The City of Minneapolis vs. Donald Trump

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The New Yorker Radio Hour

Episode: "The City of Minneapolis vs. Donald Trump"

Host: David Remnick
Guests: Emily Witt & Ruby Kramer (New Yorker staff writers), Jacob Fry (Mayor of Minneapolis), Brian O’Hara (Chief of Police, Minneapolis), others
Date: January 30, 2026

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Overview:

This episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour, hosted by David Remnick, examines the federal occupation of Minneapolis under the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge—a crackdown that has resulted in deaths, citywide fear, and profound political fallout. Staff writers Emily Witt and Ruby Kramer, both reporting from Minneapolis, analyze the tactics used, the city’s response, the political motivations, and the lasting impact on the community. Through interviews with local officials, protesters, and ordinary citizens, the episode explores how a progressive American city finds itself at the epicenter of a national crisis, and what this portends for democracy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Federal Occupation of Minneapolis

• Trump’s declaration at the World Economic Forum: “Sometimes you need a dictator.”
• The city is under siege by thousands of ICE and other federal agents, who go door-to-door demanding IDs and detaining residents.
  • Notable fatalities: Renee Goode (poet) and Alex Preddy (nurse), both killed by federal agents ([00:10]).
  • Trump administration labels victims as terrorists to justify killings.

2. Escalation Compared to Prior Protests

Emily Witt compares federal strategies:

• LA: Federal presence was dispersed; confrontations were limited ([02:06]).
• Minneapolis: The city’s small size makes the occupation immediate and inescapable.
  • “You didn't see the same face to face confrontation between just ordinary people and federal agents with the same degree of intensity that you're seeing in Minneapolis.” ([02:37])

3. Mayor Jacob Fry’s Perspective

• Jacob Fry describes the contrast between normal city governance and the trauma of federal occupation ([03:28]):
  • “I fill potholes… pick up the trash. That's what I do. That's what we want to do.”
  • Ruby Kramer: “He feels as if Minneapolis was in the midst of a renaissance, in his words, before this happened.” ([04:15])
• Minneapolis’ unique trauma: George Floyd’s murder defined his first term; now Fry faces federal occupation at the start of his third (and reportedly last) term ([04:15]).

4. Community Dynamics & Civic Culture

Emily Witt on why Minneapolis is frequently a protest epicenter ([06:35]):

• “It's an unapologetically really progressive leftist city.”
• Strong civic engagement; idealistic and community-minded citizens.

5. Political Motivations & Federal Retaliation

• The federal operation is widely perceived not as practical immigration enforcement, but as political punishment ([07:42]):
  • “If this was really about immigration and not about political punishment as it seems to be...”
• Minneapolis has a relatively small undocumented population versus the size of the operation.
• Prominent state Democrats (Ilhan Omar, Tim Walz) and local Somali communities are scapegoated amid ongoing fraud investigations ([09:16]).
  • Trump reframes localized fraud into a broader immigration issue, targeting the Somali community for political gain.

6. Demonization and Violence Against Political Opponents

• Violence directed at Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and local leaders ([10:46]):
  • Emily Witt: “He wants Minneapolis to turn against people in their community that they see as their neighbors and their leaders… and the city is refusing to accept that narrative.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jacob Fry ([03:28]):
  “Just give it to. Just allow us. We're not even asking for one, you know. Right.”
• Emily Witt ([06:35]):
  “It's an unapologetically really progressive leftist city… people here are really civic minded...”
• Emily Witt ([07:42]):
  “If this was really about immigration and not about political punishment as it seems to be...”
• Ilhan Omar ([40:03]):
  “...he does want to invoke the Insurrection Act. And we are telling our constituents not to take the bait.”
• Alex Preddy death context ([41:49], Ruby Kramer):
  “Normally we're used to seeing conservative elements...defend concealed carry. Now...not only did [Preddy] not reach for it, but the gun was removed by one federal agent and he was disarmed.”
• Brandon Segenza, ICE observer detainee ([29:27]):
  “I can’t forget the way it sounded. It was horrible.”
• Brian O’Hara, Police Chief ([19:31]):
  “It doesn't appear that there's much effort to de-escalate...It looks like complete chaos.”
• Emily Witt ([44:37]):
  “They're changing their tactics up...But it doesn't feel like it's stopping.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:10–02:06 — Introduction, background, federal intervention
• 03:28–05:20 — Interview with Mayor Jacob Fry
• 06:22–07:42 — Why Minneapolis is the target
• 09:16–11:40 — Fraud investigation, scapegoating Somali Americans, political retribution
• 13:14–15:29 — Attorney General demands voter rolls, links to political motives
• 15:29–16:22 — Details on the investigations into protester deaths
• 16:48–18:35 — “Absolute immunity” for ICE discussed; on-the-ground protest atmosphere
• 19:31–22:45 — Chief Brian O’Hara on police relationships and incidents
• 24:19–25:40 — Mayor Fry on intergovernmental cooperation
• 26:51–27:12 — DOJ investigations into city/state leaders
• 28:04–30:57 — ICE observers (Patty O’Keefe, Brandon Segenza) describe detainment
• 31:50–34:31 — Protester interrogations, offers of money and immigration help
• 35:29–36:35 — Contrast between 2020 and current protest movements
• 36:52–38:17 — Police policies: not participating in ICE enforcement, limits and challenges
• 39:01–44:53 — National backlash, legal challenges, federal tactics
• 44:53–45:57 — The fate of detained immigrants
• 46:10–48:42 — Mayor Fry’s discussions with Trump, lack of control over occupation’s end
• 48:47–49:30 — Emily Witt on on-the-ground exhaustion, normalization fears

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Detailed Topic Flow

The Human Toll & Resistance

• Chilling accounts from ICE observers about detention conditions, with detainees made to sit in filth and interrogated about supposed extremist plots ([29:27], [31:50]).
  • Brandon Segenza ([30:57]): “This is how they're treating me, a US Citizen, white passing man. I can only imagine what's causing all these people to be sobbing and screaming and begging.”
• Federal interrogators attempt to bribe protest observers for names of undocumented immigrants and organizers, further underscoring a climate of intimidation ([34:31]).

