On the Ground in Minnesota

I'm rolling. We're at the Minneapolis airport, which is where regular planes land, but it's also where deportation planes take off. About an hour ago, a bus left with people who have been charged with, I guess, violating the terms of their entrance to the United States and are set to be deported. And they are going to be brought here. And then on one of these planes, one of the private chartered planes, they will be loaded on in shackles. and taken to who knows where. Someplace where their lawyers can't get in touch with them in all likelihood and their family has no idea where they are. And it could be California or Oklahoma or Texas, but this is where it happens. And just because Greg Bovino isn't here anymore and Kristi Noem is on the outs and Tom Homan is on his way in, it doesn't mean that ICE's work in this state is finished and not by a long shot. it's fucking cold hello from minneapolis and yes it is fucking cold it is very very very cold here and it has been an extraordinary week on saturday alex preddy an icu nurse at a veteran's hospital was shot and killed on the street by federal agents his death was captured on video at multiple angles and all of them were horrifying. So we're going to East 26th Street and Nicolette Avenue, which is where Alex Preddy was executed by ICE and Border Patrol. The site of the shooting has become kind of unsurprisingly a vigil for people who want to remember what happened here. but it's still like surreal to actually like I've seen the video I think a lot of people have seen the video so many times but it's still very surreal to see the donut shop and this is the spot where the woman in the pink jacket was filming and that's where he was killed and you see like a lot of fuck ice graffiti and that's uh the vigil which is filled with flowers and candles and people just taking him a moment to remember his life. And yet, the Trump officials who oversaw Preti's execution, namely Greg Bovino, the commander at large of Trump's immigration dragnet here in Minneapolis, he immediately characterized it as this. This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement. This appalling revisionism and apparently blatant lies on the part of the administration prompted a massive national outcry. And not just from Democrats, from former NRA spokespeople like Dana Lash on CBS. Simply approaching law enforcement with a firearm isn't indicative of ill intent, nor is it a crime. And as you accurately said, I have over the years, many years, have been armed at protests, both concealed carry and open carry. I have been right in the front face presence of law enforcement while open carry. And from elected Republicans like Texas Senator Ted Cruz on his podcast. Escalating the rhetoric doesn't help and it actually loses credibility. And so I would encourage the administration to be more measured, to recognize the tragedy and to say we don't want anyone, anyone's lives to be lost. And the politicians who are pouring gasoline onto this fire, they need to stop. And so maybe it wasn't the biggest surprise in the world when in the middle of this week, Greg Bovino was moved out of Minneapolis and sent back home to California. Just don't call it a demotion. You know, Bovino is very good, but he's a pretty out there kind of a guy. And in some cases, that's good. Maybe it wasn't good here. In Bovino's place is now Tom Homan, the country's border czar, a man who supported family separations in 2017 and was also the subject of an undercover FBI investigation for bribery. So to be clear, Tom Homan is not exactly a white knight. In the meantime, here in Minneapolis, the deportations continue and the community remains terrorized. Parents are worried about their children, other people's children and everyone's teachers. Like Libby, a mom-turned-grassroots organizer in St. Paul. I started the Signal Chat after ICE showed up at our daycare, which was the same day that Renee Good was murdered. So you guys are processing that, and then they show up at the daycare? Yeah, within three hours, they showed up at the daycare. And then an hour later, we learned that at a different location of our daycare, a teacher had been abducted by unidentified masked agents that morning. They didn't ask for her papers. She's here working legally. But they, yeah, they just took her with no explanation. And thus, the parent patrols were born. Yes, exactly. We have parents on all the corners and vests. and here's our daycare right here. Some of the folks here are parents. Some of them are neighbors. That guy right there is a grandpa, an abuelo. They're out here during drop-off. And pick-up. Drop-off and pick-up, yep. This week, we are here on the ground, the very frozen ground in the Twin Cities to understand what is happening to people in this place, how public executions and masked kidnappers have reshaped this part of American society, but also how it has knit itself together even tighter amid all the fear and uncertainty. Donald Trump has set his sights on Minneapolis, but of course, the deportation campaign does not stop here at this particular bend in the Mississippi River. So what can the rest of the country learn from the Twin Cities about what's coming next? and how to resist. I'm Alex Wagner, and this week on Runaway Country, we are going to ground zero in the fight for this country, Minnesota. I'll be sitting down with the state's attorney general, Keith Ellison, to discuss why Trump's ICE invasion might never really have been about immigration or fraud, but about blackmail. Whether Trump's targeting of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar may have resulted in her being attacked this week. It's just like a mafia boss saying, you know, somebody needs to rid me of this irritating person. Why will no one get rid of this person who's such a thorn in my side? What it means is, when are y'all going to kill him? And I'm heading to the Park Avenue United Methodist Church, just a few blocks from where Renee Good was shot, to learn how that community is meeting the moment with prayer and baby shampoo. But first, we're going to hear from a parent on the front lines and how she has taken matters into her own hands as federal agents have started turning daycares into battlegrounds. So you have a four-year-old and a one-year-old? Mm-hmm. And they're going to the school. Tell me a little bit about, you know, sort of what it's been like to be a parent in this year and in the last three weeks in Minnesota and the Twin Cities. Um, yeah, so it's been tough, especially the last three weeks. So our signal chat started three weeks ago, the day that Renee Good was murdered. So really, it feels like we've lived like three years in the last three weeks. And especially so I live one block from the daycare and being so close, you feel like you have to have eyes outside all the time. So if I'm working from home, I'm also looking out the window and trying to identify what car is driving by or what that sound is, or, oh, is that a whistle? Is that, you know, is that a horn? What's going on? And it's been this combination of feeling really worried and sad for my own children. I mean, there's restrictions on their lives at this point. They no longer get to go outside. during daycare. Really? Yeah. Because I can't have the teachers outside on the playground. And then the blinds are drawn on the windows at all times now too. So especially my four-year-old, she feels what's happening. And I feel really sad for her, but more sad for the teachers who are living with this fear and have their own kids. The front of the school has posters talking that are very explicitly declaring the people employed there using e-verify just to sort of underline the fact that the people who are in the school are staff members of the school are here legally right and yet teachers they don't the school doesn't want or parents don't want community doesn't want them out there on the outside the the blinds are drawn And is that just because there's just no zero confidence in ICE and its tactics