Our show begins with Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, as he disputes the Trump administration’s account of Renée Good and Alex Petti’s murders in the Twin Cities and promises a thorough investigation.
ICE and Border Patrol agents on Nicollet Avenue following the shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, MN on January 24, 2026. Photo credit: Chad Davis/Wikimedia Commons
In the news:
There’s nothing that says investor jitters like the skyrocketing cost of gold—except perhaps the spike in silver prices. The New York Times reported this week that rising precious metal prices are partly due to Trump’s tariff policies and the uncertain effects of Europe’s pivot away from trade with the United States and towards India. But they are also an effect of China choking off silver exports: because of its capacity to conduct electricity, the metal is important to a number of technologies, and crucial to AI infrastructure.
On Wednesday, FBI agents searched an Atlanta election office and seized ballots at the center of Donald Trump’s false claim that he won Fulton County, Georgia—and the presidential election—in 2020. Trump is supported by allies on Georgia’s State Election Board, and claims to be acting at their request. Coincidentally, the FBI Special Agent in Charge in Atlanta was relieved of his duties just last week.
The war on trans people continues. This week, Utah moved to enacting a complete ban on gender-affirming care for minors, and the Trump administration has found San Jose State in violation of Title IX for allowing a trans woman to play on the women’s volleyball team between 2022 and 2024.
Amazon’s Melania documentary debuts in theaters across the nation on Friday, but all is not well. Most of the New York crew “requested that their names not be added to the film’s credits,” Eboni Boykin-Patterson reports at The Daily Beast. Director Brett Ratner, who has not made a film since he was accused of sexual assault in 2017, did it as a rush job, and was described by crew members as personally unclean, rude and generally a d*ck. Melania Trump, while boring, was nice, and revealed nothing about herself. Surprise. In other news: South Africa has canceled the film’s release and did not specify a reason; and Trump issued a proclamation on Truth Social that Melania is the greatest film ever made and will be required viewing in all history classes.
Your hosts:
Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.
Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).
Our news focus: The Trump administration’s Second Amendment problem
Jamelle Bouie speculated that Renée Good and Alex Pretti’s murders could be the Trump administration’s Gettysburg moment.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem claimed that Alex Pretti was shot after having “brandished” a gun at Border Patrol agents. There is consensus that is not true. Here is one analysis by Bellingcat, and another by the New York Times.
Here’s a full timeline of what led up to Pretti’s murder, and a historical account of the 100 year-old Border Patrol, and its routinely violent enforcement tactics. Since 2010, 364 people have been killed by Border Patrol officers, some across the border with Mexico.
The two agents who murdered Pretti have been placed on administrative leave.
Donald Trump has uncharacteristically distanced himself from the Pretti coverup, although ss of Wednesday, he continued to insist that Pretti should not have been carrying a weapon. Trump has relieved Greg Bovino of his role and sent Tom Homan, the so-called White House Border Czar to the Twin Cities to negotiate with local authorities. Homan is tasked with extracting concessions from Governor Tim Walz, including turning over Minnesota voter data to the Trump administration. Bovino has also lost access to his social media, and his future as a government employee is unclear.
Some Republicans have joined Democrats in criticizing Petti’s murder, and warned Trump that the extreme violence of immigration enforcement calls for an investigation. Democrats have responded to the outrages in the Twin Cities by threatening to shut down the government if Congress does not act to constrain ICE and the Border Patrol.
Vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse has also re-emerged as a lightning rod; the absent player? The Department of Justice.
Gun rights groups have split with the Trump administration over assertions that Pretti, a licensed gun owner, broke the law by bringing a gun and an extra magazine to last weekend’s demonstration. One of these organizations is the NRA, which did not defend cafeteria worker Philando Castile when he was shot by a police officer in the suburbs of St. Paul in 2016.
Here is a summary of Minnesota’s gun laws.
We also have statistics from Pew Research on gun ownership in the United States: about 40% of Americans live in a household with a gun, and 32% personally own one. Around 45% of Republicans and GOP leaning Republicans personally own a gun, as opposed to 20% of Democrats and Democratic Party-leaners. About 38% of White Americans own one and 24% of Black Americans; 40% of men, 25% of women; and 72% say they own a gun for personal protection. Only 20% of adults who live in cities own a gun, as opposed to 47% who live in rural areas and 30% in the suburbs. Whereas 71% of gun owners say they like having one in the home, only 30% of people who live with gun owners do; furthermore 40% of Democrats who do not own a gun can see themselves owning one in the future, compared to 52% of Republicans.
Another report says that as many as 30% of Democrats own guns, in part because of the volatile political climate.
Claire mentioned Bruce Springsteen’s new protest song, “The Streets of Minneapolis.”
What we want to go viral:
Neil wants you to read Devon Provo’s “L.A. is ripping up 1,600 acres of pavement — but is it too little, too late?” (Los Angeles Times, January 28, 2026), about the Southern California city planners who hope to mitigate climate change by replacing pavement with plants and reorienting citizens to investing in living infrastructure.
Claire is immersed in Katie Benner and Erica L. Green’s new book about TM Landry College Prep in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, Miracle Children: Race, Education, and a True Story of False Promises (Metropolitan Books, 2026), and the story it tells about racism in education.
Short takes:
FBI Director “Keystone” Kash Patel announced the capture of former Olympic snowboarder-turned-alleged-cocaine-trafficker Ryan Wedding in Mexico by a special Hostage Rescue team on social media. Only problem? It was supposed to be a secret. “Mexican law prohibits foreign law enforcement officers from being physically present in operations on Mexican soil, let alone take part in raids and arrests,” Hafiz Rashid explains at The New Republic. “Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum scrambled to perform damage control, as foreign intervention in Mexico is politically toxic. She said that there was no U.S. involvement in the operation and that U.S. agents in Mexico are limited by law.” (January 29, 2026)
Remember how MAGA influencers freaked out about being “shadow banned” on social media? Well, unsurprisingly, according to Kaitlyn Tiffany at The Atlantic, TikTok might now be shilling for the Trump administration. “Some people who attempted to upload content about anti-ICE protests or the killing of Alex Pretti alleged that the platform was intentionally blocking them from doing so,” Tiffany writes. “Others were able to get their videos uploaded, but alleged that TikTok was not distributing them. Still others noticed that they were unable to send the word Epstein in a direct message, a quirk so bizarre that it incited California Governor Gavin Newsom to repost a screenshot shared by an anonymous X account using the handle @intelligentpawg.” TikTok denies that any of this was intentional, and blames “the issues on a power outage at one of its data centers, which it said caused a “cascading” systems failure affecting all types of content (not just posts about Minnesota).” (January 28, 2026)
How’s this for an intriguing data set? As the numbers of women forced to bring pregnancies to term grows, the total number of abortions is also rising. “The increase in abortion numbers has been due not only to the herculean efforts of the provider community but also to the money that poured into clinics and support organizations immediately after Dobbs by Americans incensed by the loss of legal abortion,” David S. Cohen and Carol Joffe write at Ms. “‘Rage spending,’ as these donations became known, brought in millions of dollars needed for the huge costs associated with transporting thousands of people across state lines and paying for the abortion itself along with other costs.” But it is also true that forcing women to travel long distances simply makes the procedure less available to poor and working women. (January 21, 2026)
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