Law Enforcement Dissonance

• Deep rift between local police and federal agents:
  • Minneapolis PD maintains a non-cooperation stance with ICE ([36:52]).
  • Police Chief Brian O’Hara criticizes federal tactics: “It looks like complete chaos…how anyone can see that and think that is safe for anybody involved right now” ([21:02]).
  • Officers facing renewed trauma from 2020 unrest, key staff close to retirement, compounding crisis ([22:57]).

Legal and Political Deadlocks

• Attorneys General and DOJ pursue data and leverage against the city ([13:14]).
• City and state sue to stop the surge; Fry himself is under federal investigation for supposed collusion ([26:55]).
• Mayor Fry self-described as “locked in a war” with the federal government ([25:19]).

Protest Tactics and Community Response

• Protesters are determined to avoid being painted as violent agitators, learning from the politicization of the George Floyd protests ([18:42]).
  • Emily Witt: “They're refusing to present themselves that way.”
• Community activists conduct “ICE watch” patrols to warn neighbors and document enforcement ([28:04]).

Judicial and Congressional Reactions

• Chief judge cites “96 court orders violated” by ICE in one month ([39:01]).
• Ilhan Omar warns constituents against escalation, speculating Trump wants to invoke the Insurrection Act ([40:03]).

Unfolding Consequences and Uncertain Resolution

• Trump administration sends signals of possibly drawing down, but on-the-ground evidence and ongoing detentions suggest otherwise ([43:47]).
• “Businesses are open, safety is restored immediately. Mark my words.” — Mayor Fry ([46:10])
  • Yet, local officials believe only the President can end the crisis quickly.
• Thousands detained; families report lack of communication, poor conditions, temptation to self-deport ([44:53]).

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Final Thoughts & Outlook

• The city is exhausted, residents fear normalization of the siege. Yet, civic engagement and determination remain strong ([48:47]).
• The fate of Minneapolis rests almost entirely on Trump’s changing political calculus ([47:25]).

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This episode provides a vivid, sobering portrait of a major American city under extraordinary duress, raising urgent questions about political power, federalism, protest, and civil rights. Through firsthand reporting and candid interviews, it spotlights the resilience of Minneapolis in the face of unprecedented federal aggression, with implications far beyond city limits.

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Transcript

[WNYC Announcer]

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

[Ruby Kramer]

A co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

[David Remnick]

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. It was just over a week ago that Donald Trump announced to the world this Sometimes you need a dictator. He's made a dictator joke before. But this was no joke. It was a simple statement of how Trump views democracy and the rule of law as hindrances to asserting his own will over the nation and the world. Trump made the dictator remark at the World Economic Forum in Davos as he was threatening to seize Greenland from Denmark and end the post war order. But back home, we were looking at quite another side of the same coin. An American city, Minneapolis, seemingly in a state of siege. Federal agents were going door to door, demanding identification from people on the street and detaining those who got in their way. Renee Goode, a poet, had already been killed and others had been wounded, but that did nothing to moderate their tactics. Then Alex Preddy, a nurse, was shot and killed in a hail of bullets after he came to the aid of a protester. The administration did what, frankly, a dictatorship does. They said that Preddy, who had been carrying a licensed firearm that he never brandished, was in fact a terrorist, an assassin, and they justified the killing. We're going to talk about Minneapolis today and what it bodes for this country. Emily Witt and Ruby Kramer have been reporting from the city and I spoke with them this past week. They're both staff writers for the New Yorker. Emily, you reported on the protests in Los Angeles last summer, and now you're in your hometown of Minneapolis. How have the ICE strategies changed from LA to Chicago to what we're seeing now in Minneapolis?

[Emily Witt]

Well, the biggest difference is just the number of agents relative to the size of the population. So in la, I don't know exactly how many people were deployed there, but LA is an enormous city and they were spread out across all across LA county, which is, you know, takes hours to cross from one side to the other. So it wasn't the same sense of really, agents everywhere in the very heart of the densest part of the metropolis.

[David Remnick]

And what was the difference in atmosphere, if any?

[Emily Witt]

The protests in Los Angeles were really concentrated around downtown la and the confrontations there were between local law enforcement and demonstrators. And so even though there were people following around ICE agents, you didn't see the same face to face confrontation between just ordinary people and federal agents with the same degree of intensity that you're seeing in Minneapolis.

[David Remnick]

Ruby, you interviewed the mayor of Minneapolis Jacob Fry. And you spent quite a lot of time with him. He's a very young mayor when he took office. And his first term, of course, was defined by the murder of George Floyd. And now he has this in front of him. That's a lot of trauma for one city. That's a lot of politics for one city. A lot of violence. Let's listen to a bit of your conversation with him.

[Jacob Fry (Mayor of Minneapolis)]

I mean, I fill potholes, you know, I try to make the streets safer, you know, I put up affordable housing, you know. Yeah, we do ribbon cuttings for affordable housing.

[Ruby Kramer]

Right.

[Jacob Fry (Mayor of Minneapolis)]

And we pick up the trash. That's what I do. That's what we want to do. That's, that's our goal here. Our goal is like just, would you lay off and like let us have this comeback we're experiencing.

