Tonight, Matt and Walter will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by discussing the latest developments surrounding the Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks. They will also take a closer look at the case of Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia graduate student and green card holder who was recently detained by the Trump administration. In case you missed it, here’s an excerpt from the piece Matt wrote about the Khalil situation last week:
Forget Khalil. He’s not the issue. The problem is Trump officials pledging to throw masses of people out of the country for offenses not yet committed and on vague pretexts like being “aligned with Hamas.” As [Tyler] Coward put it (see accompanying interview), “What does that mean?” Similarly, what does it mean to be a “Hamas sympathizer,” and what constitutes “aiding and abetting violations [of] immigration laws,” a standard Trump just decided to employ to deny relief to some federal student loan holders?
Matt’s interview with Tyler Coward, the lead government counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), is also worth a read.
Please tune in at 8:00 PM ET on the Substack app, Rumble, YouTube:
Or follow @mtaibbi or @walterkirn on Twitter. See you soon!



Getting a visa makes you a guest of the government. Why would any government tolerate guests who rally against them? It really is that simple. You choose your guests, you are stuck with family...
Walter you are right, as usual. However, Khalil is clearly a "spook". Even his Wiki page shows his questionable background. My advice? Chose another "hero of free speech". This guy is dirty.