The Daily Wrap Up

22 Dec, 2026

[Transcript edited for clarity and flow]

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In Minnesota, an unprecedented number of detained immigrants are challenging their wrongful arrests by ICE, and many of them are winning.

According to reporting by the Minnesota Star Tribune, since Operation Metro Surge began on December 1, 344 immigrants have filed detention challenges in the state, most of them this month as thousands of federal agents arrived. By comparison, only 375 such cases were filed statewide between 2016 and 2024.

That is a trend.

On the one hand, this surge demonstrates that ICE is using increasingly violent and extralegal tactics. On the other, it is heartening that the people being targeted are fighting back. About half of the cases reviewed by the Tribune resulted in court ordered releases or bond hearings, and investigators found zero evidence of a warrant in most of them. This is not sustainable.

Those numbers will continue to rise unless and until state officials recognize that peaceful protesters need protection from this unlawful agency. It is time to deploy local law enforcement and, if necessary, even the National Guard to defend American citizens and others who are protesting ICE and Customs and Border Patrol and the Trump regime itself.

The entire country was rocked this week by a report of ICE terrorizing a preschooler. One account sounded the alarm about children being swept up in these raids:

They say about four of their students were taken into ICE custody, including a five year old boy who they say was detained with his father in the family’s driveway. The district alleges that another adult in the home begged agents to leave the child with them, but the agents refused. NBC News reached out to the Department of Homeland Security overnight for comment. They did not respond, but the agency told The Washington Post that their policy is to ask parents whether they want to be removed with their children or placed with a person designated by the parent.

All of this comes as the administration now appears to be expanding its immigration operations to the state of Maine, calling one effort Operation Catch of the Day and stressing there, as they have in Minneapolis, that they are apprehending, in their words, the worst of the worst criminals.

As if Minneapolis needed any further provocation, JD Vance paid a visit.

The vice president attempted to defend ICE while pretending to calm tensions. He was asked directly about Donald’s acknowledgment that ICE had made mistakes:

Certainly, one of my goals is to calm the tensions, to talk to people, to try to understand what we can do better. When the president says that mistakes have been made, my thought on that is that, well, of course there have been mistakes made because you are always going to have mistakes made in law enforcement.

Are you really?

The implication is clear. If mistakes are inevitable, then accountability is optional. Vance has no interest in lowering the temperature. His goal, like Donald’s and that of Kristi Noem, Tom Homan, and Greg Bovino, is to escalate tensions until real violence erupts and then claim justification to invoke the Insurrection Act or declare martial law.

Meanwhile, the fallout from the Davos debacle continues.

In a new twist, Donald announced that he is walking back his plan to take over Greenland, a plan that included threats of military force. He also withdrew his proposal to impose tariffs on European nations that resisted him.

Donald announced this reversal in a post on his failing social media platform:

Based upon a very productive meeting that I have had with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, we have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic region. The solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America and all NATO nations. Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1.

Obviously, Donald got played. Again.

When reporters later asked him what was comprised in this deal, he could provide no specifics whatsoever. He simply repeated that it was great for America. It is difficult not to notice that Donald is approaching Greenland the same way he approached health care, with a concept of a framework of a plan.

Despite Donald’s walk back, confusion and mistrust among European allies and Greenlandic officials remain deep. There is no coming back from the damage Donald has done to America’s reputation, to our standing in the world, and to the future of the Western democratic alliance. None. Our allies should stand firm against this madness.

Former special counsel Jack Smith appeared this week before the House Judiciary Committee, where he reiterated under oath that Donald was indicted in two separate cases because the evidence of criminal conduct was overwhelming. Smith addressed attacks on his investigation directly:

As I testify before the committee today, I want to be clear. I stand by my decisions as special counsel, including the decision to bring charges against President Trump. Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican. No one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that he be held to account.

Smith also detailed Donald’s crimes relating to classified materials and the attempted overthrow of the 2020 election:

Other than accept his defeat in the 2020 election, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power. After leaving office in January of 2021, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Mar a Lago social club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents. Highly sensitive national security information was held in a ballroom and a bathroom.

Finally, Smith reminded the committee that the charges against Donald survived legal scrutiny:

During my tenure as special counsel, we followed Justice Department policies. We observed legal requirements and took actions based on the facts and the law. I made my decisions without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy. He was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold. Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion.

We know Donald committed these crimes because we watched him do it. Were it not for his personal pocket judge, Aileen Cannon, we would be in a very different place as a country.

Donald will not be held accountable anytime soon. That makes it more important than ever to pressure Congress to act against the Trump regime’s authoritarian agenda. One effective tool is FiveCalls dot org. By entering your zip code, the site provides contact information, scripts, and explanations for why these calls matter. It is very simple and very effective.

We must also pressure Democrats. More of the same is not acceptable. I do not want to hear about reforming ICE. I want to hear about defunding it entirely.

Get rid of ICE. This is the fight worth having.

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