[Ruby Kramer]

Right, right. We will. Right.

[Jacob Fry (Mayor of Minneapolis)]

Just give it to. Just allow us. We're not even asking for one, you know. Right.

[David Remnick]

A mayor who just wants to fill potholes, pick up the trash. And then he's talking about this, this kind of comeback that he wants to be experiencing. What is he referring to, Ruby?

[Ruby Kramer]

So he feels as if Minneapolis was in the midst of a renaissance, in his words. Before this happened, crime in nearly every neighborhood in Minneapolis was, Was trending downward. And Fry, when he came into office, was a candidate who had a passion for housing. Housing was his biggest issue. And as you said, his first term became defined by something completely different. Issues of racial justice, police reform. And now he's in the midst of the very first weeks of his third term, which he said is gonna be his last. And he's dealing with a completely unprecedented situation. I think he told me multiple times, this is the first time anything like this has ever happened in an American city. In an American city. Yes.

[David Remnick]

I don't see how he's wrong.

[Ruby Kramer]

Yeah. And I think it goes to what Emily was saying about just the, the presence of the federal force, the occupying force, as he said, is so deeply and viscerally felt in the city. Cuz it's such a small city, it's such a small target for such a large operation.

[David Remnick]

How did the response to the George Floyd protests shape what we're seeing now?

[Ruby Kramer]

I think the biggest impact is the local law enforcement element. This is a city where there are. There's a police force of about 600 officers. So 600 officers to 3,000 federal agents. You already have a city where people feel that there's still trauma between the local law enforcement and protesters and the constituents of Minneapolis. And now that local Law enforcement force is sort of the first line of defense in a lot of their eyes against this federal occupation. So it's complicated. Like I've seen at these protests, a lot of sort of anger erupting between protesters and local law enforcement. And at the same time the city is asking like, how can we build empathy for our police force because they're also in this impossible situation.

[David Remnick]

Emily, you grew up in Minneapolis. What do you think it is about the city, or maybe it's just happenstance that made it the site of now two of the largest protests in modern history.

[Emily Witt]

Well, it's an unapologetically really progressive leftist city. And it's, you know, you've seen from the politicians that Minnesota sent to the national stage, even going back to Paul Wellstone, people like that. You know, it's a place that really values progressive ideals and that isn't scared to be ambitious and in its kind of social goals. And the people here are really civic minded. They really, people are in black associations, they're in community organizations. The city loves its parks. It's kind of almost like obsessed with its own community minded practices. And it's an idealistic place and a very sincere place. And I think you see how those ideals, in moments of great drama, end up coming out and bringing people out and expressing their politics in the streets.

[David Remnick]

Well, if the administrations go was to deport undocumented immigrants from the United States, is Minneapolis a place that you would put high on the list to deploy such a force?

[Emily Witt]

No. I mean, if this was really about immigration and not about political punishment as it seems to be. Minneapolis's undocumented population is something like 2.2% of the state's population. I think it's around 100,000 people. So no, there's states where, you know, if that's the problem you're claiming to fix, there's states with much bigger undocumented populations, especially relative to the size of force that they've brought.

[David Remnick]

Well, if it's political punishment, what is, what's being punished?

[Emily Witt]

Well, you know, the governor of Minnesota, Tim Waltz, was, was the vice presidential nominee. You know, it's a place that, you know, Trump has never won here. He's come pretty close in the last election. He lost by about four points. The state over pretty divided politically. But Minneapolis is really, really not. It's overwhelmingly Democratic. And yeah, his political rivals seem to be here. The head of the DNC comes from Minneapolis. You know. Yeah, Waltz, Waltz was a national political figure on the left that now, you know, his, his career seems to be winding down.

[David Remnick]

But one of the factors seemed to be a fraud investigation. Give us a straight up summary of the reality behind the fraud investigations, which seems to be a source for the administration's hostility, especially to the Somali immigrant community.

[Emily Witt]

Yeah. So since the pandemic, there was a widespread fraud in Minnesota's social benefits network, especially one nonprofit in particular called Feeding Our Future. And that fraud has been under investigation by federal prosecutors for a couple of years. They've convicted more than 60 people. A majority of those people have come from the Somali American community. The person that prosecutors described as the mastermind of the thing was not Somali American. She was a white lady from Minnesota. But Trump has made this fraud an immigration issue, even though an overwhelming majority of small Americans all across the country are American citizens, either by naturalization or birth. So he's turning something that was just some bad actors into an immigration story and using it as an excuse to come here to Minnesota.

[David Remnick]

In particular, Trump is often invoking the name of Ilhan Omar, the congresswoman, a Democrat, obviously, and trying to make her a. A central figure in this conflict. Somehow, just the other day, she was attacked while speaking. Somebody took out a syringe and squirted some unknown fluid at her, which was certainly scary in the moment. What does Ilhan Omar have to do with this directly?

[Emily Witt]

Well, I think it's pretty clear that the president likes to go after certain people he feels he can other in some way or another. So Omar's been elected. She's in her fourth term. She's seen as a leader here. You know, obviously her constituency supports her. And he. It's part of his. He wants Minneapolis to turn against people in their community that they see as their neighbors and their leaders and their, you know, fellow residents of the city. He wants them to turn against them. And you see that with the. With his going on about the fraud. You see that with his attempt to demonize Ilhan Omar, he wants to divide the city against itself, and the city is refusing to accept that narrative.

