Gov. Walz says "this is an inflection point"

Let's go to Minneapolis now, where Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is addressing the events over the weekend, including the killing of a 37-year-old ICU nurse by federal officials. --the story of Alex was told, someone who went to work to care for veterans, someone who was a valued coworker, someone who relished and lived in this state in a big way, whether it was outdoor activities or being down there on the street as a First Amendment witness to what ICE is doing to this state. So once again, to Michael and Susan-- when I talk to these parents, it's always in deep, confidential conversation. In this one, though, Michael was very clear to me. He said, don't let them forget Alex's story. The world knows how he died. He died at the hands of ICE agents on the streets of Minneapolis. They want us to make sure we said how he lived. So to Michael and Susan, our deepest sympathies. But you have my commitment to continue to tell that story. So now we've got two Minnesotans dead. We didn't have time to start telling Renee's story of a poet and a mother and a bright spirit, and now we're telling Alex's story. So my question is, what's the plan, Donald Trump? What is the plan? What do we need to do to get these federal agents out of our state? You thought fear, violence, and chaos is what you wanted from us? And you clearly underestimated the people of this state and nation. We are tired, but we're resolved. We're peaceful, but we'll never forget. We're angry, but we won't give up hope. And above all else, we are clearly unified. If it was the intention of Donald Trump to make an example of Minnesota, then I'm damn proud of the example that the world is seeing. We believe in law and order in this state. We believe in peace. And we believe that Donald Trump needs to pull these 3,000 untrained agents out of Minnesota before they kill another person and we're up here telling another story of a Minnesotan just trying to live their life without the interference. To Americans who are watching this right now-- and I don't know. Maybe you're watching with curiosity, bewilderment, horror, scorn, or sympathy. I've got a question for all of you. What side do you want to be on, the side of an all-powerful federal government that can kill, injure, menace, and kidnap its citizens off the streets or on the side of a nurse at the VA hospital who died bearing witness to such government or the side of a mother whose last words were, I'm not mad at you? The side of tens of thousands of peaceful citizens who showed up to March when the wind chill was 40 below because they loved this state, and they love this country. You're allowed to decide at any point that you're not with us anymore. If you voted for this administration, heck, even if you thought Operation Metro Surge was a good idea, sounded like the thing to do a month ago, you're still allowed to look at what's happening here in Minnesota and say, this isn't what I voted for, and this isn't what I want. I ask you not to stand by idly. Speak out, share what you're seeing, and urge others to put politics aside. We're no longer having a political debate. We're having a moral debate. We all want secure borders and immigration enforcement that prioritizes criminals. And I want to thank the press, especially the local press, who has done a deep dive to show that's exactly what Minnesota does. But what you're seeing is not common sense, lawful, or humane enforcement. That's not what this occupation is about. Let me say our conversation should not be about-- and I know we get asked of what we're doing on there, how many state patrol or police or National Guard I can put on the street. This isn't about how many people I can put on the street. It's about how many of these people, these ICE agents, and whoever else was thrown into this unholy mess, how many Donald Trump can get out of here. Minnesotans, you've won the hearts and minds of people across this country. And you've done it through your peaceful, resolved defense of your neighbors and the constitution. So once again, Minnesotans, stay peaceful. Stay safe. Change is coming, and we can feel it. But this fight still goes on, and I'm just glad today to be joined in person because it's someone who's been at the side of Minnesotans throughout this and through every other thing we've gone through over the last seven years, someone who we describe as the people's lawyer, someone who is fighting this battle for the Constitution, for the safety of Minnesotans in courts every single day. I want to give this over to Attorney General Keith Ellison to talk a little bit about what's going on with the state on some of the lawsuits and what our expectations are in the coming days. Attorney General. Thank you, Governor. Governor Walz, thank you for your excellent leadership during this very, very difficult time, this unprecedented time, Governor, because quite honestly, there has never been a deployment of immigration agents this size in the history of the United States. There have been times in American history where they've deported a lot of people. But a concentrated deployment of ICE agents in one state in one period of time is unprecedented. And therefore, there is no playbook. And therefore, nobody knows exactly how to deal with this situation. But it is unique and particularly puzzling, given that Minnesota does not have the highest