and the indiscriminate way in which they've been nabbing people? Oh, absolutely. I mean, we've heard story after story of people being pulled over or detained because of their skin color. And our teachers are especially vulnerable because of their skin color and the fact that a lot of them don't speak great English. So if they were detained, it would be hard for them to explain like, here's my papers, which they are carrying on them at all times. And then they are here on work visas, a lot of them. So that makes them especially vulnerable. There was a teacher taken at a different daycare in the same company three weeks ago. She was here working legally. She arrived at work and masked men without identifying themselves, took her from her car and detained her. And she didn't happen to have her work papers on her. So before she could get her work papers to the Whipple building or to where she was being detained, ICE had already sent her to El Paso. Wow. And she was there for over two weeks. And she was here legally. so it's things like that that don't give us any confidence in the fact that everyone's doing everything right everybody's following the law that doesn't matter right now but you guys it's not just that you're sort of just trying to navigate the situation you've taken a proactive the parents in this community have taken a proactive position right you they're the organized parent patrols, right? Those are happening at drop-off times. And then you're also working to help teachers. Is that right? Yeah. So we are organizing rides to and from school for any teacher that wants it. At first, we had just offered it to teachers who take the bus because They're more vulnerable on the bus stops, but then all these people who normally drive felt more comfortable having, honestly, just a white person drive the car. Yeah, it's terrible. So we, at this point, are organizing about 130 rides a week for the teachers. and in addition to that we have another group at our school that organizes weekly grocery deliveries at school so we're also organizing daily lunches because before teachers would go out and grab lunch on their lunch break and that's not safe. Wow. Also like I said a lot of the teachers have families, young kids and a lot of them can't go to school right now so we also started a toy library for teachers or anyone who is interested to like check out toys or things to bring home to entertain their children. And we also have some for adults too, because adults also go crazy when they're stuck inside. Yeah. I just like the level of protection that's required to just exist as a teacher, as a person of color. I mean, even for this podcast, we wanted to talk to the most vulnerable people and people are so terrified. Oh my God. Yeah. Just yesterday, I heard one of my coworkers has a child at a Spanish immersion daycare and they've also been organizing rides and they had ice following them on rides home and honking, trying to get them to stop. And luckily, they just kept driving and they didn't pull over and they were able to get to their location, but we're not talking about hypotheticals. We're talking about real things that are happening. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes. But it doesn't really feel like there's another option. I know this week that the president is, I don't even know how to characterize his attitude to what's unfolding here. Greg Bovino has been sent packing, but Tom Holman is coming in and there's been no significant change in tactics, it sounds like, right? They're still deporting people. They're still going after people. How are you feeling about what's unfolding here? And what's your level of, I guess, optimism that it's not going to be like this forever? A lot of the parents who are organizing have talked about, okay, how do we make this sustainable for the long term. Do you think it's going to be the long term? This is not sustainable. It's not sustainable for parent organizers. It's certainly not sustainable for teachers and their families. There's this awkward thing too, where it's like, there's so many Spanish immersion daycares in the Twin Cities. If this keeps happening, I don't know how they can stay open you know and we we have a major child care shortage in the Twin Cities too and so I don't know where all those kids are going to go so there's also this awkwardness of okay do we try and get our girls in to a non-Spanish immersion daycare now before Or there's this rush. Because people just give up on. Or because they close because teachers are either self-deporting or too scared to come to work or detained. It feels like that's the end goal, right? Like part of the Trump manifesto is to make America white again, basically, and to stop the diversification and the embrace of diversification. And what better way to do that than make it untenable for kids to learn Spanish? Oh, absolutely. Or, yeah, or to allow people whose first language is not English to learn alongside them. Yeah, or to live safely in our community. Um, so yeah, at this point we haven't explored other daycares, but it's a, it's really, um, you, you don't know if you're doing the right thing for your kid. It feels like we're putting them on the front line. How do you deal with that as a mom? Um, I just, just keep going. You know, I organizing the rides, you know, a lot of my day is spent sending messages and looking at a spreadsheet of who's giving who a ride. And like that spreadsheet gives me peace, makes me feel like I have some control over the situation. And, yeah, a lot of avoiding the emotions of what's really happening right now. It's a lot, Libby. Yeah, it's, yeah. And it's like, you know, I'm so angry because, you know, as a parent, I try and be present with my children and try and not constantly be looking at my phone. But I don't have an option right now, it feels like. So in the morning when I'm getting them ready for school and giving them hot chocolate, I'm also responding to messages and making sure teachers are getting to school safely. And then the same thing in the evening. And as a working parent, I only get those three or four hours with them a day. And that time is now divided. But also, it's like, how dare I be upset about that when one of the teachers that we were giving a ride home last week, we learned there was ice outside her house literally knocking on her door. like how dare I feel sad that I have to text when my children are around when like other moms are having to worry about if they're going to see their children again or get to go home to their children you know it's hard for everybody yeah unfortunately in this day and age the story moves quickly, right? Oh, yeah. The story moved away from Minneapolis and then it came back because of Alex Breddy. But inevitably it's going to go to a different state and there's going to be raids in some other part of the country. I mean, what, for lack of a better term, advice would you give to other parents out there who might ultimately have to face the same things you are dealing with? I would say in these times, especially when everyone is so scared, it's so easy to turn on each other. We've heard about that happening at other daycares, just disagreement over the best way to handle things and how much involvement parents should have versus the corporation running the daycare should have. I think the most important thing is to give everyone grace and to remember that we're in this fight together, even if sometimes we might disagree on methods. I mean, that's not to say sometimes I don't send little side texts like, can you believe what this person said? But, you know, finding the humor and the pettiness in it and then realizing that that is pettiness and that we're fighting a bigger fight than just why did this person say this crazy thing in a chat? Even when you're fighting fascists, there's room for side eye. Right. You always got to manage everybody's emotions. But that's a sign of humanity, right? Well, and that's the beautiful thing, right? And, you know, it's hard to, this is