I want to come at this a couple of ways. Number one, I think it's important just for context, On Friday, a producer and myself went out to some of these neighborhoods when there was this general strike that was happening where a lot of businesses had closed their doors. Some of those businesses remained open to provide to provide coffee to some of these witnesses, these ICE observers, as we've been seeing pop up in the Twin Cities, people who are keeping their eye on the streets and then alerting when Immigration Customs Enforcement agents are in the area. I talked with people who were at these different businesses who were talking about the fear that they have, the concern that they have, but also just the community coming together to look after their neighbors. I mean, there is a very strong sense of that, especially in the neighborhoods in Minneapolis where I was, you know, even driving down the street, you would see there, there was a median where, you know, this is very, very cold temperatures outside. People had a fire going in the middle of this median. They had whistles. There's very much this neighborhood watch feel of throughout many of these neighborhoods. And so, you know, Alex Preddy, as he was out that morning, was like so many people in the community that have been keeping an alert eye on what is happening in their neighborhoods. I just think that that perspective is important to have here. There is a community strength that we are seeing throughout the Twin C. The reaction that we're seeing locally here. I mean, the governor, Tim Walz of Minnesota, and the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Fry, have regularly been calling on the Trump administration to back off. On Sunday, there was a press conference that Governor Walz and the Attorney General, Keith Ellison, also a Democrat, held. They talked about the fact that when the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the local law enforcement for the state, arrived on site for this fatal shooting, they were refused access. And then they obtained a judicial warrant and were refused access as well. Again, we are seeing something similar play out that happened after the killing of Renee Macklin Good, where the state is being shut out of the investigation. So there's a lot of frustration there, and there is a lot of effort that's been going on through the courts to try to at least temporarily halt the immigration crackdown in the state that's been ramped up since the beginning of December.
B (4:35)
You know, Domenico, after the shooting of Renee Macklin, good, There was a pretty quick retreat into partisan corners. People looked at that video of her in her vehicle being shot and saw different things. This feels different. I'm seeing more Republicans say, no, a thorough investigation is needed. Do you. Do you think the politics are different this time?
C (5:00)
Yeah, I think that there is a difference here. I mean, we may be at a political tipping point because not only did we have this other shooting of Renee Macklin Goode, as you mentioned, not long ago, but now the second shooting, and you have somebody on video, he was on the ground. He was not pointing a gun at anyone. He had a gun on him that was taken off of him. According to the video, he was shot in the back And I think that a lot of people had already been saying in the run up to all of this that ISIS tactics had been too harsh, that the Trump administration had been acting in ways that they disagree with on deportations. We even saw a lot of moderate Republicans before this saying, go after the gangsters, not gardeners, in the words of Maria Salazar, the congresswoman from Florida. And now with this shooting, there does seem to be an effort on the part of Republicans to want to dial this back, at least moderate Republicans. MAGA certainly is all on board with Trump's tactics and will back him, whatever. But Trump even himself is seemingly a little uncomfortable with the optics anyway of what people are seeing on television.
C (6:32)
Yeah, it's notable. I mean, people I've been pointing to remember Kyle Rittenhouse, who brought an assault weapon and killed somebody at a protest. And, you know, the Republicans and the right were very much on his side saying, you know, hey, he's just trying to police his neighborhood, essentially. And J.D. vance, the now vice president, was one of the people out front talking about that.
B (6:56)
Domenico, you talked about the president seemingly, I mean, you kind of have to squint, but you can see him starting to look for an exit ramp, starting to separate himself, saying, oh, well, you know, he told the Wall Street Journal, we need to see the results of an investigation. And, and then today he posted on social media that he'd had a call with Governor Tim Walls of Minnesota. He said that it was a good call, that they seem to be on a similar wavelength. President Trump said that he is sending Tom Homan, who is his borders are to Minnesota to just sort of basically take over. And he says that Governor Walz was happy that Homan is going to Minnesota. It certainly seems as though the president is, is looking for a way to turn this down, which is different than his response after. Renee.
C (7:50)
Good. Well, look, I just have to say, politically, he's got to get everybody in his administration speaking from the same page of the same book, because right now they're all over the place. The people who are essentially charge of ice, Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security advisors within the White House, like Stephen Miller have been saying things like Miller said that this was a potential would be assassin when there's absolutely no basis for that at all. You saw Kristi Noem after Macklin Good was killed say that she was immediately saying she was a domestic terrorist. You know, these are the kinds of inflammatory language that's been coming from the people that Trump put in charge of these immigration efforts. And if he's uncomfortable with that, he needs to rein people.
D (8:42)
Governor Walls office responded to the Truth Social post. His office said he had a productive call with the president earlier today. The governor made the case that the state needs impartial investigations of the Minneapolis shootings involving federal agents and that they need to reduce the number of federal agents in Minnesota. And the president agreed, according to his office, that he would talk to the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, about ensuring the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension being able to conduct an independent investigation, as would ordinarily be the case. And that is a big thing here where the state has been regularly asking to not be shut out of the investigation. So very interesting to see that there seems to be some kind of an agreement that a productive call was made, especially when the Attorney general, Keith Ellison here in Minnesota just yesterday was saying when he met with Vice President J.D. vance last week that it wasn't a very productive conversation.