immigration in the United States, given that Minnesota has a very, very professional community of law enforcement professionals who are taking care of the safety of our state, given the fact that the Department of Corrections, pursuant to state law, hands over people who ICE is looking for and they have proper paperwork for. Given all of that, this is a very curious situation and would reasonably lead someone to ask why. So let me talk about Alex Pretti. Alex Pretti was a nurse at the VA. I happened to have a son who's 31 years old, who spent five years in the United States military as a combat medic. But toward the end of his deployment and the end of his service, he wanted to go into nursing. And so he did. And he ended up getting an RN degree and works in the health care system here in Minnesota. And when he was at work today and last night, he said, look, my colleagues were crying and in tears. And they took this hit to one of their own very personally. And he said, I did too. He said, I didn't find myself shedding tears, but I could have because I just was brokenhearted because I know the service that he and the love and compassion he puts into taking care of the people he took care of at the VA. An intensive care nurse, kind, compassionate person to friend and family, described by coworkers as the first person who would jump in to help-- he was our neighbor, and he should still be with us right now. So let me just note that superintendent Drew Evans of the BCA, another exemplary professional in our state-- the BCA is the state's investigative agency, and it is their job to investigate crime. They have a specialized unit to investigate the use of force cases. They arrived on site after the shooting and were refused access. They then secured a judicial warrant, a warrant signed by a judge, which has never been needed before, and were still refused access. This is uncharted territory. Now, friends, this comes at the tail end of other offenses, like a shooting in North Minneapolis and another homicide in South Minneapolis, Renee Nicole Good, where they also were denied access to the scene. And investigators are to this moment still being denied access to the investigative file. This is not a rash decision for us to go to court and to seek a temporary restraining order from a judge to preserve evidence and prevent the destruction of evidence. I don't care if you're a conservative, liberal, or whatever, but you should at least be in favor of conserving evidence in a homicide. And to have to go get an order from a judge to preserve that evidence is extraordinary and should alarm everyone who believes in equal justice under the law and who believes that every person, no matter how this case ultimately is resolved, deserves to have their case investigated to get to the truth of what happened. This is an extraordinary moment in an unprecedented time, and we're doing all we can to step up to that moment. My office represents the BCA and joined the Hennepin County Attorney's Office in a lawsuit last night, as you know. And we moved to prevent the destruction and/or tampering with evidence related to Alex Pretti's shooting. And this includes any evidence the federal agents took from the scene of the shooting, preventing the state authorities from inspecting it. We've never had to do anything like this before, never before. We filed that motion last night and for a temporary restraining order, asking the court to take immediate action to preserve the evidence. And last night, within two hours of the filing, a judge granted the motion. The Department of Homeland Security and the federal government are now enjoined from destroying or altering evidence related to yesterday's shooting. The fact that anyone would ever think that an agent of the federal government might even think about doing such a thing was completely unforeseeable only a few weeks ago. But now this is what we have to do. As we said in our filing last night, the irreparable harm we would suffer if the federal government were allowed to destroy evidence is so weighty that any harm to the federal government does not even budge the scales in a court balancing of the scales. It's imperative that we preserve as much evidence as possible so that the state investigators are allowed to access the evidence to ensure a fair, thorough investigation. And I will say, I heard not one single law enforcement or investigative agent in the state of Minnesota say that they won't share information with the federal government. I've heard quite the opposite from the federal government. Now, Operation Metro Surge, as I noted when I started, this appears to be the largest single deployment or surge of immigration agents in the history of the country. And as a result, tremendous damage has been inflicted upon our state. We've had two killings within two weeks and an additional non-lethal shooting. We've had countless numbers of people who have been stopped and had the demand for their papers, to have to show their papers, in America. We've had door-to-door knocks where people have their homes barged into without cause of right. And we've had stores have to shutter, students not going to school. We've had reduction in employees going to their job sites. We've had little markets being shut down, restaurants being interfered with. We've had a countless number of harms. And so we took the action of suing the federal government over