probably not what most people are thinking, but there's humanity in the people who are ICE agents as well You know they not just a unilaterally like we try and tell our four there no such thing as bad guys. People do bad things sometimes, but people aren't inherently bad guys. And same is true with these agents. Good on you. Easier said than done. Amen. You set goals, right? Try and meet them. Thank you, Libby. I mean, it's really what you guys are, how you've responded is so extraordinary and really inspiring. So it's great to hear firsthand how it's being done. Yeah. No, thanks for talking about it. When we come back, my conversation with Reverend Dan Johnson of the Park Avenue United Methodist Church. Runaway Country is brought to you by Fable. When so much of what we are surrounded with feels disposable, I really appreciate brands that take the opposite approach, truly. Fable is a homeware brand built around the idea of fewer, better pieces, things you actually live with and use every day and keep for years. They make timeless, modern dinnerware and rugs and glassware, all of which is designed to last and not just look good on Instagram for like two minutes. Their ceramic dinnerware is hand-finished by artisans in Portugal using recycled and locally sourced clay, and it is made for real life. Dishwasher, microwave, even oven-safe. Their rugs are hand-woven from certified New Zealand wool. They are incredibly durable, and yes, they are machine-washable. 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I mean, what has it been like being the pastor of this congregation in this moment, right? Renee Good was killed a block from here. Yeah. And then a few days ago, Alex Preddy is killed. In the interim, the church doors are open to people who are getting pepper sprayed and tear gassed. You yourself experience that. I mean, tell me from sort of just the firsthand perspective what it has been like to live through the last few weeks. In between those two killings, this whole street and Oakland on the other side. So essentially this peninsula, this block, was completely surrounded by ice and then subsequently protesters. You know, I betray my bias, but anything that would have been even called remotely their work was probably cared for in the first half hour. And it's then after that, there was an intentional occupation of this whole intimidation of folks. and just essentially starting at 9.20 in the morning until about 11.20, blocking off these main arteries into Minneapolis, where people are just trying to go for their medical appointments and to work. It was completely inaccessible. And so obviously with these one-way roads here, once you get in the midst, then we had a whole mix of civilians just in their vehicles and additional ICE support coming in behind them. So everything is intermixed. Oh, and so chaotic. And part of the reason Rene Good was shot is because there's this very chaotic intersection of people in their vehicles and ICE agents, and there's no sort of strategy, it seems. There's no tactical awareness of the civilian life. For sure. And even for our own staff, not just filming and recording what was going on, but then essentially almost like first aid response to folks coming. As the flashbangs go off and then the pepper bombs go off, we had people. Coming in here. Yeah, we opened the doors as an emergency station really for people to wash their faces, wash their hands. and in the process, several of us on staff, myself included, Wendy as well, you can't help but have the pepper bomb cloud waft over you as you're trying to assist others. For me just personally, there's a passage from the book of Ezra in the Bible about the building of the second temple. It was in the midst of occupying forces that invaded, tore down the first temple. And when the second temple was being built, Ezra chapter 3 talks about people that were thinking back to the past and all they'd lost, and others that were looking toward the future and all that they hoped for. And the passage reads, the shouts of mourning were so loud and the shouts of joy were so loud that they couldn't distinguish between the two. And that's a little bit of what it feels like to be a pastor in the midst of this is attending to the shouts and cries of pain and at the same time finding the spots of hope and joy that can also propel you into the future. I think that's one of the things we miss on the outside is the sense of community is so robust and so intact. And to your point about joy, that sense of togetherness seems so profound in the most extraordinary of circumstances. Let me ask a little bit about how you have had to recalibrate the way that the congregation functions since ICE came to town. how have the people that used to come worship here how have they had to change their habits how have you adapted? I mean any church is already busy with a lot of ministry we provide mutual aid as well as worship services service to our broader community service inside but in addition to the ongoing stuff then there's the constant need to be reactive to the crisis of the moment So, for example, some of our ministries that we provide, a health clinic, preschool, thrift store, Spanish-speaking service, some of these have had to go to online-only or by-appointment-only work. So that's significant. How do you do that? Because the very people, the refugee and the immigrant communities that benefit the most from some of these services are the ones that are being really limited by access, both for their own safety as well as the programs themselves needing to protect themselves. So, for instance, our director of preschool is followed to the door and harassed on her way to work just because of the color of her skin. Our Spanish-speaking congregation needing to go to all virtual when that culture is especially devoted to relational kinds of ministry and being together face-to-face. That said, we've actually seen an increase in attendance for our multicultural English speaking service because the caregivers are needing support themselves. I mean, it's traumatic all the way around, both for the targeted people as well as those that are trying to provide advocacy and care for others. Even if ICE reduces their impact in this moment, we're going to have trauma services that we need to be providing long term. So, for instance, two weeks ago, members of our central neighborhood just called and asked, could we have just some space in your building so we can safely talk to our neighbors? This is a community that's used to people being out on their porches to talk to each other. Even in January, I've seen them out on their porches to talk to their neighbors. You're just talking about, and these are not necessarily people who are in danger of deportation. No, no, these are our neighbors. This is just the community feels like they can't speak outside. Exactly. And so they said, could you open your doors? And we said, what would be a good time? And they called it just healing space. And initially, we were just going to provide a space for them to gather and just have some coffee and tea and a few snacks so they could talk. But then we had an area, Becoming Together Therapy and Wellness, that offered volunteer therapists to come in just to do some trauma counseling and trauma-informed activities with kids. Our children and family staff person created a meditation center and some other activities for family. There was a yoga instructor that came. And it wasn't big, but it was 26 people came that first night, but it was 26 people that would have been alone in fear in their own homes otherwise, and they were able to gather in community. When congregants aren't coming into church, do you hear from the folks that service them or that talk to them virtually or communicate virtually what they're most worried about? I mean, I'd just love any perspective you could offer on kind of the conversation that's happening between. Well, I think they're most worried about the profiling. Yeah. Especially people of color was initially black and brown, and now