WATCH: DHS’s Tricia McLaughlin joins Alex Swoyer

[SWOYER] I wanted to give you a chance to address some of the threats that you’ve faced. I know there’s been death threats, you also have had some insults from Democratic members of Congress. What is that like? 

[McLAUGHLIN] As far as the insults from Hakeem Jeffries or Governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, I mean, we wear it as a badge of honor. They’re going after us because we’re giving the facts and the truth to the American people, and we’re doing so in a way that is swift but also effective. This is the most transparent administration, really in American history. I mean, think about how much information we’re constantly putting out. And I do think that that is a threat to their narrative and the preferred narrative they want to push. As far as those death threats, you know, I’ve been so honored and blessed to be given this opportunity from President Trump and Secretary Noem to be out there and defend the men and women of law enforcement. And so that is, you know, apparently it comes with the territory.  

[SWOYER] You would think that some of these lawmakers would be, I guess, sometimes more responsible or more careful, given what we saw with Charlie Kirk and just kind of the point that we are at in the country. 

[McLAUGHNLIN] I’m one person, but our law enforcement, they don’t have this voice and, you know, I’m very proud to represent them, but, you know, we’ve seen a thousand percent increase in attacks against our law enforcement. We’ve seen an 8,000% increase in death threats. But it’s not just our law enforcement agents. We’re also seeing that they’re family members, where their children go to school, where their spouses work, that’s being doxed online, and they’re being targeted too. And I think to your point, it is so incumbent upon the media and these politicians, look in the mirror. These are human beings. You might not agree with them from a policy perspective, but if you want to change the law, lobby Congress. Don’t be demonizing our law enforcement officers and putting them in harm’s way. 

[SWOYER] I’ll get into a little bit more of the rhetoric. I think it’s a real problem. The president recently said that he was going to cease any payments to sanctuary cities and states. What would that look like? I know there’s been hurdles in the courts in the past trying to do something like that. What type of funding are you guys considering? 

[McLAUGHLIN] The American people saw when we first saw a lot of this fraud come out in Minneapolis, that SBA, HHS, Treasury, they were all pulling funding back. And I think the president is looking at this in even broader terms, not just Minneapolis, but sanctuary cities across the country. And I think, you know, when you and I talk about sanctuary cities, I want to make sure the American people really know what we’re talking about. And when we talk about sanctuary cities, it means that we can’t go, ICE law enforcement can’t go into these jails. So, say in Minneapolis, for example, they have almost 1,700 criminal illegal aliens sitting in their jails today. That’s murders, that’s rapists, that’s child pedophiles, Really heinous individuals, that shouldn’t be a partisan issue. But what happens with these sanctuary city politicians and policies is they’re not allowed to turn these individuals over to ICE. So when they are let out of their jails, they go back onto the streets of Minneapolis. So we saw in this year alone, 470 of these criminals went from Minnesota’s custody back out onto the streets to make more American victims. The other piece of this that’s so important, and is when we’re surging law enforcement officers to Minneapolis and other sanctuary cities across the country, it’s partially because the state and local law enforcement officials are not allowed to give back up to our federal law enforcement when they’re being attacked or they’re being assaulted out in the course of their legal duties. And so it’s really important we make sure that the American people are safe, but also our law enforcement are safe. 

[SWOYER] One of the things I think people don’t understand, or I even, was like, how does this work with sanctuary cities? It’s people who are already in jail. They’ve already been charged or convicted. And so if you already know that they’re criminals, what’s the problem with then handing them over to ICE? 

[McLAUGHLIN] It’s nonsensical. It’s dumb and it’s dangerous. 

[SWOYER] I think most people would be like, I don’t want a child predator or a murderer on my street or to be my neighbor. That’s alarming. We’ve talked about Minneapolis, obviously the events in Minneapolis recently have taken over the news. What is ICE’s policy on use of force? From a legal perspective, as a lawyer, a vehicle can be a deadly weapon.

[McLAUGHLIN] Yeah, absolutely. And in this case, it was just to kind of give, you know, viewers a sense of what happened that day. Our law enforcement were operating legal enforcement operations. And this individual, she had been stalking, harassing, and impeding enforcement operations throughout that morning. At 10:25 a.m. central time, she again was blocking our law enforcement officers as they were outside of their own vehicle. They gave her lawful commands, exit the car for arrest, stop impeding law enforcement officers, and she would not obey commands. And then that’s when our officer was in front of her vehicle. She weaponized the vehicle. Like you said, a deadly weapon, put her foot on the gas. And our officer did follow his training. If his life is in jeopardy, or his fellow law enforcement or the public at large, lethal forces, of course, can be used. But of course, our law enforcement officers, this is the last thing that they wanna do. Their job is to make sure that the public is safe. And that again comes back to why it’s so important we have state and local law enforcement work with us, not just to get in those jails, but also because when these rioters get out of control, we wanna make sure we quell the situation, bring calm, bring peace, and state and local law enforcement can help do that.