Operation Metro Surge. And tomorrow morning, I'm going to be in federal court with my team, arguing for a restraining order against Operation Metro Surge. I filed this case almost two weeks ago, and this will be our first hearing. The lawsuit we filed is one that is caused by the unprecedented nature of this surge. It is a novel abuse of the Constitution that we're looking at right now. No one can remember a time when we've seen something like this, when a state can marshal facts to show that our targeting is not based on excessive amounts of undocumented immigrants or anything like that. But we're targeted because of politics, which violates our First Amendment rights. The 10th Amendment, which we are entitled as a state to equal sovereignty-- and we have been denied that. The federal government is literally commandeering and coercing the State of Minnesota to bend to its will, which is the prerogative of the people of the State of Minnesota. Let me remind everybody-- let me take everybody back to eighth grade civics. The states predate the United States and came into the union, preserving their rights as states, to be the states that the citizens of those states want them to be within a constitutional framework. It is at the fundamental-- it is in the DNA of American history that the federal government cannot trample over the prerogatives of the state. And that is exactly what is happening here. And that is exactly why we're going to court. This surge has drained local law enforcement time and resources. Jacob Frey, if he were here, could tell you that they've spent north of $2 million on overtime responding to ICE. They damage our economy, hurt our education system, and terrorize community members. And it must stop. And tomorrow is a big step in that direction. Now, as I noted a moment ago, people will ask, well, why Minnesota? I'll say this. Minnesota is dealing with targeted oppression from the federal government because of who we are and who we value. Minnesota is a place where we welcome the stranger. We have a number of non-profits that focus on refugee resettlement in Minnesota. Minnesota is a place where we take care of the vulnerable among us. We're a state that just passed paid family leave. We're a state that believes in feeding our kids who are in school. And we're a state that believes that Minnesota is a great place to live for everyone, no matter where you were born. Of course, we obey all laws. But we still believe that immigration is not a sin. They're coming after our state, in my view, because of what we stand for because we voted three times in favor of somebody not Donald Trump, which he has publicly said he resents deeply and believes is not even true. I can tell you it's not about fraud because if he sent people who understand forensic accounting, we'd be having a different conversation. But he's sending armed, masked men. This is a pretext, and it's not supported by the facts at all, which has brought us to court, challenging the justification that the president has offered. For those watching around the country, I would submit to you that just as Portland and Chicago and LA were precursors to Minneapolis, Minneapolis is a precursor to a whole lot of other places that they have their eye on right here, right now, including Maine and several other states. If we don't stop this behavior here, it will only expand, and it won't be good for anyone in our country. Minnesota stands strong. And I want to join Governor Walz in my, just, pride in being a Minnesotan. No football game victory could ever make me feel as good about our state as I do about people standing up, helping their neighbors, engaging in mutual aid, giving each other rides different places, making sure that there's enough groceries, protesting, using their First Amendment rights. This state has a lot of spirit. And Minnesota nice is a real thing. I wasn't fortunate enough to be born in Minnesota. I was born and grew up in Michigan. And I can tell you that this state has a lot of nice people-- it really does-- and a lot of people who believe in taking care of their neighbor and welcoming the stranger, and as we see right now, resisting tyranny. So I just want to say that as the courage of protesters and others who are helping their neighbors is so evident on the streets of this great state of ours, we at the attorney general's office and Minnesota State government can do no less than match the courage you have already shown. And we will not back down. We won't blink. We won't bow. We will stand firmly on our constitutional rights and in favor of Minnesotans. We will do that in the ballot box, at the courts. We will do that in the streets, in a peaceful, legal, First Amendment protected way. And we will do it in a multitude of ways. But one thing we will not do is we will not back down, and we will not bend. And so let me wrap up by saying this. We will never forget Alex Pretti. We will never forget Nicole-- I mean, Renee Nicole Good. And we will never forget any of the Minnesotans who have suffered so unjustifiably in this time. Minnesota is a great place. That is why I believe we've been targeted. But it's not going to work. And we'll be in court tomorrow arguing for the rights of every Minnesotan to stand up and be the generous, courageous people that we are. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Attorney General. We'll be glad to take some questions, folks. Tom.