it's our Asian-American siblings as well that are also fearful. We have, starting as far back as Christmas, we started to have people that could be walked to and from their cars just for security. So I think that's one thing is just safety for themselves. and a fear of profiling, just being outside on the streets. One of the interesting mutual aid programs that has surfaced, you would expect things like food delivery because they're no longer comfortable coming to our parking lot for our once-a-month food delivery. Now we do deliveries to their homes. But think about just having your dog walked. We have volunteers that are walking dogs because people are afraid to just walk their own dog. And I would assume these aren't just, these are people with citizenship. Certainly, certainly. The vast majority. In fact, yeah, our U.S. citizens, they're just being profiled because of their color. What do you tell people? Because you're kind of recalibrating to say, okay, how do we manage this trauma in an ongoing, active way? We can't make promises that we can't deliver on. I can't tell them that, oh, we can tell them that they don't walk alone. that this congregation is with them, literally, literally, walking with them on these streets, and we do. We're committed to that. For a long time, I mentioned our Friday food distribution, and oftentimes we'd stock baby shampoo as a common product that we deliver to families with young children. You know where we stock it now, Alex? We stock it in our welcome center as a first aid tool along with bottles of water. So if people are sprayed with pepper spray, we have an immediate response for them of first aid, of baby shampoo and bottled water so that they can clean themselves. That's an example of what has to happen almost in an urban combat kind of situation. We hope that that's continuing, and we will—at the same time we're doing emergency response, we're also working for justice and advocacy work so that we try to get upstream of the crisis to the root causes of this social illa. Some of the people who are on the other side of this have embraced Christianity and cloaked themselves in the name of the Lord in their politics. and yet here you are a man of faith and we're sitting in this church and what is happening to this congregation what happens outside of the four walls of this congregation seems so unchristian and i just wonder how you reconcile you know their position with what they're doing and how you think of this all in the context of of of your religion I don't want to disparage colleagues, but Christian nationalism is doing the cause of Jesus a disservice. and so for just for example it's not news but the you know the Whipple building the Whipple Federal Building is an image of for this whole Metro Surge operation. Yeah. Not only housing ICE agents but also being a place for detaining people and deportation hearings and everything else. But nobody talks about the real name of it. It's, you know, Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple, who was an Episcopal bishop of the church, who if you would look back at his history, he'd be the one on the outside protesting what's going on. He's turning over in his grave because of what others in the name of Jesus would say is the thing that they're called to do. Wow, the irony. Yes. Have you ever spoken to one of them? And if you could, what would you say? Well, that's an interesting question. I have not directly spoken to any ICE agent. I've been at several protests. I've been on the street filming. My posture, when it's happened multiple times around our building, is to be a person of prayer, to be praying for the citizens of our streets and for the protests to be heard without violence that compounds the issue for anybody on either side. To be honest, what I thought I would say is if you took your mask off, would you be the same person? Would you be doing the same things as you're doing now? That's a great question. Pastor Dan, thank you for sharing the story about what's going on. Thank you. When we come back, I'll put this all into context with Minnesota's Attorney General, Keith Ellison. Miracle Made. Runaway Country is brought to you by Miracle Made. Here is a disgusting fact. You're welcome in advance. Traditional bedsheets can hold more bacteria than a toilet seat. Yeah, and it's not exactly what you want to lay your face on. I mean, I don't know. Maybe you like laying your face on a toilet seat. I don't. Miracle-Made bedding is designed to fight bacteria and to stay cleaner longer with silver-infused fabrics that actually prevent up to 99.7% of bacterial growth. Miracle-Made sheets are crafted with NASA-inspired silver-infused fabric that helps regulate your body temperature. Are you a hot sleeper? Are you a cold sleeper? Do you sometimes sleep with children, one of whom is a hot sleeper and the other is a cold sleeper, and you're caught in the middle of them, that's my life. 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So, Mr. Attorney General, thank you for... Good to see you, Alex. Always good to see you, even under these extraordinarily bad circumstances. They are dire. A lot of stuff has happened this week, right? And I want to get to the biggest of the big pictures. But first, let me just get their new sort of foot soldiers being dispatched from the Trump administration. Right. Greg Bovino packed his bags for California. Right. I think Kristi Noem is busy currying favor with the president. But Tom Homan has been dispatched to run Operation Metro Surge here. And we now in the last few minutes got news from the president. from Pam Bondi, that she's on the ground in Minneapolis today. And she's saying that federal agents have arrested 16 Minnesota rioters for allegedly assaulting federal law enforcement, people who have been resisting and impeding our federal law enforcement agents. We expect more arrests to come. And then this is the kicker. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Nothing will stop President Trump and this Department of Justice from enforcing the law. Let me just first get your reaction to that coming from the attorney general. Well, the attorney general has a poor record when it comes to accuracy and truth. The attorney general has made a number of outrageous, unfortunate statements. Her department has sent out investigative subpoenas to myself, the governor, the mayor. But her department, the DOJ, is not investigating Jonathan Ross, who killed, clearly, Renee Good. She is in favor of investigating people who've done no wrong, and she's not in favor of investigating people who have committed homicide. Now, I'm not saying Jonathan Ross doesn't have any legal defenses, but there is no debating that he killed Renee Good, and he is not under investigation. And so I must say that the Attorney General, what she says is fundamentally and inherently political, is completely untethered to justice, is always about the spin. And this is deeply unfortunate, deeply unfortunate that the American people cannot trust the chief law enforcement officer of our country. I mean, also, there was some—President Trump played footsie with the idea of de-escalation. Yeah. But I don't know, sending the AG here to make statements like that and talk about, you know, the danger that law enforcement faces on the ground. Even Tom Homan is not a white knight. This is someone that, like, was the subject of an FBI undercover investigation and was a fan of child separations back in 2017. I mean, do you sense de-escalation? Are you optimistic that anything is changing from this administration? I know that. Here's why I'm optimistic. Please. I'm optimistic because on the issue of immigration, which, if anything, is what propelled Trump into the White House again. He's at like 39 percent. Yeah. He now is openly being criticized by the NRA and other gun-oriented groups because of his attack on the character of Alex Preddy, who lawfully and legally had a gun but never pulled it out before he was killed. So I think that the one thing you can count on Trump is to