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What Next | Daily News and Analysis

No Really, Abolish ICE

What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Slate Podcasts

News, Daily News, News Commentary

4.32.4K Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2026

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Democrats have a list of demands and reforms they want implemented before continuing to fund the Department of Homeland Security. But  DHS doesn’t really need their approval to keep going.


Guest: Garrett Graff, journalist, historian, author of Doomsday Scenario.


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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.


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Transcript

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0:00.0

This has been a week of angry hearings on Capitol Hill.

0:10.8

Tune in, and you'll get a sense of just how divided the political world is these days.

0:17.2

You all should be apologizing.

0:19.4

You sit here and you attack the president, and I am not going to have it.

0:23.9

I'm not going to put up with it.

0:25.7

Like this is Attorney General Pam Bondi Wednesday.

0:29.2

She had just been asked about the Epstein files.

0:31.5

The Dow right now is over, the Dow is over $50,000.

0:37.2

I don't know why you're laughing. You're a great stock trader,

0:39.8

as I hear Raskin. The Dow is over. Her answer took a bit of a detour. What does a Dow have to do with

0:46.3

anything? That's what they just asked. Are you kidding? Mr. Jordan. Mr. Jordan. Committee will be in

0:52.4

order. The day before this, it was the Department of Homeland Security in the hot seat.

0:57.8

Committee on Homeland Security will come to order. Without objection, the chair made it clear of the

1:01.8

committee of recess. There was less yelling in this hearing, but it was still remarkable to see the heads of

1:07.6

ICE and CBP in one room facing questions.

1:12.5

Because a lot of the time, they completely disagreed with the premise of those questions.

1:19.0

It was like they were talking about an entirely different world than the one that Democratic members of Congress were questioning them about.

1:32.5

Garrett Graf is a journalist and historian. He was watching all this play out.

1:37.0

You have the three DHS leaders of ICE CBP USCIS, and a lot of the Republican members in that hearing,

1:49.4

you know, talking about the great work that immigration officers are doing, taking the so-called

1:55.7

worst of the worst off the streets, and this plague of undocumented immigrant crime that is paralyzing American cities.

2:08.5

And you saw the Democrats talking about, you know, what they were, some of them were actually

...

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