[David Remnick]

I'm speaking with staff writers Emily Witt and Ruby Kramer. We'll continue in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

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[David Remnick]

I'm David Remnick. We're talking today about the overwhelming federal force in Minneapolis, the repressive tactics, the violent results, the administration's response. It's all been described as an immigration enforcement surge. Surge. That resonant military term is hardly inappropriate. The operation ordered up by the president and carried out by heavily armed, often undisciplined federal agents is ostensibly an immigration operation, but it also seems intended to intimidate an entire American city. The spectacle, the dark reality, is of Minneapolis under siege. I've been speaking with Emily Witt, who wrote the Battle for Minneapolis for the New Yorker, and Ruby Kramer, who wrote the mayor of an occupied city about the city's mayor, Jacob Fry. Pam Bondi, the attorney general, recently said that she wanted access to Minnesota's voter rolls and its welfare data. And if she got that, maybe she'd pull out some forces, some ice forces from the state. What do you make of this?

[Ruby Kramer]

I think it's what Emily has said, what the mayor has said. We're seeing evidence that this directly sort of has to do with political retribution. And so now we see Pam Bondi, who's basically been the leader of Trump's effort to go after his perceived political enemies, now coming to Minneapolis and saying, if you do this related to voter rolls, I'm not sure what that has to do with the surgeon, what they're trying to accomplish with immigration on the ground in Minneapolis. We'll do X, we'll pull out.

[David Remnick]

What do we know at this moment about the killing of Renee Goode and what do we know about who killed Alex Preddy? In other Words. How far along are the, at least the preliminary investigations into those killings? And is the state of Minnesota even able to investigate?

[Emily Witt]

Yeah, I mean, those investigations have been stymied. The Department of Justice has said they won't conduct a criminal investigation into Renee Goode's death. And Alex Preddy, we don't know the name of the agent or agents who shot him. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is the local law enforcement body that investigates this stuff forensically, has had its access denied. They haven't been able to see the evidence. They're not confident that the evidence hasn't been tampered with or, you know, destroyed in some way. So there's a real fear here that these killings won't receive a good investigation and that the people who committed them, you know, won't be. There won't be any inquiry into what they did.

[David Remnick]

Well, the amazing thing is that the Vice President, United States, J.D. vance, declared after the killing of Renee Goode that ICE agents have, and this is his, quote, absolute immunity, a comment that he's tried to walk back a little bit since then, but not with great success. Do you think that's affecting what's happening on the ground and the tension and the anger, Emily?

[Emily Witt]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, certainly the behavior of the agents. It appears they believe they have absolute immunity just in terms of not only the people they've killed, but the way that they're treating protesters. Insulting them, spraying them in the face with pepper spray.

[David Remnick]

Sorry, interrupt, but I get this feeling that all of our listeners are a little bit like me. In other words, we get to watch snippets of this on social media or a five minute report on cable news or something like that. And what I'd love to know from both of you is what it's like to stand there in the freezing cold and watch a bunch of ICE officers and a bunch of protesters facing off. What's the feel of that? How do the tensions get ratcheted up? What's the vibe between those two people and how it leads to violence? Ruby, maybe you could start.

[Ruby Kramer]

I think protests have. They've been very careful. I mean, I would be more curious for Emily's take on this because she's seen more of it. But people have been very deliberate. I think there's been such an effort by the Trump administration to cast these protests as very unruly and violent and referencing back to the riots after George Floyd's killing in 2020. What I saw was protesters that were very deliberate. I mean, we're feeling lots of Things, but we're very careful not to cross lines.

[Emily Witt]

Yeah, I would agree. This is not, you know, the people out on the street are really there to observe the actions of ice. They're not trying to get into a skirmish with federal agents. They might be yelling things at them, but they're not trying to start fights. They're not breaking windows. For the most part. You know, it is what I'm doing seeing on the streets here is a calm, determined anger, real anger.

[David Remnick]

And there are no outliers. There are no people that are particularly provocative among the protesters. That, in your experience.

[Emily Witt]

No, I mean, I think one thing is Minneapolis saw how its anger, what happened to George Floyd, was turned against it in the national political narrative. And I think there's a sense they're not going to play into any narrative that. And they're being called domestic terrorists and agitators and professionals, all this stuff, and they're refusing to present themselves that way.

[Ruby Kramer]

They.

[Emily Witt]

You know, I really haven't seen exceptions to that when I'm out in the streets.

[David Remnick]

Ruby. There's a relatively new chief of police in Minneapolis. His name is Brian O', Hara, and he started in 2022. His position is, needless to say, excruciating. Let's listen to a little of your conversation with him about dealing with. With the influx of federal agents.

[Brian O'Hara (Chief of Police, Minneapolis)]

It doesn't appear that there's much effort to de. Escalate.

[Ruby Kramer]

Yeah.

[Brian O'Hara (Chief of Police, Minneapolis)]

You know, we come into chaotic situations, and the training for several years has been to be proportional, to be professional, try and slow things down. You come into a situation where, you know there's some minor offense that maybe offensive to you as a professional, you're not supposed to take things personally. Even someone's yelling something at you. But the problem is, especially with some disorderly conduct, if you step in as a cop and you start up here.

[Emily Witt]

Yeah.

[Brian O'Hara (Chief of Police, Minneapolis)]

And they don't comply, there's nowhere else to go but up.

[Emily Witt]

Yeah, true.

[Brian O'Hara (Chief of Police, Minneapolis)]

It just doesn't make sense. And it. It makes your own job that much more frustrating and difficult.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Right.

[Brian O'Hara (Chief of Police, Minneapolis)]

It's in no one's best interest.

[Ruby Kramer]

Maybe that's also where some of the confusion comes. It's just like everything's just like.