always be extremely in-image sensitive. And so because of that, I do think that they are looking for a way to deescalate. But I don't think it has anything to do with public safety or immigration or fraud or anything. Nothing they say it's about is what it's about. And when they leave, they will also have a face-saving explanation for that too. So, yes, I do think that they are looking to de-escalate. They have not yet. But I don't think you're ever going to hear an honest answer from Pam Bondi. You may hear an honest answer from Trump by accident. Yeah. You know? Right. Well, he'll, yeah. By accident. His lizard brain kicks in from time to time. I mean, he wrote the, one day he's calling our governor names and very insulting ones. The next day he's talking about how they're, oh, just on the same wavelength. and all this kind of stuff. So, I mean, you never really know. I mean, one thing you can bet for sure, they're watching the polls, they're watching their public approval, and they will do what they think serves that. Well, you're the attorney general, and there's a case winding its way through federal court. Yes, there is. There was another hearing on Monday. Yes. Judge Kate Menendez, and she hasn't issued a ruling. There's a lot that's read into each move. She has not issued a ruling, but she has required additional briefing from the government, essentially asking them to explain why they, that the position of the state of Minnesota is not accurate. And this is a case for people who haven't been following this, where the state of Minnesota is basically saying, can you please, like, ICE needs to leave. We need to get ICE and Operation Metro Surge out of our backyard. And so we're recording this on Wednesday about 2 o'clock Central Time, the government, the feds, are due to file that explanation by 6 p.m. Are you optimistic that she could just end this thing and that they would comply? Because the chief judge, the chief federal judge, I think Patrick Schiltz, has said, you know, the federal government has ignored dozens of requests. He's called the head of CPB to testify, which is kind of unprecedented because they've been so uncooperative. I mean, if the courts say you cannot do this, you cannot surge these federal troops into American cities without consent, you are making the situation exponentially more dangerous. Are you worried that the federal government actually complies? Do you worry that Trump turns tail? I do worry that. But Alex, let me just tell you what is at stake, if I may. Yeah, please. So if the U.S. Congress passed a law saying all Minnesota law enforcement must be ICE agents or deputies of ICE, or if the president issued an executive order saying the same thing, the Supreme Court would say that is commandeering. That violates the 10th Amendment. That violates the balance of power between the states and the federal government. You can't do it. That's coercive. and he can't do it. Trump is saying, well, I'm going to achieve that very same thing by getting 4,000 armed people to aim guns at Minnesotans. Yes. So if a piece of legislation or executive order can commandeer the state resources, you better believe 4,000 armed, violent people can do that. And so that's what's at stake here. If we do not get a ruling that affirms Minnesota's sovereignty, we're opening the door for the federal government takeover of state authority and power. If they can do it, if they can't do it with legislation or an executive order, they sure cannot do it at the barrel of a gun and they sure can't do it at the barrel of 4,000 guns, which is exactly what we're looking at right here, right now. So there's a lot at stake. Do I believe that they will listen? Who knows? You know what I mean? This is a lawless federal government. This is a federal government that is committed to the authoritarian project. They are. There is a reason why his favorite foreign dignitaries are people like Orban in Hungary and Putin. Yeah, Prince Bonesaw, you know, is what I like to call him. And people like Vladimir Putin, who kills his adversaries and jails them and invades countries. Because Trump wants to invade countries. He wants to do the same thing. He did the same thing. So, you know, they are his people. And if any American thinks that he's going to insult democracies like Denmark and Norway and the UK and Canada, but is going to cozy up to Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Hungary, if that's not the clearest sign in the world, I don't know what else to tell you. But I can tell you the 4,000 armed, violent paramilitaries threatening Minnesotans, killing Minnesotans, two in the last two weeks, then it must be self-evident to all that we're facing violent authoritarian government led by Donald Trump. I want to dig into like his endgame because I think that there's a part of Trump that's just trying to accrue power for the sake of accruing power. Right. Part of it is also to own the libs and say, fuck you, blue cities, blue states. I'm the king here. But there's another twist in the plot, which I think, you know, you as a state official are well aware of, which is the extortion. Extortion. Yeah, or blackmail, if you're not familiar with extortion dynamics. But the Attorney General, Pam Bondi. Say it. Sent a letter to the Secretary of State saying, effectively, and I'm paraphrasing, but this is the gist. if you don't want our goons in your state, you need to hand us the voter rolls. Yeah, that's it. I mean, it's unmistakable. They want other stuff too. They want data. They want SNAP data that's not public. They want a bunch of, they had three items that they were trying to extort us for. But that is fundamentally what's going on. I mean, that's insane. That letter was sent to your state the day Alex Preddy was killed Yeah, demonstrating absolutely no concern for the Petty family. I mean, that's another thing that is completely—I mean, look, Melissa Hortman, who sat at this very table many, many, many times, Trump never called her family or the governor when she was assassinated, never demonstrated or expressed any concern for Alex Petty or Renee Good, said that their killers were completely innocent, backed up the claim that they were domestic terrorists. But yeah, Pam Bondi has said, give us your information. Basically, surrender your sovereignty as a state or else. And that is what she's done. And Judge Kate Melendez really picked up that on the Monday hearing, asked a lot of questions about that. So she's making the connection between the blackmail letter and what's happening in Operation Metro Search. She was amazingly astute in her observation of the situation. And that's why it has demanded additional briefing. And, you know, I don't know what it means. I know that I trust her and she's a great judge. But it's very clear that that is what's going on. Bondi knows it, although she obviously would deny it now because it's not to her advantage. but clearly they're trying to extort our state. But what I say to everybody else is if they're going to do this to this blue state in the upper Midwest, if they're going to say this to the state that has said no to Trump three times at the ballot box, if they're going to say this to the state that feeds hungry kids universal school meals, paid family leave, this is a progressive state, then what they're doing is saying that any state, that does whatever we don't want. Anyone who defies us, we will punish you for that. And we're not going to punish you with executive orders. We're going to send armed paramilitaries to stick a gun in your face. If that's not authoritarianism, the concept means nothing. I wonder what you think. I mean, there are questions of how you check this authoritarianism, right? Obviously, you're doing it in the courts. In the courts. There's another branch of government that's responsible, the one that you've sort of clocked in some hours at. the legislative branch. And again, we're recording this on Wednesday afternoon. We're barreling towards a potential government shutdown. Because Congress, Democrats in