In this episode of the Rational Response Podcast, we cover Trump gutting protections for Utah’s national monuments, the administration’s campaign to dismantle the International Criminal Court, and a new investigation documenting the misuse of crowd-control weapons against ICE protesters.
Trump Slashes Utah National Monuments. Trump just cut federal protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante by about 90%, shrinking more than 3.2 million acres of protected land down to under 303,000 acres. Bears Ears includes sacred tribal sites, ancient cliff dwellings, and petroglyphs that Native nations fought for years to protect. Grand Staircase-Escalante includes canyons, fossils, recreation land, and major coal reserves. Trump and Utah Republicans are framing this as “rightsizing” and local control, and at the signing Trump even falsely suggested the land couldn’t be used for hunting, fishing, and camping. Standing behind him was Senator Mike Lee, the same man who proposed selling off 3,200 square miles of federal land in the One Big Beautiful Bill before bipartisan backlash killed the idea. The real story here is vast tracts of land being opened up to mining, logging, and drilling, and once that extraction happens, these landscapes are permanently ruined. Legal challenges are almost certain.
Rubio Tries to Dismantle the International Criminal Court. Marco Rubio and the Trump administration have launched a campaign to weaken, disable, or dismantle the ICC, the permanent court in The Hague that prosecutes individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression. Rubio claims it threatens American sovereignty, but the U.S. never even ratified the Rome Statute, so the sovereignty framing is misleading. What the ICC can do is claim jurisdiction when alleged crimes occur on the territory of one of its 125 member countries, which include the UK, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, and Venezuela. That’s what has the administration worried: scrutiny of the Caribbean and Pacific “drug boat” strikes, potential operations against Venezuela, and Israel’s exposure over Gaza, where an arrest warrant is already out for Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump’s February 2025 executive order authorized sanctions, asset freezes, and travel bans against ICC officials, and Rubio is now escalating that campaign. This isn’t about protecting Americans from a rogue global court. It’s about making sure the U.S. and its allies can act without accountability, and it’s a continuation of Trump’s attacks on courts at home.
Crowd-Control Weapons Used Against ICE Protesters. A new investigation from Physicians for Human Rights and UC Berkeley documents a nationwide pattern of law enforcement misusing crowd-control weapons at immigration-enforcement protests. From June 2025 through May 2026, the report documented 412 misuse-of-force incidents across 13 states and 16 cities, including 97 head-shot incidents and 148 close-range incidents. Those hurt included 209 demonstrators, 177 journalists, 12 minors, 7 bystanders, and 4 legal observers. The injuries included blindness, traumatic brain injuries, fractures, and lacerations. These weapons are often called “less lethal,” but that label doesn’t matter to the person who loses an eye. Much of this happened around ICE and DHS operations, which makes this a free-speech issue, not just a policing issue. The First Amendment protects the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and a democracy does not answer protest with projectiles to the face.
Listen or watch the full episode for the clips, the details, and the discussion.
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*This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Sources:
AP (via PBS News): https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/what-to-know-about-trump-shrinking-2-national-monuments-in-utah
White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/07/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-modifies-two-national-monuments-restoring-sensible-land-management/
Trump Executive Order signing video
State Department: https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/07/state-department-launches-campaign-to-dismantle-international-criminal-courts-threat-to-american-sovereignty
Marco Rubio ICC Video
CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/13/politics/rubio-dismantle-international-criminal-court
Al Jazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/13/trump-administration-vows-to-disable-international-criminal-court
PHR: https://phr.org/charting-the-crackdown/
The Hill: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5967724-immigration-protests-violence-report/
