The following is an edited transcript from The Michael Knowles Show.

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Because of the anarchy that has been allowed — and even encouraged — to fester by the Left, there are now liberals walking around Minneapolis stopping random, nice, white dads and demanding that they prove they’re not ICE.

Liberals protesting ICE thought this man was an ICE agent, so they stopped him to make sure he wasn’t. pic.twitter.com/17xrVAJLvN

— Clown World ™ 🤡 (@ClownWorld) January 15, 2026

Credit: @ClownWorld/X.com

Watching this, two TV scenes immediately came to mind. The first is from Breaking Bad, when Walter White tries to negotiate with the drug dealers who are about to kill his brother-in-law. He thinks he can reason with them. His brother-in-law tells him, “What are you talking about? They made up their mind ten minutes ago.”

The other scene is from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, when Frank says, “Yeah, they started coming up to me and I didn’t know what they wanted, so I started blasting.”

I certainly don’t encourage the latter — but those are two very different approaches to the same situation.

The guy in this video seems to think these people are being reasonable. This band of leftists — they’re not black-masked Antifa terrorists. They just look dopey and annoying. Awful, insolent white twenty-somethings.

They demand, “Prove that you’re not ICE.” And he responds, “Okay, all right, I’ll show you the back of my SUV — but I don’t have to do this.” Then he adds, “I appreciate you guys.” Really? He appreciate them going around to random middle-aged white guys and demanding that they prove they’re not law enforcement?

If they were law enforcement, they would have no right to do this. Actual law enforcement should be arresting these kids just for asking the question, because they’re clearly obstructing law enforcement and criminal investigations.

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But this — this is what you get when ICE doesn’t enforce the law. This is what you get when state and local authorities refuse to enforce the law. All of a sudden, you have bands of vigilantes going around singling people out.

Why are they singling this guy out? Do they seriously think he’s law enforcement?

No. They’re singling him out based on his race, sex, and age — because they don’t like middle-aged white guys. That’s what’s happening here. And this dope is walking around saying, “All right, listen, I respect what you’re doing. I don’t have to do this, but I respect it. (Please don’t—please don’t gang up on me.)”

Luckily, the group here seems to be just as dopey as he is. They don’t appear to pose much of a threat — at least not in this moment. But we’ve seen these kinds of left-wing gangs commit real violence. And we’ve seen even bourgeois, middle-class white liberals justify that violence — something that shows up clearly in a lot of social-scientific surveys.

That’s what you get.

I don’t think Republicans will waltz to victory in 2028.

I don’t think Democrats will waltz to victory in 2028.

It’s going to be a dogfight.

And problems exist inside both parties.

The Republican Party is divided on some major issues, ranging from the involvement of the state and economics to foreign policy. The record of whoever is the Republican nominee will also come up for scrutiny.

I’ve discussed the problems facing the Democratic Party before, which are pretty obvious: There’s a big divide between the radical base and the moderation they’re going to need to win.

Gavin Newsom may well be their presidential candidate. He wants to campaign as the guy who cooperates with ICE, as the guy who wants to be at least moderate during the transition. Newsom also wants to be fairly moderate on foreign policy, and doesn’t want to engage in a lot of the same sort of rhetorical radicalism of his own party.

Will the base allow him to do that? I don’t think so. He’s been able to hide it so far by attacking Trump. I’m not sure how long that will last. So that’s one problem for him. And of course, the other problem is his record in California. There will be a lot of Willie Horton-type ads that come out against Newsom as he runs for the presidency.

The problem for the Republicans is that Gavin Newsom is a very talented guy. I don’t think there’s any doubt when you watch my interview with him. He is good on his feet, and slippery when he needs to be. He also does a convincing imitation of a pro-capitalist moderate. If you think that’s an imitation, maybe that’s the real Gavin Newsom, and he has had to slather it over with radicalism to get where he wants to go.

Here’s what I would urge for both parties: Perhaps you ought to take a look at what the American people want. Look at the closeness of every American election for the last 12 years and think to yourself: “Maybe if I tacked toward the middle, maybe what Americans really want is normalcy.”

It’s possible the primary structure prevents normalcy from taking the floor. But as we’re seeing from the polling data, more and more Americans are identifying as independent. And the reason for this is because all they want is a return to normalcy.

I think the reason President Trump won in 2024 is that he was by far the most normie candidate – by far.

Joe Biden was not a normie candidate. He was dead on his feet and a radical. Kamala Harris was not a normie candidate. She was an empty suit and a radical.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump took the middle position on nearly every issue. Will Republicans do the same, or will they be so high on their own supply that they go rhetorically radical over and over and over for no apparent reason?

Pursuing mainstream policy is going to be the big battle of 2028.