Good afternoon, everybody.

Welcome to the new episode of the City Journal podcast.

My name is Rafael Menguall.

I'm the Niconell Fellow with the Manhattan Institute and, of course, a contributing editor

of City Journal.

I am filling in for our regular host, Charles Fain Lehman, today. So bear with me. Thankfully, I am joined by three fantastic guests. With me are Jesse Arm, Director of All Things External Affairs at the Manhattan Institute, Tau Fortgang, one of our many legal eagles, and John Ketchum, who is director of cities,

which encompasses all of our urban policy stuff. Welcome to the show, gentlemen.

Thank you. Great to be here. So I want to jump right in with the news of the day here. So,

of course, I think the big story from the end of last week was this judge in Wisconsin,

who was arrested

by the Trump administration.

So the background I have based on the reporting that's out there is that this judge had an

individual before her who was wanted by immigration authorities who were there at the courthouse.

And rather than allow him to exit the

courthouse and be arrested, she directed this individual toward a back exit so that he could have a

better chance of getting away. At least those are the allegations. The Trump administration

officials have made an arrest in this case. And a lot of people have their hair on fire about it.

Some people say that this is, you know, authoritarianism inaction, that, you know, this is the threat to democracy that they were all warning about.

Others say like, hey, you know, just like you all were saying with respect to the cases against Donald Trump, no one is above the law.

This judge clearly broke the law, and so she is eligible to be arrested. So what are your guys'

takes? John, I'll start with you. Sure, thanks, Ralph. Look, the judge's alleged actions

based on the filing so far and the reporting probably violated the law.

...