[Brian O'Hara (Chief of Police, Minneapolis)]

I saw one video with a woman who was saying she was disabled, where one officer goes through the open window. While he's through the open window, another officer is trying to open the same door. Someone else on the other side is breaking a closed window, and they're pulling her out while she's still in her seat belt, saying that I'M disabled, and there's at least two knives that are out because they want to cut the seatbelt. It looks like complete chaos.

[Emily Witt]

Yeah.

[Brian O'Hara (Chief of Police, Minneapolis)]

And I don't know how anyone can charge. Can see that and think that is safe for anybody involved right now.

[David Remnick]

Ruby, at the end there, he's referring to an incident that everybody here watched, you know, on. On cable news and social media. This woman being pulled out of the car with. With terrific force, I would say. And here you have the chief of police in very measured terms, but nevertheless speaking oppositionally to these federal forces. So there must be enormous tension between the Minneapolis police and ice.

[Ruby Kramer]

It was sort of remarkable, actually. I was sitting in his office at the police at City hall. And to hear a police chief speak so critically and in such a detailed way, too, about fellow law enforcement, you know, even though they're different agencies and they're kind of on opposite sides of this conflict, I'd never quite heard somebody be that critical. Law enforcement to law enforcement. Right. I thought that was kind of remarkable. And. And there is tension. There's confusion among the police about what these agents are trying to accomplish. I think in that clip that we just heard, Brian o' Hara was, you know, specifically referencing that incident, but he was breaking it down sort of like movement by movement. Like, you know, now you see one agent doing this, and then they bring out knives. What are they bringing? You know, I think everything in his training from his decades as a police officer was telling him nothing about this made sense, which is kind of crazy.

[David Remnick]

And didn't Brian o', Hara, the chief of police in Minneapolis, didn't he? Wasn't he involved in a program in Newark that informs his experience and his point of view?

[Ruby Kramer]

Yeah, he was involved in a police reform program in Newark, and he'd been in Newark for his entire career. Came to Minneapolis in 2022 to help reform the department. Inherited a department that was losing officers or had been losing officers. He was trying to build it back up. It was understaffed, essentially. And on top of that, all the officers that he had that had been working in 2020 had some form of sort of like stress or trauma or anxiety that's now, he said, being reactivated. He used the word triggered, which, again, I've never heard a policeman use this language. But he was saying all these old wounds are being triggered, and he's really worried about a mass exodus from his department. He said. He told me a hundred. In his department of 600 officers, 100 of them are retirement age. So he's like, in theory, if this gets bad enough, 100 people could walk out the door and then what would they do?

[David Remnick]

Ruby? There's a lot of talk now about how local government is or isn't helping the federal government. It's been a challenge for local government to navigate how to work under these conditions. They're practically unique. Let's listen to a clip of the mayor of Minneapolis from when you interviewed him talking about how his government typically works.

[Jacob Fry (Mayor of Minneapolis)]

In normal times, we work with every government out there. Like that's the expected norm. The expected norm is that our, Our Minneapolis police work with the Hennepin County Police. We work with the Bureau of Criminality, which is happening, by the way.

[Ruby Kramer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jacob Fry (Mayor of Minneapolis)]

We work with the brimming up Bureau of Criminal Operation, which of course happened the world with State Patrol, which is happening.

[Brian O'Hara (Chief of Police, Minneapolis)]

Well.

[Jacob Fry (Mayor of Minneapolis)]

And they also work with the feds.

[Ruby Kramer]

Right.

[Jacob Fry (Mayor of Minneapolis)]

You know, on a number of. And, and you expect there to be a partnership when something goes down that's serious or an emergency. When, I mean, when bad things happen, you expect partisan divides to be eliminated and for people to come together. And I, you know, when the 35W bridge is. Before my time here, when the 35W bridge collapsed, you had a president who was not wildly popular in this city, in Bush.

[Ruby Kramer]

Yeah.

[Jacob Fry (Mayor of Minneapolis)]

Come here. And the politics stopped at the water's edge, and everybody did their part. Money was issued and support was provided, and it was a team. And it didn't matter what party you were on in it. Political retribution was never a phrase that was even considered, let alone uttered, let alone enacted.

[David Remnick]

Now, Trump has been saying during this crisis that local government refuses to work with the federal government on immigration. What's the truth or not in that?

[Ruby Kramer]

Fry was telling me that he had had virtually zero communication with the federal government. This was before the shooting of Alex Peretti. Since then, he's had conversations with Tom Homan, who's now taking over the operation in Minneapolis, and he has spoken to the president as well. I think what you're hearing a little bit in that tape is Fry, the realization kind of hitting him over and over and over again that he was locked in sort of a war with his own federal government and that the city was being sort of overwhelmed by the federal government, and that the federal government was, rather than being a partner of any kind, was a hostile force that was felt all over the city. And, you know, eventually he himself was learned that he was the subject of a criminal investigation by the doj. So then he personally felt like he was being targeted by the federal government.

[David Remnick]

The DOJ was investigating the mayor of Minneapolis.

[Ruby Kramer]

The DOJ is allegedly investigating whether the governor and the mayor have colluded in a conspiracy to obstruct immigration operations in the state of Minnesota.

[David Remnick]

And that's pretty incredible.

[Ruby Kramer]

No, Mayor Fry learned of this through the news like everybody else.

[David Remnick]

Yeah.

[Ruby Kramer]

And the next morning proceeded to go on about four Sunday shows. And they were all asking him, what's this about? What, you know, what's up with that? Do you have any information?

[David Remnick]

Yeah.

[Ruby Kramer]

Have you gotten served a subpoena? What's going on? You know? And he.

