for getting the worst of the worst. That's right. What is he gonna do with this? More people are gonna be picked up, the head of the borders tom Holman said that the agents, the ICE and the border patrol agents can stop people and question them. Not just on detention, but on just suspicion. They can stop people on the street. Since when did he become the Supreme Court? Come on. That doesn't smell all that legal. He said, they don't need probable cause to stop and question somebody on. They can stop someone on the street and question them if they have reasonable suspicion. What is reasonable about this whole damn thing? But, the the weird thing is that the Gallup poll shows. That Americans support immigrants. 79% of Americans think immigrants are a good thing for the country. 62% said that they don't like the way Trump is handling it. That's the way it's and other polls indicate that although, and this is true. Even of his base that they support him on immigration, the issue, but not on the mechanics, not on the implementation. The polls indicate the public opinion looks at the way he's working on it as way. Too much. I don't know what the, if he has any idea of what the alternative might be, but the polls showed me that his approval ratings. Are dipping the issues support is dipping because of the way he's going about implementing the immigration policy. And I got the feeling that Republican incumbents. In Washington and on the state level are really nervous about what's going on. I don't know how that's gonna play out, but I've never known a sane politician who has hitched his or her star to a leader who's approval rating is going down the dues. It's gonna be interesting this next year and a half. Or so before the midterms, you know what's important is is the feeling in the Catholic Church about this? Fascinating? Yes, it is. The bishop of San Bernardino told his congregants that they don't have to go to church. They'll be forgiven. It's not a sin to Ms. Church on Sundays because they fear getting detained by immigration. Listen, I just, within the last few days, I went downtown la and didn't go on the freeway, of course. I went down, or Lyft went down, actually Martin Luther King Boulevard onto Los Angeles Street, which as is a buzzing area of commerce. All kinds of commerce, absolutely. Little shops with the little, shades that come down. The metal shades when they're not around. It was a ghost town. I, if I counted 10 people on the whole length of Los Angeles Street, it was a lot. And those little stores, I think three of them were open out of God knows how many, right?, dozens. Something is radically wrong. What's radically wrong is not only his immigration policies not only incredibly cruel, I. But he's knocking the props out of the Southlands economy. Yes, exactly. It's worrisome and I know he knows what's going on. Talk about retaliation for, I would say mainly small slights, not. Total embarrassments and I just the g hatred of California, because it has been portrayed as highly liberal. It doesn't like. Donald Trump, it's labeled, woke, if you will. Republicans have been smothered here in their races for statewide elective offices for quite some time with only the aberration was the last Republican elected. The statewide office was Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that was 2 0 0 6. And I could make an argument that he was a rhino. He wasn't much of a Republican. Republican and name only, right? So of course,. Trump and his administration is slow walking. He aid to California's flood stricken areas. California's fire stricken us at the same time. Fire. Fire. It appears that, pardon me. Yeah. He's skating fast as he possibly can to get Texas the money that Texas has requested to deal with their reconstruction post floods. And today it was indicated that we may hold up California stuff. Trump administration until we get what we want out of them in terms of changing their policies, for example, on trans athletes and not allowing transgender women into women's sports. This is crazy. I. It's like when the gangs used to go into the inner city and demand protection in order to stay that the businesses could stay Sandy, except this is being done by the President of the United States and is totally opposite, not only of many laws, but of the norms and values of America. I just, I don't hear much of a screamer yell yet. And that concerns me, bill. I think it's without patting ourselves on the back a little bit. I think it's good. We're talking about immigration. It's gone. Yeah, it's gone off the grid. It goes up and down and up and down. It depends on right now we're focused on the horrible events in Texas. For some reason we're focused on the Epstein files, which is a bit bizarre. But you're right. Immigration has to be focused upon and remain focused upon for a long time before what we're seeing now is no longer a part of the normal. And I don't know if that's gonna happen. I do not know if that's gonna happen. I think that we're getting into. The point where we're getting used to having these national guards. That's right. It's becoming normalized and, just what a half mile, three quarters of a mile from. Where we're sitting right now, there's 700 Marines. They're part of our landscape. Exactly. Here's the thing in it. And I think one of the reasons that Trump is continuing to deal with, immigration, the way he has been dealing with it, with the militarization of the issue with the ICE guys going in and really beaten up on people in whatever is going on that should not be going on. Constitutionally, they're betting that because the media is. That shiny object theory is going to come into play again. That the media will leave. What's happening in LA will leave what's happening with regard to ice and turn on another issue like. The floods like Epstein and, the media just won't pay the attention that needs to be paid to what is happening on the ground with