Congress, Democrats in the Senate are saying, you want to do what? You want funding? Now, granted, ICE has a $75 billion pool of funding, a piggy bank that is a result of the one big. Ugly bill. Ugly bill act. So they can continue their operations. But as you talk about funding going forward, Congress is saying, Senate Democrats are saying, you don't get this money unless you reform some parts of ICE, right? It sounds like it's a narrow list of demands. Right. And I wonder from both a sort of legal perspective and as someone who worked in the legislative branch, like, what do you think about that fight? And like, as you, you know, some of the reforms that are being talked about are, you know, no warrantless searches, making sure that state investigators have access to these investigations. I want to talk to you about that in a second. No masks. No masks. Do you think that stuff is, I mean, first of all, do you think that that fight is the right fight? And are you optimistic about those changes making a meaningful difference in a place like this? Here's how I feel about that. Why did you ever put one lawn sign in one yard if you're not willing to fight over this? If you're not willing to throw down over this, how do you call yourself a public servant? How do you deserve the office that you operate of? What are you doing if you won't fight for this? And at a time when Trump is on the ropes, and he is, at a time when senators are questioning, at a time when even Republican senators who were skeptical of some of his people said, okay, based on your representations, we'll vote for you, Kennedy or Noam or Patel. they've all been disappointed and burned. I think that there is space for victory on this. And I think we're only talking about an extra $10 billion, but hell no. I mean, win this one or go home. And if there's one reason for you to absolutely throw down and never back down, this is it. And I'm telling you, I mean, at some point, you as a politician, you as a U.S. senator were, I hope, animated by nobler values. This is the time to remember them. There's nobody who likes this. Let me tell you, in this state of Minnesota, we have Republicans. I remember this is the state of Michelle Bachman, right? I mean, we got some right-wingers here, no question about it. I mean, Pete Hexhev comes from here. But my point is, even many of them are questioning. There's this guy named Michael Broadcorp who used to run this thing called Minnesota Democrats Exposed. And he devoted his life to kicking our ass every single day. Most of it was BS and lies, but he was committed. He just had a sub stack talking about, you know, this is wrong. Yeah. This is wrong. What Trump's doing is wrong. Now, I'm not saying that he's my guy politically. He's not a convert. He's not a convert. He's still over there. But, I mean, you've got a lot of Republicans who know this is wrong. I mean, you've got, you know, Adam Kinzinger. You've got Bill Kristol. You've got this local guy. Tom Tillis, James Comer. James Comer. You've got people saying this is wrong. And so it's a dim. So why would you ever cave now? Yeah. I mean, right now, you know, the senator from Maine, the Republican senator from Maine. Susan Collins. So Susan Collins, you know, who's on the ballot, she better ask herself a question. Do you want to be a senator or not? I hope she does vote for this crap because that'll give us a good reason to get her out. And on the other hand, I hope she votes no because it'll be good for the American people. Yeah, it's become a proxy vote for do you sanction what happened to Alex Breddy? Right. That's basically the vote. It's not a funding vote. It's an ethical line in the sand. Right. And every Republican running for election in Minnesota, everybody, everyone has to ask themselves, are you with the Trump administration shooting down our fellow Minnesotans? Yeah. Or are you against it? If you stand with Trump in this moment, then you don't stand with Minnesotans at any moment. the official requests from Minority Leader Schumer. This is what they're asking for in order to pass the funding bill. End roving patrols, tighten warrants, coordination with local law enforcement. Number two, enforce accountability. Same use of force policies as local police. And three, masks off, body cameras on. Let me ask you. He needs another one. No ICE investigating ICE. Well, right. I want to talk to you about that. The use of force, the fact that the investigation into Alex Breddy's murder, execution, whatever you want to call it, is a use of force investigation according to the Department of Homeland Security? Well, the problem is not calling it a use of force investigation. If the Department of Justice, its Civil Rights Division, together with local authorities were to do an investigation, it would be a use of force death investigation. So the problem is not calling, because it was a use of force, right? Deadly force. The problem is that ICE is investigating ICE. And it's like, you know what? I thought about what happened, and I figured that I'm fine, and I didn't do anything wrong. You know what I mean? It is antithetical to any system of justice for the institution that produced the person who did the wrongful, questionable act. To investigate that same act is just antithetical to any system of justice. It must, ICE must hand over the investigation to the FBI and the Minnesota Department and Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. That's what they must do. And it must be a joint investigation, both discover evidence and use the evidence however we each deem appropriate based on our investigation and our interpretation of the evidence. I mean, we know that the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has been shut out of the Rene Good investigation. That's right. Can you tell us what's happening with the Alex Preddy investigation? Well, we went to court. Yeah. And so what's your level? I mean, where does that stand? And is there a chance that you're going to be gaining access to the body cam footage and more of the evidence that's central to this case? Well, so there have been three shooting cases in Minnesota. One of them is non-lethal. But they shut us off the scene and denied us access to the investigative file, the evidence, the feds file in Good's case. And then in another case where a man survived, so we don't say his name for his privacy, but he was shot in North Minneapolis. And then, so that Saturday night, well, that Saturday afternoon when we figured out and we learned about the Preddie shooting, which was that morning, we went to court right away to have a court issue a temporary restraining order to protect and preserve the evidence and to prevent destruction of any evidence. At this point, we've been advised that ICE is doing its own investigation, and the FBI, a Civil Rights Department is not involved. But we've now heard from Trump there should be a full investigation, but it cannot be ICE doing the investigation. It cannot be the Department of Homeland Security doing the investigation. They don't have the people to do this. Investigating a crime is actually a separate skill set of its own. If your agency is set up to do immigration enforcement, you're not set up to do criminal civil rights investigations. We've been doing criminal and civil rights investigations for a long time. Let me just note for your listeners the Department of Justice was set up by Ulysses S Grant to protect newly freed people from the abuses of local authorities Yeah That what they were set up for And, you know, everybody remembers, you know, the 1960s when Schwerner, Goodman, and Cheney and other people murdered because of their civil rights activity. and so, and quite honestly, the Department of Justice Civil Rights was really helpful when we prosecuted the people who killed George Floyd. And so this is what they do. They're experts at it. They know what they're doing. And to say they're not doing it, but Homeland Security's doing it, is a farce, is a joke. And no legitimate criminal investigator looks at that and