[David Remnick]

Nothing.

[Ruby Kramer]

Didn't know anything. It was surreal. It was just another layer of unreality to this whole thing.

[David Remnick]

Emily, you spent time with some people who are trying to keep their communities safe. And you rode around with two people in particular who were trying to spot ICE on the streets of Minneapolis. Many of us have heard about this kind of effort both in Minneapolis and in other cities. How does it work and what did you see on that ride?

[Emily Witt]

Yeah, Minneapolis is activated in all kinds of ways. And one of them is people who go out in their cars and they'll call into a signal chat that has a dispatcher and they ride around their neighborhoods and look for suspicious vehicles, which are often American made SUVs with tinted windows and out of state plates, and they'll call in a license plate. The volunteers keep a database of known agents and if they ID it, the idea is they follow at a safe distance and they just want to be there to record some of what we've been seeing. And because the government is not really telling us who they're taking and where and how many people with any specificity, they want to make sure somebody's bearing witness to that and also just drawing attention, perhaps to help some of their neighbors have time to lock their doors or get somewhere safe as the agents are moving around the city.

[David Remnick]

You spoke with two ICE observers who ended up themselves being detained. A woman named Patty o' Keefe and a guy named Brandon Segenza. We're going to listen to a little of Brandon Sigenza describing this situation.

[Brandon Segenza]

I passed by a cell that was like full of people that there was no room to like lay down. So they were either standing or sitting in it. People were like staring at the walls, staring at the floor. A man had his like face pressed up against the observation glass, I think, just trying to like look out and get some stimulation. I passed a bathroom cell that was a two way mirror so like I could see into it. And the woman whose bottom half was covered by, like, a concrete barrier. She was, like, on the toilet crying. And then on the near side of the concrete barrier was a seat, and there was another woman who I assume was her family member, but I don't really know. It was like, scream crying and like, yeah, I can. I can't. I can't forget the way it sounded. It was horrible. And then the. The bathroom I was brought to was covered in urine. Toilet paper was wet. There's no soap.

[Brian O'Hara (Chief of Police, Minneapolis)]

Yeah.

[Brandon Segenza]

And I get so many thoughts like, this is how they're treating me. A US Citizen, white passing man. I can only imagine what's causing all these people to be sobbing and screaming and begging.

[David Remnick]

Emily, how long was he in detention?

[Emily Witt]

About eight hours.

[David Remnick]

What about the accounts of the time in detention was most surprising to you?

[Emily Witt]

I was very surprised that, you know, these. The person we just heard from was interrogated as if he were not just a person out exercising his right to observe and protest, but someone who was part of an organized network of, you know, bad actors. He was just kind of baffled. I mean, both of the people I spoke with were. Were genuinely surprised that the people interrogating them believed their own narrative about who was doing this.

[David Remnick]

I think let's focus a little bit on those interrogations. Both Brandon and Patty. Patty o' Keefe describe what those interrogations were like. Let's. Let's listen to them talking about that.

[Patty O'Keefe]

They also asked, do you know of any protesters that, like, are planning any, like, you know, violent things or might be capable of planning, like, violent, like, actions? And I was like, well, what. What do you mean by violent actions in their, like, well, say, you know, like creating maybe, or making plans to, like, set off a bomb or, you know, potentially snipe, you know, ICE agents. And I. I just responded, and I was like, a bomb? Are you kidding me? I was like, you guys are way too afraid of us. Like, no, I don't know of anyone doing that.

[Brandon Segenza]

This is my speculation, but they think.

[Brian O'Hara (Chief of Police, Minneapolis)]

We'Re, like.

[Brandon Segenza]

You know, in cells with commanding officers in military barracks. Like, I'm just a teacher, man. I just. Yeah, like, he. He thought we were some kind of paramilitary organization of some kind. I don't know. That's my speculation. I don't know for sure. Yeah, so he said that, and I was, like, confused and, like, kind of like, bro, who do you think I am? And then he was like, yeah, I mean, we can help you out. And in other ways, I kept, like, asking, like, specifically, like, what are you asking me to tell you? And, like, what are you Asking me to or what are you offering me right now? Because he's very vague, unless I pressed him. And then, you know, at one point I was like, you know, I. I think reacting to, like, the bombs and stuff. Like he's asking about bombs, and I'm like, I'm just trying to protect my neighbors. And he said, oh, your neighbors? Where are they from? Thinking I meant my next door neighbors, not like my community. And so then he asked me if I knew anyone that was in the country illegally. Like, he wanted the names of people. So that's what he wanted. He wanted the names of protest organizers, he wanted the names of undocumented people. And what he was offering me, he said, you know, if you have family that's out of the country that needs help getting in, we can help with that. I'm Hispanic. And at one point, yeah, I was like, so what is it exactly that you're offering me? And at one point he was like, money. Offered me money, Which was surreal.

[David Remnick]

Surreal is the word for it in this interrogation. According to him, he was being offered money, and at the same time, he's being intimidated, and he's being offered immigration help for potential, potentially some of his relatives. Was that surprising to you? Did you hear that elsewhere around town?

[Emily Witt]

He's the only person that I heard that from. And I should say that the Department of Homeland Security said that no money was offered. But, yeah, it is surreal. And yet I do think the federal authorities believe in this kind of story. They're telling of, of an organized resistance to them that might be armed. And I think you see that in the really trigger happy response of the agents that are out in the streets.

[David Remnick]

I mean, there is a startling contrast between Minneapolis in the summer of Black Lives Matter and the murder of George Floyd to now. It just seems a markedly different approach to protest and resistance. Or am I getting that wrong? Emily?

