Transcript of JT Cestkowski From Status Coup on Covering ICE from Frontlines

All hell is breaking loose in Minnesota and Minneapolis as Donald Trump's ICE Gestapo continues to terrorize the community there after murdering in cold blood, Renee Nicole Good. The cover-up continues also as Trump's Gestapo and Trump's FBI claims that they're taking over the investigation, refusing to share evidence with local law enforcement to further cover up the cold-blooded murder. And folks, we have exclusive footage brought to you by the great folks, the courageous folks at Status Coup, about what's been going down. You're not seeing this footage anywhere else other than here. And then here, and Status Coup, who we've been working with on the ground, they've got reporters there. Let's show you what went down as ICE agents are using chemical agents on people, engaging in chemical warfare in Minneapolis. Let's play this clip. Then chaos ensues as ICE agents tackle and drag Minneapolis protesters in front of a federal building in the aftermath of the murder of Renee Nicole Good. Play this clip.

Oh, shit. What the fuck did this guy do? What the fuck did this guy do?

No right. You start to start another fucking reason. No fucking reason for this, dude. I ain't near you, bro. I'm not near you. Don't put your hands on me, bro. I ain't doing all that shit. I'm not even there. Wow.

Ice agents push, drag, and tear gas Minneapolis protestors. Let's play this one.

You came to the sidewalk, so I'm trying to leave at the end of the day.

You're a fucking real tough guy, man. You're a real fucking tough guy. You feel good? You feel good? In connection with one of the federal court cases against the Border Patrol and ICE in Illinois, a federal judge in cross-examining some of the witnesses also was able to show that in the entire history of, I think it was the Chicago PD, and don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be like, Chicago PD, they're great.

Look, these police departments have their issues, but they never use these chemical agents once over a 30-year period. And on a daily basis, you see these ICE Gestapo using this chemical warfare against people. I mean, chemical warfare on the streets of the United States of America. Take a look at this protester captured by Status Co News on camera right here, screaming at ICE agents as they point guns at her face. Here, play this clip.

I didn't touch you. I didn't touch you. You're an evil ass, motherfuckers. The evil, where the fuck You wanted another million, why are you waiting to fucking shoot the family? You didn't touch them. You have to fuck them off our people. Stop killing them. Stop fucking killing them. I was dead. Fuck.

No one is doing shit. Don't let these motherfuckers lie.

Nobody has touched you. No one has touched you. You guys are evil motherfuckers. You're calling to stand here with us. You should be marching with us.

Here's another Minneapolis ICE protester, scolding the line of ICE agents. This was also caught on camera as all this footage was by the great folks at Status Coup. Here, play this clip.

Murdering a mother of a six-year-old child, you're in the wrong place in your soul. God help God help you. Every one of us has to look at the choices we make in this world. We have to look at the decisions we make. No amount of money is worth what happened. No amount of money is worth taking fathers away from their families so they can't work. No amount of money is worth what happened. It's walk away. You can walk away. You don't have to do this. So can you, ma'am. You really don't have to do this. You don't have to do it. Everybody has to follow their own conscience. Everyone has to follow their conscience. Everyone has to do what's right in front of their God, in front of their soul, in front of themselves. That's what you have to do. You have to grapple with the fact that a 37-year-old mother was murdered by ICE yesterday. In cold blood, she left a six-year-old son. Her son's named Emerson. Emerson does not have a mother today. Emerson doesn't have a mother today because one of you murdered a woman in cold blood yesterday. Emerson does not have a mother today.

Don't smirk at me, man. Don't smirk at me. I can see the smirk behind that. Don't smirk. The death of a woman is not smirkable thing.

Then in the evening hours as protests continue to break out, a car ran over a protester in Minneapolis as protesters march in the rain against ICE after the murder of Renee Nicole Good. Let's play it.

Who voted for Trump, and they completely disowned that. They don't believe in that anymore. The Republican Party-What are you seeing?

Just watched a car nearly run over a protester. Maybe they did hit the protester. We're seeing some of the protesters chase down that car.

Then you had protesters shouting, F-Ice, F-Ice, F-Ice. Let's play it.

As they continue to chant, Fuck ICE.

Jt, just check the live, make sure we're good.

Yeah, yeah.

On your phone, on your phone. Oh, the signal is still good?

Then notably, you had this individual who was spewing anti-migrant rhetoric, hateful rhetoric, screaming at the protesters, seemed to be protected by the ICE agents, that they were surrounding and protecting this guy like he was their buddy as he spewed venom and hate, and in my opinion, racism towards the migrants. He also seemed to be doing like Q-Anon stuff. The storm is here. He seemed to be like part of the crew with get these ice Gestapo with these people. Here, play this clip.