regard to law enforcement or lack thereof in immigration. And I think it's working a bit. This week on deadline White House Uhhuh, the M-S-N-B-C show. One hour was I finally turned it off. One one hour was devoted to what was in the Epstein files. The Epstein files only exists in the imagination of fevered conspiracy theorists. Many of whom are now in the government dealing with this. But supposedly the Epstein files have the names and addresses. Client list, the client list, and, the question is will we ever see it or is there anything to see? Yeah, anyway, that, who cares? God damn it. Who cares? There are bigger things to, to scream about who cares? And but it's, this is gonna occupy the news. That's what I'm saying, day after day. That's exactly what I'm saying. And at some point, I hate to say it. There's definite possibility that the raids that we are seeing just become part of the rhythm of life, certainly in Southern California. It's astonishing. so what do we do? What do we do? I think what do we do? It sounds, tiresome to say it, but I think Marty Baron when he was the editor of the Washington Post when the issue came up, how are we gonna cover Trump and what are we gonna do? He said, we just work his work was covering the news, digging up stories. And our job is. Commenting on the news and highlighting what's bad and what's good. People don't trust the media period as much as they don't trust politicians. So how do you convince or should you be convincing people, the media, should they be convincing people what's good or what's bad? That's a value judgment. I think this whole thing about the media worrying about what people think of'em is something new in the last two or three years? The good reporter. The good editor just go about digging up the news and not worrying about what people think about them. I'm not so sure that's true anymore. That's a very old fashioned idea. You bet. It was relevant in a day when there were lots of local television and lots of local newspapers. Today we have. Very few local newspapers and television is even more limited in what it covers. So this is one of those things that we have no solution for. That's the frightening thing to me. It's almost as frightening as what I'm seeing happen because I don't know when or if. The dynamic changes and people are being pulled off the street and detained, and we don't see Humvees with gun turrets parked on Wilshire Boulevard for God's sake. We are living in an occupied zone and we have been living in it now for what, over a month. It's, they're still there. Yeah. The Marines are all settled in. They've been there for a month on, right by the federal building. No riots there yet. No, no people there except for the Marines. That, that's, if this whole thing weren't so horrific, it would almost be funny to see when did we, when we went by to check out. The federal building, we saw maybe what, 10 15 fully armed, fully dressed in camouflage marines and some national guards guarding the federal building, which has lots of poles and pillars and crying tape racked around the entrance. Garden for what? And guess what? We're paying for it. It's taxpayers who are paying for it, and not only California taxpayers, but everybody who pays taxes has a little bit of skin in this game. I hear a whole lot of complaints are screaming about that either. It's got, I gotta believe that few people have made that connection and it's a pretty important. Connection. When the head of the border, the ICE division got a bit of a talking to by mayor Bass about what was going on in la, his response was, I don't work for Karen Bass. But he's right. However, he does work for us. We pay his salary and he is going on making more and more hard core mean and probably unlawful or unconstitutional decisions. Decisions that. The larger public opinion, let alone the mayor of Los Angeles do not support in terms of what this unelected administrator is doing. It's funny about compare the Trump administration to, gang, the gang couldn't shoot straight, right? But now the gang is starting to turn on each other. Yeah, the tears are welling in my eyes. Aren't they? Free to, yeah. No, there is much tension within MAGA world, if you will. Because Trump has promised certain moves. Are getting moved. And one of the big ones, I hate to keep coming back to this because it gives you some idea about how low things are the Epstein files now. Look what's going on in the world and there's a large percentage of administration members and voters. Who care far warn about the clients of Mr. Epstein. I thought that Nicole Wallace, who's the anchor on Dateline White House on M-S-N-B-C when this came up during the week was thrilled. So happy. That she could get her teeth into something that will bring in clicks and isn't too hard to understand. So we're talking about Epstein? Yeah. Alright. Yeah, he's, it's better talking about him than for a anchor. Better him than tariffs. That's another point. I very few people really understand what's going on with regard to tacos flip flopping around tariffs. And you're right. I don't think that many reporters wanna do what they have to do to really get familiar with and knowledgeable about the whole system of tariffs and what they are. And the fact that tariffs are really taxes, it's, they're difficult to explain, but all you have to do is say a few words and put up shots. Photographs of Epstein and Trump and whomever else was on Epstein's Island or Epstein's plane and you got it made. Yeah. You've got a story that everyone will watch. Not everyone. Thank you. You don't think so? I scream and leave the room. That is so stupid. It really is. Yeah, it really is. And the media is complicit in it, and Trump knows enough about the media to understand that. So that would take some of the heat off What's being done with regard to immigration, what's being done with regard to his flip flopping on, on tariffs, the guy understands, and