Governor Walz, you've got a letter from Attorney General Pam Bondi making several demands, I guess you would call them regarding sanctuary cities, regarding fraud and voter rolls. Your response to that, is there anything you can do to meet the Trump administration, at least part of the way to try to turn this temperature down_ Well, first of all, it's not a serious attempt. And the attorney general said that-- and again, I would thank the local folks and Commissioner Schnell. Thank you to you and your team over there. In that letter, they talked about you need to hand people over who are in your jails. They're taking credit for people that we've had in jail for a long time. We always hand them over and the commissioner very clearly. So they're lying. They're lying. This has nothing to do with fraud. As the attorney general said, they're not sending us forensic accountants. And these are things that have been-- we're dealing with now and have been for quite some time. So look, it's not a serious attempt to get at this. The way to fix this is get these folks out of here. We've continued to work with them. They asked us for these numbers. We provided them. We continue to show they're not serious. And look, I think everybody understands what the last request was, totally unrelated to anything on the voter files. This is, again, as the attorney general said, Donald Trump telling everybody that the election was rigged, who started all this nightmare for America has nothing to do with it. And I would just give a pro tip to the attorney general. There's two million documents in the Epstein files we're still waiting on. Go ahead and work on those.

Governor Walz, this is for you and the attorney general. If they're not honoring judicial warrants, how can you trust that they're going to be honoring this temporary restraining order? Well, that's a good question. I'm glad you asked it because since Trump 2 began and even including Trump won, we filed a lot of lawsuits. We're north of 50 now. And they've been on everything from birthright citizenship to SNAP to things like the National Institute of Health, to EV, to just all kinds of things. And they've been complying with the orders. Now, I will say the foot drag, we've had to threaten them with contempt a few times. And I'm not saying that the compliance has been good. I am saying that open defiance of court orders is not something that we've experienced. And so I have every reason to believe that they will obey the court order. Now, if they don't, we have recourse, and we'll pursue that recourse. On a deeper level, your question, I would simply say this, just because they may not do the right thing does not absolve us of the responsibility of doing the right thing. We're going to seek legal recourse. And if they disobey a court order, then that's on them. But we're going to seek those orders, and we're going to insist that they be followed.

Governor, local sheriffs have said they lack the legal authority to harm ICE detainers. And that's something that General Ellison has said as well. They lack the authority to administer the law. Is that an authority you could just give them? Paul, you want to talk about that?

--not prisons, but jail? So really the key issue here is I think most sheriffs in the state do fully honor ICE detainers and provide notification. The issue becomes when they have a lawful reason to be released, bail, released by judicial order, the jail cannot hold that person beyond that point in time. That's the fundamental issue. There is not a lack of cooperation. There is just some legal boundaries. We've had some conversations with ICE about this. We think that there may be some things that could be worked out. But I don't think that's the core issue that we're really dealing with here.

Can I simply say that it puts Minnesota in a very difficult position? Because if such a person were held beyond a period of time when the state court has the authority to hold them, then the state court is exposing itself to liability. So ICE just has to show up and do its job. That's the fundamental question here. And that's the fundamental argument they keep making. We cooperate. We don't do their job. You saw it this week with rural, conservative Cottonwood County. Sheriff had someone, told them, this person's time is done. We can't just hold them indefinitely. It's against the law. So we're going to release this guy. Come and get him. They're too busy up here doing what they did yesterday to go pick up someone who actually should be removed from this country. And I don't know how many times they try and confuse the people across this country. It's their job to do immigrations and customs enforcement. It's law enforcement's job to do law enforcement in Minnesota. They are not doing immigration enforcement, saying we should be doing that while they're apparently now trying to do extrajudicial law enforcement on our streets. So this is a red herring. It's untrue. The attorney general of the United States put falsehoods into a letter she sends to me that we are doing what's asked of us. But we're not going to do your job for you. We have other things we need to do.

Attorney General, how concerned are you getting back to the evidence that you might not get access to his camera footage and that you might not get to the bottom of whether he was carrying an ID or not? I am deeply concerned about the preservation of evidence, which is why we went to court last night. But I have faith in Judge Tostrud's order that it will be followed. And I can tell you that Minnesota officials are going to do everything we can to get to the truth. And again, as a prosecutor, I am not allowed to say what the final outcome is going to be. We have to get the evidence and find out. But if you're asking me, Tom, if I'm concerned, you better believe I am concerned. But look, they've got the order. Now they're going to defy the court if they don't follow it.

As a quick follow up, you met with Vice President Vance when he was in town on Thursday, I understand. I did.

Can you tell us about what the tenor of that meeting was? His goal was to turn down the temperature? Two days later there was this shooting. Well, I guess it didn't work, huh? I mean, here's the thing. Governor Walz and I were in Congress together for 12 years before both of US were to go serve in the state government. We're used to talking to these folks. Why not see if there's something that can be arrived at? I can tell you that it was a polite meeting. I can also tell you that I walked out of there thinking that we probably weren't going to get anywhere because quite honestly a few hours-- not even hours, a few minutes later, he just got up there and just articulated the same talking points he made to me in the meeting. I tried to correct him. He didn't want to hear that. And so I'm like, well, welcome to Minnesota. Thank you very much. Both of us have things to do. So see you later. And I left. It was a cordial enough. But it was not fruitful. But look, I just think that-- and I'm sure the governor agrees, if you can try to talk to somebody sensibly, we do. But that one did not-- that one didn't get where we had hoped.