Surrender. These people will not continue to intimidate us in our country. The storm is here. When we come, when we go all, no one can stop what is coming. All immigrants. Get here, guys. We need you in Minnesota. These people are fucking terrorists. These people are terrorists. They hate our country. They hate everything we stand for. Who's we? The people that are watching. What do you stand for? That's your Native American. What are you stand for?

So I want to bring in one of those reporters now from Status Coup news. You've seen him on here before on the Midas Touch Network, JT Satowski. Great to see you. Jt, some of the other footage we showed was captured by John Farina. Some of the evening shots were you. Shout out to John Farina and the great work he's doing. Shout out to Status Coup in general. And before you and I get into this, I just want to tell everybody, make sure you subscribe to Status Coup on Substack. Help them grow their YouTube channel. They are bringing you exclusive footage you're not seeing anywhere else. And let me just say, as one of the cofounders of Midas Touch, it's been an honor to work with Status Coup. They are the real deal. And make sure you subscribe on their YouTube channel and their sub stack. This is the exact type of independent media company we should all be supporting. So with that, JT, you've been embedded in these protests, and you and I spoke about the last major ICE ice invasion surge when you were taping. Are you seeing differences? How do you describe the scene about what you're observing now?

I have to say that what is happening in Minneapolis is depressingly similar to what we documented for the two months that we were on the ground in Chicago. We were on the ground in Chicago for two months. Then we were following ICE and Border Patrol as they ramped operations in Charlotte. And then we've come here to Minneapolis, where we've been on the ground nearly continuously for the last month or so. The story, the crackdown that's happening here in the city stretches back before the murder of Renee Nicole Good. But the similarities are what is so disheartening to me. You're watching the same patterns play out here in Minneapolis that you saw in Chicago. Because in Chicago, we watched immigration agents shoot two people there, killed one, left another woman with seven bullet holes. And now it's playing out again in Minneapolis, where the Trump administration picks a blue city of the month to crack down on and to immiscerate the residents who live there to terrify the immigrant populations or really any person of color, and come in and ramp up the pressure, especially Border Patrol. There's a difference between ICE agents and Border Patrol agents, and Border Patrol really seems to bring a new level of pain to these communities wherever it is sent.

You see much more the cowboy tactics. And it's the first day that border patrol was on the ground here in Minneapolis when Renee Nicole Good was murdered. Murdered by an ICE agent, to be sure, but murdered on the first day of a one-month ramp up, further ramp up in the deployment of Trump administration goons here in the Twin Cities area.

It seems with the Trump regime's immediate response to a video that we all saw, which was a murder in cold blood. We saw the video. There's no way to spin that video other than the police escalated. I mean, the ICE agents escalated, and then they shot in cold blood. A very scared individual didn't know what to do in a situation like that. But the fact that the Trump regime immediately labels her domestic terrorist and using that language also, and that these are leftists who need to be stopped. To me, it's also sending a message to this, let's this paramilitary force. We talk about the colectivos in Venezuela. These are like an American paramilitary that are now getting the orders. Got it. If what happened with Good is going to be defended by this Trump regime and they're going to say, We're okay with that. We have free reign to do anything that we want here. It almost feels like there's that signal that's being sent as well. Again, just seeing the presence of those people there, they're dressed up as the military. That's the thing that those people are ICE, and it's hard to tell the difference sometimes between ICE and Border Patrol with the masks, but they're dressed up in their military gear like they're invading.

I mean, that's the look against the America. I don't know how to describe it.

There was a moment when we were on the ground in Chicago where some of the protesters were coming up to me telling me that National Guard troops had been deployed to Chicago before they ever actually had been, just because people were confusing the militarized look of these Department of Homeland Security agents and the level of equipment that they are being outfitted with by the federal government, that they look nearly indistinguishable from soldiers when they're wearing the same camouflage, fatigues, the same vestments, carrying a a lot of the same weapons. A lot of them will carry long guns, et cetera. It's an unfortunate reality. When you hear about the way that ICE's budget, in particular, has been inflated now by the Republican Congress and Trump pushing the one big, beautiful bill that ended up dramatically increasing ICE's budget, a lot of that budget, too, has gone to further purchasing munitions for these agents to use. So when you some of the clips that you played of some of the stuff that we've gathered of just the willy-nilly deploying of tear gas, of pepper spray, pepper balls, and unfortunately, bullets against people, peaceful people here in Minneapolis.

