Politics and views in the United States

The Senate rejects ICE funding, but a last-minute compromise will look likely to keep the government open. Trump's border czar takes command of immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, as the FBI raids a deep-blue county election authority in Georgia.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2026 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

ICE and CBP are out of control and we cannot approve that bill until common sense reforms are included.

That's what the vast majority of American people are demanding and many Republicans now also say that must happen as well.

Washington State's Patty Murray and other Senate Democrats joined eight Republicans to vote down funding for Homeland Security and five other agencies. are demanding reforms in the agency's aggressive tactics after two protesters were killed in Minneapolis in less than three weeks.

They want independent investigations into those shootings along with tighter limits on immigration agents.

Late yesterday, the Senate agreed to extend DHS funding for two weeks to allow negotiations and pass the budgets of the other departments.

White House Borders' R. Tom Homan has taken command of the ICE operation in Minnesota.

President Donald Trump removed Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem and Customs and border official Greg Bovino from the chain of command.

Homan says the mission will continue, but will change. - What we've been working on is making this operation safer, more efficient by the book.

The mission is going to improve because of the changes we're making internally. - Trump has lost public support on immigration, which helped return him to office just a year ago.

A Reuters poll found nearly 60 percent of Americans say the crackdown has gone too far.

Republican Maine Senator Susan Collins says her opposition helped end a just-declared ice sweep in her state.

Collins faces a tough re-election battle.

FBI agents raided Fulton County, Georgia's election office yesterday as part of a probe into the 2020 election.

The blue county contains much of Atlanta and has been the focus of numerous election conspiracies.

Reports say agents hauled away hundreds of boxes of old ballots.

Their search warrant cites two federal felonies, a ban on voter intimidation, and a requirement to keep election records for nearly two years.

Fulton County Commissioner Mo Ivory slammed the raid.

This is an attack on our elections, meant to keep you from trying to go to the polls in November, being too afraid to change what's going on in our nation.

So instead of worrying about people dying in Minnesota, here we are at the Fulton County elections hub.

Trump has long insisted he actually won Georgia, and that victory was stolen from him by fraud.

Those claims have been refuted by Republican state election officials and his own first-term attorney general.

As recently as a week ago, Trump said, "People will soon be prosecuted for what they did in 2020."

Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar formally announced she would run for governor.

That comes after former vice president nominee and current governor Tim Walz said he would not seek a third term following an onslaught of right-wing attacks over a childcare scandal.

And Republicans on Capitol Hill unveiled the text of their Make Elections Great Again Act.

Watchdogs warned the legislation would include some of the most extreme federal voting restrictions in recent history.

The bill, if passed, would impose photo ID requirements, bar states from counting ballots after election day, and ban universal mail-in voting.

I'm Zimone Perez for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

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