Yeah. Lauren Gurley from the Washington Post. Do you know if the federal agents who were directly around Pretti during the time of the shooting are still out on the street in Twin Cities or anywhere else in Minnesota? I mean-- I don't know. I don't know. They don't talk to us. They don't tell us.

--with the BCA being denied access to the scene after getting a warrant, is there a recourse for them that way? Or do you feel that this restraining order that you obtained, requiring the federal government to preserve evidence is that recourse? So there are certain legal strategy decisions that I'm not at liberty to just go on about in a meeting like this one. What I can tell you is that both the warrant and the TRO are evidence of our resolve, and we are going to get to the truth of what happened to Mr. Alex Pretti and to the truth of what happened to Renee Good. And that's what we're pledging. And we're going to use every legal means to do that. So I can't tell you-- I'm not at liberty to tell you what you're asking me. But I am here to assure the public who's listening that we are going to-- we are going to get to the truth of this matter. And we won't be deterred, and we won't be denied.

Just a quick question. We did see BCA agents at the shooting scene this morning. Can you confirm what they were doing there? Absolutely. The question was about whether or not the BCA agents were on the scene of the shooting this morning. And they were. And they were continuing to collect evidence that they've seen. They're also doing some canvassing of the neighborhoods. I don't want to get any more of the investigative process on this. But at the BCA, we are going to continue to investigate the shooting based on whatever evidence we're able to get. And we appreciate the attorney general assisting us with the temporary restraining order to make sure that the federal government is retaining evidence that will be available, we would assume, to us at a later time. But the investigation will not pause. We are continuing to work on anything and everything that we possibly can. I'm just going to close. I'm going to close with one thing that I promised the parents, with Michael and Susan. And I speak to all Americans on this over these last 24 hours, what you saw. Now knowing more about this young man, beloved by his family, accomplished ICU nurse, skillful in ability to work with veterans, someone who is beloved by community, no criminal record, lawful firearms owner. And you know what you saw. And then you heard the most powerful people in the world, certainly in this country, president, vice president, Greg Bovino, Kristi Noem, narrate to you what you were looking at, that this was a domestic terrorist crazed running at law enforcement with the intent to kill massive numbers of them, sullying his name within minutes of this event happening and then closing the crime scene, sweeping away the evidence, defying a court order and not allowing anyone to look at it. I don't care if you are conservative and you are flying a Donald Trump flag, you're a libertarian, "Don't tread on me," you're a Democratic Socialist of America. This is an inflection point, America. If we cannot all agree that the smearing of an American citizen and besmirching everything they stood for and asking us not to believe what we saw-- I don't know what else to tell you. This has to be the moment your government-- here in Minnesota, I've made it clear. I'm accountable for things that happen here. And I will take responsibility for that. Someone has to be accountable. Someone has to hold the final decision on this. And sitting behind a keyboard at 2:00 AM and besmirching a VA nurse and a son and a coworker and a friend is despicable beyond all description. This is not we need to see both sides. This is not we need to wait for this. This is basic human decency. And at this point in time, I'm just asking, try for a moment to set aside the political side of it and go back and ground in the humanity of this. This family has gone through enough. And to have the most powerful man in the world drag their dead son with absolutely no evidence and gaslight the entire country, this is enough. And I would say, President Trump, you can end this today. Pull these folks back. Do humane, focused, effective immigration control. You've got the support of all of us to do that. Let our law enforcement continue to do what they do, making Minnesota one of the safest states in the country, one of the best places to live. Allow our children to go back to school. We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank. Somebody's going to write that children's story about Minnesota. And there's one person who can end this now. And I'll go back to it again. Please show some decency. Pull these folks out, reset this situation, and allow us to do the job that the attorney general, myself, were elected to do, protect the people of Minnesota and carry out the laws of Minnesota. We'll be back with you when we get more information.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We've been listening to the governor of Minnesota there, Tim Walz, along with the attorney general, Keith Ellison. Governor Walz saying, what is the plan, Donald Trump? What do we need to do to get these agents out of our state? He said, this has nothing to do with fraud. They're not sending us forensic accountants. And he ended the same way he began, by telling us of a commitment he made to the parents, of Alex Pretti, to tell the story of how he lived, not just how he died, saying he has no criminal record. He was a legal firearms owner and saying "you know what you saw." He also said, this is an inflection point, America. President Trump, you can end this today. Pull these folks--