Trump Is Building His Own Paramilitary Force

Trump Is Building His Own Paramilitary Force

ICE now has the biggest budget of any law enforcement agency in America.

“ICE and Customs and Border Protection have long been the most rogue, kind of renegade and certainly pro-Trump police agencies in the federal government,” explained Radley Balko, a journalist who’s covered policing for decades. “What I think we are seeing right now is Trump is attempting to build his own paramilitary force. They want people whose first, ultimate loyalty in this job is going to be to the president.”

Balko is the author of “Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces.” And he’s been tracking the changes at ICE and the Trump administration’s escalating law-and-order tactics on his excellent newsletter, The Watch.

Mentioned:

ICE’s Mind-Bogglingly Massive Blank Check” by Caitlin Dickerson

The police militarization debate is over” by Radley Balko

Book Recommendations:

The Highest Law in the Land by Jessica Pishko

Unruly by David Mitchell

Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs by Kerry Howley

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Will Peischel. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Mixing by Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu, Elias Isquith, Kristin Lin, Aman Sahota, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Episoder(500)

Shame, Safety and Moving Beyond Cancel Culture

Shame, Safety and Moving Beyond Cancel Culture

I’ve been thinking lately about how to move beyond the binary debate over cancel culture. And a good place to start is with the deeper question we’re all trying to ask: What is the kind of politics — ...

27 Apr 20211h 1min

Noam Chomsky’s Theory of the Good Life

Noam Chomsky’s Theory of the Good Life

How do you introduce Noam Chomsky? Perhaps you start here: In 1979, The New York Times called him “arguably the most important intellectual alive today.” More than 40 years later, Chomsky, at 92, is s...

23 Apr 20211h 12min

That Anxiety You’re Feeling? It’s a Habit You Can Unlearn.

That Anxiety You’re Feeling? It’s a Habit You Can Unlearn.

This has been a bad year for the anxious among us — myself very much included. The pandemic was objectively terrifying. And many of us were trapped inside, with nothing we could do about it, severed f...

20 Apr 202159min

Why Adults Lose the ‘Beginner’s Mind’

Why Adults Lose the ‘Beginner’s Mind’

Here’s a sobering thought: The older we get, the harder it is for us to learn, to question, to reimagine. This isn’t just habit hardening into dogma. It’s encoded into the way our brains change as we ...

16 Apr 20211h 1min

Your Success Probably Didn’t Come From Merit Alone

Your Success Probably Didn’t Come From Merit Alone

Prepping for a conversation with Tressie McMillan Cottom is intimidating. McMillan Cottom is a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, a 2020 MacArthur fellow, co-host of the pod...

13 Apr 20211h 22min

The Best Explanation of Biden's Thinking I’ve Heard

The Best Explanation of Biden's Thinking I’ve Heard

With the $2 trillion American Jobs Plan, the economic theory that is Bidenomics is taking shape. It’s big. It puts climate at the center of everything. It is more worried about political risks — losin...

9 Apr 202156min

Did the Boomers Ruin America? A Debate.

Did the Boomers Ruin America? A Debate.

Donald Trump was the fourth member of the baby boomer generation to be elected president, after Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, is a boomer. C...

6 Apr 20211h 10min

Humanity’s Awesome, Terrifying Takeover of Evolution

Humanity’s Awesome, Terrifying Takeover of Evolution

For years now, I’ve had the same recurring worry: Am I focusing on the trivial? When future generations look back on this moment in history, will they remember the daily political fights — or will eve...

2 Apr 202155min

Populært innen Politikk og nyheter

giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
aftenpodden-usa
forklart
stopp-verden
popradet
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
fotballpodden-2
rss-gukild-johaug
det-store-bildet
dine-penger-pengeradet
nokon-ma-ga
hanna-de-heldige
rss-ness
aftenbla-bla
e24-podden
rss-utenrikskomiteen-med-bogen-og-grasvik
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
rss-espen-lee-usensurert
frokostshowet-pa-p5