says, yeah, that's fine. They know what it, Any real investigator knows that's a cover-up and it can't exist. And I'm hoping that, you know, you mentioned Mr. Holman's involved. He was a real police officer. He knows policing. He certainly knows a little bit about officer-involved shootings. And I hope that he is able to, you know, share with them how this is done by professionals, not the amateur hour they got going on with him. Not Kash Patel. Right. I mean, it just seems like the Trump administration has so much riding on this. You could see that in their immediate response, saying this guy was a domestic terrorist out to inflict mass carnage on— What a lie. And accusing him of approaching—but let me just tell you, you mentioned Cash Patel. Yes, he is not a serious individual at all. But local FBI people are. And the problem is not the FBI in this situation. The problem is Washington FBI. If they let local FBI work with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension people here and they do what they do and they know how to do it, we wouldn't have these problems. The problem is Washington. But now I've been getting notices that even the local FBI is not investigating and that Department of Homeland Security is doing the investigating all on its own, which is crazy. I've had police officers who I won't name Mention that the chain of custody with the gun Has been mishandled You know I've been advised that Look, you know This is not how you handle crime scenes You know And Alex, as a reporter You've seen crime scenes Where you see the little tents With the numbers on them Yeah, yeah You know, where they This is marking evidence Marking the location of evidence Of course And it's a careful thing that is done to make sure they can try to reconstruct what actually happened. This is what they've been trampling on. So what we've done is gone to court to secure the evidence. And I can assure everyone that we are taking responsible and effective measures to preserve and protect the evidence connected to the Renee Good case as well. I'm not at liberty to say exactly what, but I can tell you and I want people to believe me when I tell them that the state and the county together are taking the necessary action to make sure we have a case that we can eventually make a decision regarding charging or indictment on. More from Keith in just a second. But first, Crooked Media's newest book, Hated by All the Right People, Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind, is out now. It's by one of our favorite political journalists, New York Times Magazine writer, Jason Zengerle. In his book, Hated by All the Right People, Jason gives a fascinating and informative look at Tucker's political evolution and how his rise traces the rise of the MAGA movement. Here's a glowing review in the Washington Post from critic Becca Rothfeld. Mordant, insightful, vigorously reported, and yes, deliciously entertaining. Hated by All the Right People is as much a work of media criticism as it is a professional biography of Carlson and Zengerly chronicles how first television and then the internet started to reward extremes, privileging provocation and punditry over somber fact-finding. It's also featured in this week's New Yorker in print and online, where Jason is now a staff writer. Get your copy and check out Jason's book signing tour dates now by heading to crooked.com slash books. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Okay, the new year is not requiring of a new you. Some people think they need to reinvent themselves, but perhaps just maybe a less burdened you. And to do so, therapy can be hugely helpful. It can more easily identify what weighs you down and what holds you back by offering an unbiased perspective to better understand your relationships and your motivations and your emotions. I have been in therapy since before I was born. 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And people are saying, okay, don't read too much into that. That's not like a wake-up call that the Trump administration is sounding on all this. It's just a pro forma thing. Like, that's what happens when you're under investigation. Do you read anything into that? Does that signal anything to you? Well, I'll tell you this. What we heard, the first thing we heard was not that they were put on leave. What we heard from Bovino, who's gone now, is that, in fact, the victims were the people who killed Alex Freddie and that I heard one of them has gone to another city to continue his work even. I actually did hear that from a credible source. So now we're hearing they're on leave. I hope that they're on leave so that they don't hurt anyone else. And so normally if there was an officer involved shooting, the officer would be on leave. And so that is least consistent with some level of protocol, but it wasn't an immediate thing. Remember, Alex Preddy was killed Saturday. Today is Wednesday. And we've just been hearing that this is beginning to square with a normal protocol. Yeah, they were theoretically on the streets, those ICE agents. Yeah. Which is just an astounding thing to sort of wrap your head around that they would have shot Alex Preddy and then gone back to work. Gone back to work. Yeah, which is what we heard happen. In the meantime, I do want to like talk about sort of the like ICE's level of impunity in Minnesota right now. Yeah, it's pretty. Well, see, there's a lot of people who haven't been killed. Yeah, well, that's right. Yeah. Sam Bondi's here to show us how bad the protesters are. But really, my question is, is ICE at all – because – and Tom Homan may be a former police guy. Maybe he will make some inroads, legally speaking, that are in service of democracy. But what about the guys on the streets themselves? I mean, I think we have a report that ICE was trying to enter the Ecuadorian consulate, which is – and they were blocked. That's prohibited by the Vienna conventions. Like, this is basic sort of law here, and they seem intent on violating it. Well, here's the problem, Alex. These people are exceedingly poorly trained. Yeah. Right? So we're not getting, to use Trump's phrase, we're not getting the best. You know, remember you said— The worst of the worst are the ICE people. Right, right. We're getting sort of these people who couldn't hold a security job at a grocery store. And we're getting these people who are poorly trained. They're being told that they have absolute immunity, which they don't. So they're being poorly trained, poorly instructed on their job. So, of course, they do insane things like that. And, of course, they use chemical irritants on cars containing children. And of course, they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course, they're busting windows and dragging autistic women on their way to a medical appointment out of a car. And of course, they're doing all these horrible, bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst. Then they have absolute immunity. And they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. So that's what's going on. Poorly trained, poorly recruited, misinformed people who have a complex relationship with masculinity. You know what I mean? And race. And race. Whose idea of manhood is violence and whose idea of other people is that if they're not white, Anglo-Saxon, that they're probably not supposed to be here. Yeah. That they're suspect. I think that said explicitly. You don't sound like me, so where are you from? And the idea that you could be an American and also have an accent and not look like someone who is white seems like a real betrayal, I think, on the part of this administration. and it's lackey. Yeah, and then on behalf of like, I mean, here's the other thing. Are they racist? Sure. But the two people they killed are white people. I know. So like, if you as a Minnesotan think, well, I'm not a person of color, so they probably won't hurt me. Oh no, they'll kill you. They have. They'll shoot a mom in the face and a nurse in the back. Right. That is what they'll do. And they'll say, oh, those