D (9:56)
Yeah. So just a quick snapshot on 2026. In Minnesota, there is a gubernatorial race. Governor Tim Walz is not going to be running for that third term that he originally had said he would. We're all waiting to see if and when Senator Amy Klobuchar gets into the race. She has already filed paperwork on the Democratic side, but on the Republican side, there's a pretty healthy contest that is taking shape. And the surprise today was that Chris Mattle has dropped his bid for Minnesota governor. He's a Repub. He ended his campaign over the fallout from recent federal immigration actions. So this is a Minneapolis attorney. He launched his bid just in December and he attributes it to the ongoing ICE crackdown in Minnesota that has led to the deaths of these two citizen observers. He says the operation has gone too far and people are living in fear. He calls it an unmitigated disaster. There's even a video that Mattle says he can't support what he calls retribution against Minnesota. And I do want to note too, that Mattle's fir represented police officers in prior shooting cases and he has provided legal support to Jonathan Ross, that is the ICE officer who fired the fatal shots at Renee Macklin Goode back on January 7th in Minneapolis.
C (11:12)
I mean, I think that it's important to note that when we think about Minneapolis, of course, it's a very liberal city, but when you think about Minnesota writ large, yes, it's gone blue in multiple elections, but it's been very close in a few elections in the Trump era here. And, and Republicans, moderate Republicans, could have seen something of a surge coming on the heels of the fraud investigation in Minneapolis that the Trump administration was also pushing. But these ICE tactics, I mean, you see what's happened here in these last couple of shootings and killings. You suddenly have Republican candidates saying, you know what? Republican can't win.
D (11:50)
And I think it's important too, to Domenico's point about the makeup of the state of Minnesota, just look at the Minnesota legislature. It is tied between Republicans and Democrats in the Minnesota House of Representatives. And in the Senate, Democrats have a one seat edge. And I should note too, that the Republican speaker of the House, Lisa Damuth, she is actually running for the governor's race on the Republican side. So very interesting when you think about just how close this state is at the state level.
D (13:31)
Way, I think at least just from covering locally here and not covering other cities where there has been the heightened presence, you've really seen this network come together of ICE observers, people who are regularly out with their whistles and are pretty relentless. I mean, I was talking earlier about how I was out on Friday and there were people just outputting, patrolling their neighborhoods. And we've even seen the head of Border Patrol, Greg Bevino, talking in press conference about how Minneapolis resistance is much more organized. And so it's a group of people, it's a community that is very well organized to continue to push back against what they are seeing happen across the Twin Cities.
C (14:17)
Yeah. And I have to say about Minneapolis in particular, it's a place with a highly educated population. You have a lot of activism and they have a monk the highest voter turnout rates in the country, Minnesota in general does. So this is a very active and engaged community. And you know, when you have that, plus being led by Democrats in general and the Trump administration kind of going after blue states and because Tim Walls, who ran on the Democratic ticket as Vice President in 2024, you have this perfect storm.
C (15:28)
Well, I think that's to your point. In general, we're seeing that across the country with how Trump conducts himself in, you know, whether it's the leverage he wants over universities or journalists. You know, he'll take one thing, federal funding for medical research, for example, and say he's going to withhold that if, say, Harvard or some other school doesn't reduce its DEI hires, diversity, equity and inclusion. So we've seen that where they've done that. And when we look at whether or not this is strictly about immigration, it doesn't appear to be because Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Governor Tim Walls of Minnesota detailing a list of demands, and that included turning over the state's voter rolls as one of the things that would be needed or wanted from the Trump administration in exchange for taking federal agents out of the state. You know, that raises a lot of questions about whether this really has to do strictly with immigration or if it's about furthering Trump's goals and agenda like we've seen him do with private institutions.
C (17:21)
Well, I mean, when you talk about voters, we have to talk about which voters, right? Because, you know, Republican based voters, those who identify as maga, you know, Trump voters, they're not likely to be swayed over anything. Right. I mean, this is a group that is core, that is strong to Trump. I remember a Republican strategist telling me in the 2016 election that most people have a slice of the pie. His slice of the pie is made of titanium. Okay? So you could cast that aside. But when you're looking at moderates and especially Republicans who are running in these districts that are swing districts where moderates are going to decide those elections, and when you think about Democratic moderates who would have been all for funding homeland Security in general, you're seeing a lot of that middle sort of coalesce to say, you know, this isn't right, this is going too far and they want to want de escalation and a tamping down of the rhetoric at the very least.
C (18:45)
Yeah, it's quite viable. We could see a partial government shutdown by the end of this week because Democrats now are saying there's no way that they're voting for more DHS funding based on these kinds of tactics. And they're trying to say they're going to do that, but then point the finger at Republicans and say if they want to include DHS funding in this spending package to keep the government open, then it's on Republicans. So again, and like we saw toward the end of the year last year, we're seeing fingers pointed in either direction for who would be to blame here. And Democrats feel like now they have the politics on their side because of what we're seeing here.
C (19:33)
And since we're talking about senators, I found it really notable when you look at some of these Republican moderate senators like Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who hacked happens to be retiring. He called for a thorough and impartial investigation into the shooting. Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, said again called for a, quote, full joint federal and state investigation. Joint, he said there. And that the credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake. So again, when you're seeing some of these Republicans start to peel off, you know, I think that's a good weather, Vanessa, for where the politics are headed in all of this.