what what must be done about it. Systematic examination of what went wrong in Texas. Oh. Yeah. Oh yeah. But interestingly, the media is boring in on who's responsible and why did this happen. And they are. Writing and putting together TV reports on the question of whether or not the administration's budget cutting had something to do with the catastrophe, and that's important in and of itself. What do you think, what, if you were writing this, what would you do? Well, aside from the human suffering, and the tragic stories, that must be told. I would find out about the alarm system. When did people know what to do? When did they get the order? You evacuate. wouldn't you look at the Fed's involvement and the possibility that budget cuts and layoffs and resignations played a role in making the response less than effective? Yeah, I definitely would. You're right. I would definitely do that., the whole story, is linked to the budget cuts. I. And to the beginning of his second term which he began with saying he was going to eliminate fema. And so I start there and then if you start digging into that, then you can go on about the budget cuts and who recommended this and who recommended that. Just dig down and that's your story. It's not an easy story to tell, certainly not for the administration. I think. And it takes a lot of reporters to to, Hey, what do we, what are they paid to do? That's right. Even if they won't get the eyeballs that they will get with another delicious bite into the story of the Epstein scandal. Hey hey. One person who's been very cheerful throughout the gloom has been the governor of California. Oh my, what a gift he got from Trump. He really did, and he's in South Carolina. The home of person of great influence in the Democratic party. Representative Jim Clyburn and Clyburn appeared with Governor Newsom at his stops, right in the rural heavily Republican parts. Of North Carolina did not endorse directly, but said, eh, a good candidate. It made it seem that clearly that Newsom was not on a fool's errand going after this nomination. That he's right. He's good point. He's somebody, he was treated like a rock star in North Carolina. Not everybody treated him like a rock star. He still carries the burden of being the governor of California at one point in Congress. Oh god, many years ago there was a caucus, the A BC caucus. Anybody but California. I don't even know if it still exists now. Probably not. I haven't heard of it for centuries now. But people, there are a lot of people, many of them in high office who really can't stand this. I think it's jealousy, so go right ahead. But that's the truth. And I think that's an obstacle that Newsom will have to face. Let's face it, if you called central casting and said, we're making a movie about a governor, they'd send you Gavin Newsom. He's telegenic, he's articulate. He would do okay on it too, I think. And also he's making this little excursion across the country at a time when, trump I wouldn't wanna say his popularity's declining, but it's not gaining. It's, yeah it's slow and lower than it has been. It's at a difficult time for the administration and he's setting himself up not as a foil, not as a victim, but somebody who is. In his good natured not angry way, but forthright way, going right after Trump, and nobody else is, that's, he's 50, right? He's so in for the Democratic party and maybe for a good percentage of Americans, he's filling a vacuum of pushback against Trump's methods, and his policies. Look at the big bad budget bill. Oh my. Who speaks for the people who are going to be cut off Medicaid? The only one I hear at this point, or at least the only one I hear, who is making any inroads in pushing back against Trump is Gavin. Yeah, he certainly is. And when you think about California, you can say it's a ding bat state, but it's also the state of two of the most articulate and fierce opponents of Trump right now. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Bass, unrelenting criticism, no compromise. Exactly. No, and I'm telling you Trump is doing them a major, both of them, a major favor with regard to the trajectories of their political careers. I think it's been tremendous. He was people were making fun of him. For his podcasts and whatever he was doing, and people were down on her including me because she wasn't the superstar after the fires. But they both turned it around. They are turning it around. God knows what's gonna happen. It's a long way in, in, in terms of 2028 for the presidency. Not so long the way to 2026 and Karen Bass's the reelection campaign. But nonetheless, nothing can be predicted anymore for a whole lot of reasons. And that includes the political career of. Anybody right now who is a part who is running in the political arena, right? Or not running, but or deciding not to run. And that's happening. Yeah, that's happening. I find that part of me finds it noble and part of me find finds a chicken shit. Because if Republicans are resigning because they're disgusted with what they see, perhaps, but they're also resigning because they know if they stick around and articulate what they need to and want to articulate, and it deals with the incompetence of the current administration as well as the lack of empathy of the current administration. It life is gonna be brutal. So they're walking away. They don't have the taste. They're gutless. Sherry, good talking to you. Yes, I know. And probably we'll be talking about this for a long time to come. I think we will. I think we have to, quite frankly. I think so too. And I think it's necessary we do that. It will be the spotlight that remains on. Some of the, almost some of the brutal methods that we see and some of the meanness that is coming out of Washington and the disregard not only for the laws and the constitution, but for the values and the norms of this country. Here. We'll see you next week. Yep. Cheers everybody. Bye.