[Emily Witt]

No, that's totally correct. And I think it's just a really different situation. In that case, the city was expressing rage. You know, Minneapolis has longstanding racial inequalities, a long history of police violence against black people. So the city, in many ways, was expressing rage against itself and its own institutions the only way it was able to. And this is such a different situation. Why would you go around breaking the windows of your own city when it's being, you know, occupied from an external force, which is the sense of what's happening here right now. There's a sense of protection and mutual aid and kind of taking care of each other. It's a really and the anger is directed toward, you know, a much more external actor.

[David Remnick]

Rupi, are the police having to reconceive of their role at all? You know, apropos of your conversations earlier with the head of the police, how are they thinking about enforcement differently from the militarized forces on the ground?

[Ruby Kramer]

I think that they are walking a very, very fine line. The Minneapolis Police Department has a policy in place that says they will not participate with immigration enforcement, including even if.

[David Remnick]

So there are direct odds with them.

[Ruby Kramer]

Correct. And one element of this policy is even that they will not help with crowd control solely at the request of an immigration enforcement body. So you'll see local police on the outskirts of protesters being tear gassed. And there's one video I'm thinking of where in this case it was a state trooper, a line of state troopers were standing sort of watching a situation like this unfold. You can literally see tear gas in the air. And a man taking the video is yelling at the state troopers, saying, aren't you guys on our side? Like, why are you just standing there and watching? And I think local law enforcement, basically they're actively not participating in the immigration enforcement, but they're also not inserting themselves between protesters and federal agents. So you'll sort of see them on the periphery. And I think it's been really challenging. I think they're still trying to figure out how to navigate this.

[David Remnick]

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm speaking with staff writers Ruby Kramer and Emily Witt. We'll continue in just a moment.

[WNYC Announcer]

Since WNYC's first broadcast in 1924, we've been dedicated to creating the kind of content we know the world needs. Since then, New York Public Radio's rigorous journalism has gone on to win a Peabody Award and a Dupont Columbia Award, among others. In addition to this award winning reporting, your sponsorship also supports inspiring storytelling and extraordinary music that is free and accessible to all. To get in touch and find out more, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.

[David Remnick]

Staff writer Emily Witt is on the ground in Minneapolis right now, and Ruby Kramer recently reported from there on how the city's leaders are coping with what looks very much like an occupation by the federal government. The killings of Renee Good and Alex Preddy have galvanized a national backlash against Trump's immigration tactics. The chief judge for the Federal District Court of Minnesota identified 96 court orders that ICE is violated in January alone. Donald Trump is making noises now about backing down or backing off. But this is a fast moving situation and things are changing. Day to day, including negotiations over the federal budget in Congress. I spoke with Emily Witty and Ruby Cramer this past week. Emily, you quote Congresswoman Ilhan Omar in your piece from a hearing in January, January 16th. Let's listen to a clip from that.

[Ilhan Omar]

We do believe that one of the reasons why he sent this paramilitary occupation into our state, why this level of. Of terror is taking place while we are seeing the kind of chaos that is ensuing, is because he does want to invoke the Insurrection Act. And we are telling our constituents not to take the bait. We are telling our constituents to lawfully practice their First Amendment right. We are telling them to document, and we are telling them to fulfill any lawful orders that they might get from law enforcement.

[David Remnick]

So that's Ilhan Omar. And of course, the governor, Tim Walz, has said pretty much the same thing. And yet people holding their phones are getting killed. Is there anything against the law about recording things on the street, taking out your iPhone and filming the police or ice?

[Emily Witt]

No, that's protected by the Constitution. That's a constitutional. You can swear at an ICE officer, you can record them. You know, you can express your discontent in any way that feels appropriate to you. That's, you know, from a distance and nonviolent.

[David Remnick]

Now, Alex Preddy was carrying a legal firearm, but he was carrying a firearm. And that has become a major element in the rhetoric against him by any number of people in the federal government. Ruby, how do we square that? There's a Second Amendment issue as a political issue. How do you think about this?

[Ruby Kramer]

I think people have said very rightly that it's sort of scrambled the gun debate a little bit. I mean, normally we're used to seeing conservative elements of the Republican Party come out and say people have a right to be armed and carry concealed, you know, if they have their permits. Concealed carry at a protest.

[David Remnick]

And we should say here that he. His firearm was taken away. He never reached for it. He was holding a cell phone.

[Ruby Kramer]

I'm not exactly.

[David Remnick]

I'm not saying it's not a. This is without complication, but those are the facts, too.

[Ruby Kramer]

He never reached for it. And I think now we have video forensics that sort of show, quite literally, frame by frame, that. That not only did he not reach for it, but the gun was removed by one federal agent and he was disarmed.

[David Remnick]

Yeah. Let's look ahead a little bit here. Right now you're starting to sense that the President of the United States, no matter how much he may endorse the original action, is seeing that it's a political problem for him. What do you expect from Washington in the coming days? Ruby?

[Ruby Kramer]

President Trump seems to be pulling back elements of what's been going on in Minneapolis. We saw Gregory Bravino, who is a Border Patrol agent with the title Commander at Large and would sort of be the face of these operations, has been the face of these operations removed from Minneapolis. He's been sent back to his post.

[David Remnick]

His social media has been taken down.

[Ruby Kramer]

His social media has been taken away. The sign that anyone's done, we have Tom Homan coming to take the operation over.

[David Remnick]

Tom Homan is the figure of assurance in this picture.

[Ruby Kramer]

Exactly. And I think many people have said, well, he's not exactly been a moderate voice in Trump's administration. I think that's true.

[David Remnick]

Emily, what are your feelings on it?