A lot of that is just due to the fact that we are, and when I say we, I mean, I'm talking about Americans because it's our tax dollars that are paying for it. We are outfitting these agents with these weapons. And if you got it, use it. It seems to be the mentality. I was just talking to a friend of mine today who has some right leaning tendencies, reached out to me because the shooting broke through to him, that maybe what ICE is doing is not good, reached out to me and asked if it was just a few bad apples. And I had to tell him that the number one takeaway that I had from being on the ground now for the last many months, covering these operations in these cities is just how under-trained or willfully these agents are inducing this violence just seemingly for the sake of it or just because they don't know how to de-escalate a situation, they create the siege mentality within themselves in the way that they carry out these operations. They escalate, and then they deploy the force.

I know that you I don't like when I center stories around you, the reporter, because it's your lens. But I have to just ask you, how are you doing? And just your day there. You and John, I've been going back and forth 18 hours straight, no sleep. Can you talk through just... And again, I know you prefer just to do it, and you don't see it this way, but just talk to us about what Are there days like that? I just want people to know the work you're doing, because I think it's important to know why I have so much respect for Status Coup.

We wake up every morning. We'll sleep as long as we possibly can because it can be hard to come by when you are in the field, especially for weeks upon weeks. And we wake up. There's generally about... John and I will give ourselves a few minutes to put ourselves together in the morning, take a shower. And then we are immediately... We hit the pavement. It's shoe leather journalism. We are out there all day. We'll start... This morning started for John outside of the Whipple building. That's the federal building here where ICE is basing a lot of their operations. That's where you played a lot of those daylight clips that you saw the protesters directly confronting immigration agents. You could be live out there for several hours. Then maybe you Once that situation wraps up, you'll be out following up leads in the community about where ICE is maybe conducting some of its raids. You might be live at an ICE raid as as John was at one point, and nearly gave himself frostbite on his fingers because it was sub-zero wind chill as ICE was attempting to freeze out some people who were trying to take refuge inside of a construction site.

Might be there for several hours, then you might be in the hospital, getting your fingers looked at as John was. You might be getting tear-gassed, as John and I both have been now by Border Patrol. Happened again these last couple of days to us. And then you'll be out at protests in the rain through the night, there have been days where I don't eat until I get back to the hotel at the end of the night. And now I'm doing this interview. I don't want to say I look forward to it being over because I do enjoy talking to you, Ben, but I get to eat as soon as this interview is done for the day. And then we crash and do it all again the next day and the next day and the next day, and we stay on the ground with these stories for as long as need be. We don't like just the parachute in type of journalism where you come in for a day, tell a story and leave. We believe that if we commit ourselves to a story, we should be on it for a long time. We should continue to follow up on all of the different types of pain that are being inflicted on these communities by this administration to show the ramp up.

Because like I said, before the murder of Renee Good, there is a whole month of operations that we documented here of a pregnant woman being dragged across the ground by ICE agents, of people being frozen out by ICE at a construction site in sub-zero temperatures, and of a gentleman who who was himself stalked by ICE because he had the temerity to follow them and document their operations. And we bring the story after story after story to show that it's not just a few bad apples, that this is a systemic problem.

Well, I'll send my best to John. We all send our best to you and the whole crew at Status Coup. And I hope the Midas audience you've known because you've seen a lot of our posts now and videos that we collab, and we always figure out ways to work together. But I have just the highest respect for what Status Coup is doing. And the fact that we at Midas Touch have been fortunate enough to build this massive platform and the trust of this broad community of six million here on YouTube and millions across other platforms. It's so important for me when I give endorsement of someone, I mean it. And Status Coup is the real deal. And so everybody subscribe to their YouTube channel. Let's get their channel quickly in the millions of subscribers, subscribe to their Substack. Just call on Substack and search Status Coup, S-T-A-T-U-S-C-O-U-P. And thanks for all the work you do, JT. And go eat, go eat.

Thank you, Ben. But before I do, I do just want to say one thing for folks as well. While subscribing is great and growing our audience is fantastic. This work that we do is incredibly expensive to live on the ground in these places for as long as we do. That's time away from our families. We're spending $10,000 a month outside of the salaries that StatusCoup needs to pay us to be here. That is just for hotel, where John and I sleep at the end of these very long days to be able to afford a meal to shovel into our faces in the few minutes that we do get, to be able to replace broken parts of our camera equipment as we go, to be able to afford the medical bills that we generate from being out here and reporting on these stories. So we ask people, we don't take any sponsorships. We want to be beholden only to our audience, but that leaves us in a financially precarious position. So if you want to help keep us independent, if you could go to statuscoup. Com/join. For those five dollars a month, you go to sustain what we do here.

Absolutely. Make sure you do that. Thank you so much, JT.

Thank you, Ben. I appreciate the time.

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