On Friday’s installment of PBS News Hour, New York Times columnist David Brooks proved once again why PBS needs to find an actual conservative for their weekly news recap segment. While doing that rhetorical trick where someone calls for the lowering of tensions in Minneapolis while simultaneously hurling inflammatory accusations at ICE and the Trump administration, Brooks described the city as under “something like an armed occupation.”
Host Amna Nawaz thought Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was doing his part to lower the temperature, “David, we’ve seen tensions only rising on the ground in Minneapolis. We saw Governor Walz publicly come out and call for a lowering of the temperature, telling the protesters, don't take the bait, don't be violent, even as the administration says it's going to surge more agents. Criminal subpoenas for the state and city leaders, does that lower the temperature?
Of course, that omits all of Walz’s previous “Gestapo” rhetoric and that Walz’s version of Frankenstein’s monster has led to rioting, vandalism, and assault of ICE agents.
As it was, Brooks was happy to play along with Nawaz’s framing, “Not exactly. We're coming close to something like an armed occupation of an American state by the American federal government. There are 3,000 ICE officers in Minneapolis, which is like five times the number of police officers. And they are behaving with reckless and violent abandon.”
The allegedly conservative half of Brooks and Capehart then lamented that Donald Trump is not like Barack Obama, “Barack Obama deported three million people during the course of his administration. He didn't do it this way. He did it with people who were just coming over the border or people who were criminals. He didn't go into homes and terrorize children, disallow moms whose sons are dying from cancer from seeing their kids, breaking up families, doing sort of ethnic investigations into people's neighbors, using these hand grenades, flash hand grenades.”
After declaring that invoking the Insurrection Act without the request of the governor would be “unprecedented,” Brooks got in on the Walz praise and hoped “normal people” would get with his program:
This is completely different. This is something that is turning up the pressure, and I think Governor Walz is right. I'm not a huge fan, but the protesters are turning up the tension on the ICE officers. And if—so long as they do it nonviolently, then Americans will see what is going on in their country. And I have long thought, if Americans see deportations of respectable families, they will finally rebel against this regime, and not just the progressives and not just Democrats, but normal people who are like, what the heck is going on here? And so that's where we're headed.
Maybe so, but that’s partly because alleged news shows like News Hour keep giving their viewers only one perspective. Words have meanings. Minneapolis is not under martial law, and 3,000 ICE agents do not constitute an occupation.
Here is a transcript for the January 16 show:
PBS News Hour
1/16/2026
7:30 PM ET
AMNA NAWAZ: David, we’ve seen tensions only rising on the ground in Minneapolis. We saw Governor Walz publicly come out and call for a lowering of the temperature, telling the protesters, don't take the bait, don't be violent, even as the administration says it's going to surge more agents. Criminal subpoenas for the state and city leaders, does that lower the temperature?
DAVID BROOKS: Not exactly. We're coming close to something like an armed occupation of an American state by the American federal government. There are 3,000 ICE officers in Minneapolis, which is like five times the number of police officers. And they are behaving with reckless and violent abandon.
Barack Obama deported three million people during the course of his administration. He didn't do it this way. He did it with people who were just coming over the border or people who were criminals. He didn't go into homes and terrorize children, disallow moms whose sons are dying from cancer from seeing their kids, breaking up families, doing sort of ethnic investigations into people's neighbors, using these hand grenades, flash hand grenades.
It's just an -- it's an unprecedented -- and I don't know if unprecedented is the right word, but it could be. George H.W. Bush used the Insurrection Act in 1992 in California, but he did it with the presence of Pete Wilson, the governor there, with the local -- the cooperation of the local officials.
This is completely different. This is something that is turning up the pressure, and I think Governor Walz is right. I'm not a huge fan, but the protesters are turning up the tension on the ICE officers. And if —so long as they do it nonviolently, then Americans will see what is going on in their country.
And I have long thought, if Americans see deportations of respectable families, they will finally rebel against this regime, and not just the progressives and not just Democrats, but normal people who are like, what the heck is going on here?
And so that's where we're headed.
