LEMON DROP | A Former DHS Official on ICE’s Crisis & Lack of Humanity

The Don Lemon Show

18Hundred LLC.

Society & Culture, News

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2026

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Don sits down with journalist and CNN legal analyst and author of Five Bullets: The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York’s Explosive ’80s, and the Subway Vigilante Trial That Divided the Nation, Elliot Williams to talk about his new book and how its themes echo in today’s chaos. Williams’s Five Bullets revisits the infamous 1984 Bernhard Goetz subway shooting and the divisive trial that followed, exploring race, crime, fear, and how media and politics shaped public perception. As a former federal prosecutor and senior official in the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, Williams brings a unique perspective on how agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have changed over time. He and Don discuss how enforcement priorities and the lack of humanity or training in some federal agencies today contrast with how law and justice should function, and why understanding history matters now more than ever. This episode is brought to you by OneSkin. Get up to 30% off OneSkin with the code DON at https://www.oneskin.co/DON #oneskinpod This episode is sponsored by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Go to https://FFRF.US/NEW YEAR or text “DON” to Five Eleven Five Eleven. And help protect a country that belongs to all of us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	300 years of expertise in every twining sleep blend.
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0:18.0	Your moment of serenity.
0:21.6	Brought to you by twining sleep.
0:24.6	Twinings.
0:25.6	Alive in every drop. Elliot Williams is a scene in legal analyst and the author of the new book,
0:46.5	Five Bullets, a story of Bernie Gets, New York's explosive 80s, and the subway vigilante
0:51.9	trial that divided the nation.
0:54.0	I want to talk to him about that,. I want to talk to him about that,
0:55.7	and I want to talk to him about what's happening in this world of ICE and Minnesota and all of that.
1:02.1	And how did he decide to write a book on Bernie Gets? You're showing your age by doing that.
1:10.7	I'm sorry, my age by the fact that I look like a cadaver when I don't have TV makeup on. That's how I show my age, Don. But, oh, come, I don't know, no TV makeup here, sir. You know, no, you know, there's an expression for that. It's, uh, independent journalists don't crack. So that crack. So that might be what people are seeing.
1:30.3	Thank you. Let's, we'll talk about your book in just a moment, which I'm really thrilled to talk about.
1:35.3	And congratulations on that. And it's good to see you. How is, what is going on with ICE and tell us, because you have, obviously, history with ICE.
1:44.9	You were, were you the former executive director?
1:47.0	Assistant director.
1:48.1	So I was, you know, one of a bunch of folks helping to run the agency, yeah.
1:51.7	Yeah.
1:52.2	And so what is happening with ICE?
1:54.6	Is this the ICE that you work for?
	...

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