[Emily Witt]

Yeah, I don't think they're dialing it back. Our photographer was out yesterday and saw two immigrants get detained. They're talking about building more permanent housing at Fort Snelling to house the people that are stationed here. It, you know, they're changing their tactics up. They're using smaller vehicles. It doesn't feel like it's stopping. They may be changing the rhetoric and bringing in slightly less flamboyant people to lead things. But I don't know, I don't know how this sustains itself in the long term. But on, on either side, though, because there's a lot of. It's just the city, you know, people aren't working, people are staying home, people aren't going to the doctor, they aren't going to school. The city's really been in a state of emergency now for weeks, and it's exhausting and people are really tired.

[David Remnick]

How many undocumented immigrants have been swept up in this surge in Minneapolis and beyond?

[Emily Witt]

They're saying something between 2,500 and 3,000 were the last numbers that I heard as of mid January.

[David Remnick]

And what becomes of the 2,500 or 3,000 undocumented immigrants?

[Emily Witt]

I mean, that's where we have a lot of journalism still left to do. I think people here, the reports are people here are being taken and then sent very quickly out of state, it seems like most often to Texas, where if somebody knows they're detained, they can file a habeas petition and try to get them an actual hearing. But from what I'm hearing, the conditions are really terrible. It's really cold there, the food is bad, all of that. And so people are having to wait two or three months to try to get your case worked out. Is, is, is torturous to people. So a lot of people are considering deporting themselves, which I'm sure is the intention. And it's just, you know, families here are having trouble getting in contact with their family members who are detained. All of it is very. There's not a lot of due process.

[David Remnick]

Let me go back to the beginning, Ruby. The mayor of the city said basically that the only way this ends is for Donald Trump to change course 180 degrees.

[Jacob Fry (Mayor of Minneapolis)]

You know, there is an action that he could take that would be quick and effective, which is to leave. It would be immediate if he left. It's a light switch that immediately turns back on. Businesses are open, safety is restored immediately. Mark my words.

[Ruby Kramer]

Yeah, I don't see a way for the city or the state to hasten the end of this in any way. I don't think there's anything they can do. And I think that's something that Fry was reckoning with. I mean, they have a lawsuit that's working its way through the process of federal court.

[David Remnick]

Who's suing whom?

[Ruby Kramer]

So the state. City and state officials in Minnesota are suing the Trump administration for an immediate stop to this surge of agents. And they've made several arguments about why this is detrimental to the people of Minnesota, and the federal government was just able to respond to that. And so now I think the judge is sort of working her way through a decision and getting closer to doing that. But outside of that lawsuit, there's really nothing that these government officials can do.

[David Remnick]

So it's basically the destiny of this situation is all in the hands of and in the mind of one guy, Donald Trump of Trump.

[Ruby Kramer]

And so Trump and Fry finally spoke. And how did that go? Apparently, I mean, Fry's account is that it was a productive conversation and that he very forcefully said, this needs to stop and people are suffering. I think he was probably trying to make the argument that this is not a popular thing. No one likes this, but at the same time.

[David Remnick]

But does the president show any evidence of much caring?

[Ruby Kramer]

We don't know. Although, you know, it sounds like Fry's.

[David Remnick]

Being pretty delicate in the way he's reporting this conversation.

[Ruby Kramer]

Yeah, exactly. Which, you know, there's a lot riding on it, in fairness, so. But I know that Trump has described it as a very good conversation, and I know Fry was actually trying to go to Washington to have this conversation in person, so perhaps that could be on the horizon, too. But Trump, since that quote, unquote, very good conversation, has also tweeted at Fry saying, you know, if he does not cooperate with the federal government. He's, quote, playing with fire. So it's back and forth and back and forth.

[David Remnick]

Emily, you're sitting right there in the city. What do you expect to happen next?

[Emily Witt]

I just don't know. It doesn't seem like the detentions and it doesn't seem like the federal presence is diminishing despite some rumors that some agents were going to leave. And I know people in Minneapolis are very tired and there's some fear that the sense of emergency will be lost and all of this will become normalized, I think is the fear. So I don't know where it goes from here except that I know that people here are very, very determined not to let up their showing their discontent and their, their anger over what's happened here.

[David Remnick]

Emily Witt, Ruby Kramer, thank you for your terrific ongoing reporting from Minneapolis. I really appreciate talking with you today.

[Ruby Kramer]

Thank you so much.

[Emily Witt]

Thanks, David.

[David Remnick]

Emily Witt and Ruby Kramer are staff writers at the New Yorker and they've been on the ground in Minneapolis. You can find the their terrific [e-mail] and you can subscribe to the New Yorker as [e-mail] I'm David Remnick and that's our program for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

[Ruby Kramer]

The new yorker radio hour is a co production of wnyc studios and the new york. Our theme music was composed and performed by meryl garbus of tune yards with additional music by louis mitchell and jared paul. This episode was produced by max balton, adam howard, david krasnow, mike kutchman, jeffrey masters, louis mitchell, jared paul and ursula sommer.

[Emily Witt]

The new yorker radio hour is supported.

[Ruby Kramer]

In part by the cherina endowment fund. Try Angel Soft for your tushy. It's made by Angels Soft and strong. Budget friendly.

[Emily Witt]

The choice is simple.

[Ruby Kramer]

Pick up a pack today. Angel Soft Soft and strong simple.

[WNYC Announcer]

Since WNYC's first broadcast in 1924, we've been dedicated to creating the kind of content we know the world needs. In addition to this award winning reporting, your sponsorship also supports inspiring storytelling and extraordinary music that is free and accessible to all. To get in touch and find out more, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.