people were protesting. But there's a lot of people who were injured, hurt, abused, and mistreated, who were not even protesting. They were passing by. And so no one is safe from them. And here's another thing about ICE and its composition and organization. Does anyone doubt that if Trump said, you guys, you're my guys, and all these people who are sassing me and disrespecting me, I want you to arrest them. Do you think he wouldn't do it? If I said, go arrest the governor, do you think ICE agents wouldn't do it? Yeah. They would do it. They are a paramilitary Praetorian Guard. Yeah. That is what they are. Unlike a police department, they don't tell people their names. They don't show their faces. They don't wear badges. Unlike a police department, they're not tethered to a location. Right. Right? They can be sent anywhere. Unlike a police department, they're not trained on proper use of force or de-escalation. Their only loyalty is to Donald J. Trump, and they do what they think he wants them to do, which is to be violent towards the enemy within. Who is? Anybody who disagrees with Trump, anybody who doesn't look right, anybody who's from another country, this is what's going on. I have two more things I want to talk to you about. I know your time is precious, so I'm deeply appreciative. Ilhan Omar. Yes, great person. Yeah. A huge figure in both state politics and national politics and an object of obsession for this current president. Yeah, he really is obsessed with Ilhan. I mean, here's the thing, you know, I'm Ilhan's predecessor. Yeah. And I was, you know, proudly helpful to her to take over where I left off because I wanted somebody who was a fighter and it was good. You got one. Sure did. And she was attacked with an unknown liquid substance at a public meeting. That does not happen but for Trump's repeated, vile, violent rhetoric. He lies on her constantly. He abuses her reputation. And now he is, Trump is engaged in what I think some experts call stochastic terrorism. Yeah. And you know the term. Uh-huh. It's just like a mafia boss saying, you know, somebody needs to rid me of this irritating person. You know, why will no one get rid of this person who's such a thorn in my side? What it means is, why don't you all go kill him? Yeah. And everybody knows what happened, and he can say, oh, I didn't say do that. But that's what's going on. And so Trump is responsible for what happened to Ilhan Omar. I have a very strong feeling he won't call her to apologize or to check into how she is. But I just want anybody to know who's listening to your show, Trump is a liar. Ilhan Omar is a very smart, very kind person. Tough. So who's tough? Watch the video. You see she's ready to go after the guy. She is. Look, Ilhan Omar might not weigh 100 pounds soaking wet, but Ilhan Omar has the heart of a lion. But she has also the heart of a mom. And she's a kind, good person. She's smart and she loves the state of Minnesota. And Trump is always saying, they're always, I think he used the word, complaining. They're always—Ilhan Omar believes that America is a wonderful country that could be better, and she calls it to being better. That's not—that's not criticizing—that's not tearing our country down. It's calling our country to come up. Yeah. And he doesn't understand the difference. To him, flattery is the only acceptable level of communication. And patriotism. Well, he doesn't—yeah, that's patriotism. Ilhan is a patriot. Like, he actually doesn't really—he's the one who doesn't give a crap about America, really. It's him. It's all about him. You know, believe me, if it ever became convenient for him or he could lower his taxes by moving to, I don't know, Abu Dhabi, he would do it. Greenland. Greenland, he would do it, you know? All right, this is not over, right? None of this is over. Not by a far sight. It's not over here. Even if there is a de-escalation in Minnesota, and I hope that there is, my big fear is where will there be an escalation? Exactly. And so that's my sort of ultimate question to you, which is, you know, you are living through this. You are pulling all the leverage you can. You see a citizenry that's engaged, that is aware, that is banded together. What is your guidance for the next blue state AG that has to tackle the kind of scenario that's been unfolding here in Minnesota? Absolutely. So like if I were in Maine and I got a good friend named Aaron Frey, who was the attorney general in Maine, start reaching out to your colleagues early. Get ready. Get your memos ready on challenging the escalation. They call it Metro Surge here. They'll probably call it something else there. Get your memos ready. Start writing your legal briefs now on the Insurrection Act and how it doesn't apply. Make sure you give people advice on protesting now And then show up and be visible Don't just sit in an office building and write briefs behind a computer Show up at the community meeting, show up at the protest I mean, I go outside the Whitwell building and just thank people for being there Help people understand that they're not wrong and that one of the reasons that Trump is attacking us is because we live in states where there is a sense of the common good. Trump wouldn't be attacking us if we didn't welcome the stranger in Minnesota. In Minnesota, we are so embracing of all people, including immigrants, that we elected a girl who used to be in a refugee camp to be our congressperson. congressperson. That's Ilhan. She's a woman now, but she was a girl and a kid, you know, trying to survive, you know, a refugee camp in Kenya when she came here, you know. And he is attacking us because we're welcoming, because we believe in liberty and justice for all. We are in the bullseye of Donald Trump because we have paid family leave, because we believe that our trans neighbors have every right to respect and dignity and participation in this society, they hate our state because we don't hate trans people. They hate us. And so that is what it's about. And don't let them back you off your values. Never quit. Never quit. If you do quit, it won't gain you anything. They're still going to crap all over you. So why not fight and maybe win? And then understand that the nation is behind you. The nation is behind Minnesota right now. And if he does de-escalate and go to another state, we'll be behind you there. And let me also say this. I have friends who are AGs in Southern states who are border states. They're fighting the Sinaloa drug cartel. they're down immigration enforcement people because they're up here so you have some Arizona ICE agent freezing his or her ass off in Minnesota when they could be stopping fentanyl from coming through the border proving that this is nothing but retribution and punishment and it's wrong and It's immoral. And we will never back down. Not ever. Never. He will quit before we do. And that's the lessons I got. That's a lot of lessons. Good lessons. Way to go, Alex. Thank you so much. We're all in it. Thank you so much for your time. Got it. You're the best. You are. That is our show for this week. As always, if you have been impacted directly by the Trump administration or its policies, send us an email or a one-minute voice note at runawaycountry at crooked.com, and we may be in touch to feature your story. A huge thank you to everyone who has written in already. Last but not least, please don't forget to check out the show and our rapid response videos on our YouTube channel, Runaway Country with Alex Wagner. Runaway Country is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Ilona Minkowski. Our producer is Emma Illich Frank. Production support from Megan Larson and Lacey Roberts. The show is mixed and edited by Charlotte Landis. Ben Hethcote is our video producer, and Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Audio support comes from Kyle Seglin. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Adrienne Hill is our head of news and politics. Katie Long is our executive producer of development. 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