If you're NPR alum Audie Cornish, what better way to lead a discussion of the anti-ICE protests/riots than with a guest who leads a self-described radical Resistance School?
That's precisely what Cornish, now host of CNN This Morning, did today. To begin the discussion, Cornish called on Karen Attiah, the creator and leader of the Resistance Summer School. As per its website, the school is:
A "structure for radical learning . . . Students will explore how colonial legacies and racial hierarchies shape global politics, diplomacy, conflict, and coverage—and how media systems often reinforce (or resist) these power structures."
Take a look below at the school's insignia featuring a clenched fist, a traditional socialist symbol. And it adopts as its motto, "A Luta Continua" [The Struggle Continues.] That was the slogan of the Mozambique Liberation Front, an explicitly Marxist-Leninist revolutionary group.
In the course of her somewhat muddled comments, Attiah made a blatantly inaccurate claim. Speaking of ICE's arrest of union leader David Huerta, Attiah claimed:
"He was wanting to oversee, you know, what was happening and just ask questions, right?"
Wrong.
Huerta wasn't trying to "oversee" and "just ask questions." As we noted earlier this week, Huerta had been attempting to block ICE agents from entering a business suspected of hiring illegal aliens. Video shows that he placed himself in front of the gate, and struggled with ICE agents as they tried to cuff him and lead him to a vehicle. The charging document says that he yelled out to his followers: "stop the vehicles. It's a public sidewalk, they can't stop us."
Attiah was also the founding editor of the Washington Post's Global Opinions section, and remains a staff columnist. After things settle down post-nuptials, perhaps Bezos should consider changing the paper's slogan to read: "Democracy Dies In Marxism-Leninism."
Attiah wasn't the only left-leaning panel member. There was also CNN's Zach Wolf, a Berkeley alum who writes CNN's "What Matters" newsletter. And what matters to Zach is attacking the Trump administration. Sample headlines:
- What exactly is Trump’s new travel ban about? Not national security
- The Trump administration revives an old intimidation tactic: the polygraph machine
- It took 250 years to build what Trump is trying to undo
Headlines critical of Democrats? We count . . . zero.
Note: Cornish also played a clip of L.A. Mayor Karen Bass downplaying the seriousness of the violence, saying it only encompasses six out of the city's 500 square miles. By that standard, since the area of the World Trade Center Towers was only about one square mile, would Bass say that 9/11 was no big deal?
Here's the transcript.
CNN This Morning
6/12/25
6:10 am EDTAUDIE CORNISH: The resistance appears to be building. All of the cities highlighted in the map are now dealing with protests as the Trump administration accelerates its raids. More than 70 undocumented workers were detained on Wednesday when ICE agents stormed a meat plant in Omaha, Nebraska.
MAYOR JOHN EWING: There's been some unnecessary fear created by the incidents yesterday. There was one raid and then there were several attempts by federal agents to go into businesses without warrants, and they were denied entry. And so that's created fear.
CORNISH: 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines have been deployed to L.A., and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggests National Guard orders could extend to more states.
. . .
Joining me now in the group chat this morning, Kevin Frey, Washington correspondent for Spectrum News, New York One, Zachary Wolf, CNN politics writer and and author of CNN's What Matters newsletter, and Karen Attiah, Washington Post columnist. First of all, welcome the new folks to the chat. It's a busy week for you guys to jump in.
And I want to start with you, Karen, just for a minute, because you actually have done kind of, I think, a resistance school [chuckles] this summer for people who are interested in joining protest movements. The reason why I'm coming to you first is because there is such thing as a tipping point. There are sparks. which is what you see in L.A. People physically fighting back. It's not planned. It's not organized. But then organized protests can spring out of that as a result. What are you watching for?
KAREN ATTIAH: I think in particular when it comes to L.A., and this is something that kind of went under the radar for those of us who aren't from California, the arrest of David Huerta --
CORNISH: -- The SEIU leader.
ATTIAH: Yes, SEIU leader, a very well-respected labor leader. Not just the arrest, but being injured by ICE by, you know, he was wanting to oversee, you know, what was happening and just ask questions, right?
So I think as we're seeing all of these protests, it's particularly the arrests of politicians, right? We saw this Ras Baraka, right? And to me, watching that over the weekend, that was, I was like, oh, wow, this is a tipping point.
CORNISH: A tipping point for the viewer, right? For people at home who are like, how is this playing out?
ATTIAH: But then also the, mobilization of labor unions sounding the alarm. California Democratic, excuse me, California politicians over the weekend saying, this is not okay.
CORNISH: Right.
ATTIAH: Of course, it's not okay to, you know, brutalize people regardless of your stature. But I think from looking at this and looking at, well, first of all, you know, just to be very fair to, despite the picture that the president wants to paint of what's happening in L.A., I'm also watching friends, people on social media in L.A. who are like, this is not the disastrous, crazy war zone that is being painted.
CORNISH: Let me jump in here because the mayor, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass was speaking, I think it was on Wednesday, where she was outright saying that saying there's widespread disorder is a lie. Let's see if we have that.
KAREN BASS: The curfew that we put in place yesterday is about six square miles of a city that is 500 square miles. So the portrayal is that all of our cities are in chaos, rioting is happening everywhere, and it is a lie.
