Breaking News from Pod Save America - Minneapolis STANDS UP To Trump and ICE

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

Jon Lovett hits the streets in Minneapolis to hear directly from community members after two fatal shootings by immigration agents — the deaths of Renee Good and ICU nurse Alex Pretti, which have sparked protests, outrage, and intense backlash about ICE’s role in the city. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What have you been shouting at the passing ice cars when they're going into the Whipple facility there? Oh, just that they've got tiny little winkies and small penises. Because I'm assuming that's why they hide their face. You think that's why they're hiding their faces? Yeah. Because of their small winkies. So we are outside of the Whipple Federal Building in the Twin Cities. This is where ICE has its base of operations where you see just a steady stream.

stream of cars coming and going and there's this protest that is here basically 24 hours a day. A lot of the big protests you've seen have been around here. This has been a place where people have been tear gas. This is where a lot of the confrontations that you've seen have been. We just talked to a bunch of people here, some of whom have been coming out from the beginning, some of whom have just started showing up after the killing of Renee Good, after the killing of Alex Preti. You see a mix of people that have been activists for a really long time, some who became more involved in protest and organizing after the George Floyd killing. You see people that have never been to a protest before in their lives.

But one thing they all say is that they have never experienced anything. like this the amount of fear the the way in which they feel how ice has been targeting their community hits so close to home I don't think I talked to anybody today who didn't feel who is from the Twin Cities who didn't feel connected in one way or another to people who have been impacted by this by families that have are either afraid to leave the house or afraid to go to work or who have seen people grabbed out of their cars or out of their homes there's also I think a lot of people who are incredibly proud of the way in

which the Twin Cities have shown up the way people have shown up in their voices and in what they have to say you feel the anger the fear and also like the sense of solidarity with this community and a lot of pride around the fact that this is a pretty tough place and that fact that ISIS to bring the immigration fight to the Twin Cities in the dead of winter. We are out here right now. It is maybe five degrees. That's like the warmest it's been in days. It's a spring day for them.

We're freezing our fucking asses off. And all in all, it's just, it's genuinely inspiring to see how many people are out. And, you know, there's a lot of anger here. There's a lot of people that are basically just coming here, because they just have no place to put this feeling that they have, that they can't believe what's happening inside of their communities. This is the site where Alex Pruddy was killed. What made you want to come and be part of this?

I am a South Minneapolis resident, and I have been my whole life, and this is the backdrop to my life. I met my wife here, and I met all my best friends, and I live walking distance from where Renee Good was killed, and walking distance from where George Floyd was killed, five years ago and it's not an option to not be here and it's not an option to not resist and not speak up and use my voice and just be around other people who are all experiencing the same thing which is unlike anything that I could ever have allowed myself to imagine that this would be like

at all I don't know I'm not too eloquent but I for many years was involved in what led up to Project 2025 and I was a straight ticket Republican voter for 25 years of my life. And of course, I'll never vote that way again. They're attacking our town. It's an occupation. They're killing people. They're taking our kids. And that's the saddest part. Our whole lives have all been turned upside down as a community. Hopefully as a fucking world. I think people have all eyes on us. But Honestly, I mean, every day we work together, we are protecting our coworkers vigilantly, and Alex Preti is a protector. We are all protectors.

We all have an obligation to be protectors, especially as people who are less at risk, except ICE is making it very clear that everyone is at risk. The lawlessness that's, you know, befallen everyone here is just too much to take. And I just can't sit in my apartment and, you know, ignore that. I think there are people that have been watching this unfold on their phones, on screens, it's hard to get a sense of whether what they're seeing is in a few small areas, whether what they're seeing is being sensationalized by the news. What does it actually feel like to be in Minneapolis and the Twin Cities these past few weeks? We're living our lives day by day.

We, like we said, we work at a restaurant. We are protecting our coworkers. We are every single day waking up and living our lives day by day because there's no like the metro area that is Minneapolis is so much smaller than a city like Chicago or L.A. It is so concentrated and every single person is one degree away from everything that's happening. We're waking up every morning wondering if the text we are going to get is who got shot. The circle is getting smaller. Alex Pretti lived walking distance from our restaurant. He was the neighbor of our coworkers. And the circle is in so much that like the only option next is for it to be my direct friend, my direct relative, my direct coworker. Like there's no buffer anymore.

What do you make of the news today that Trump spoke with Waltz? He seems to be at least acknowledging that the way ICE is conducting itself here in Minnesota and the reaction here is causing like a real political problem. Like, what do you think that says about what's been happening here, people showing up here? I think he assumed that this would be hidden. And the fact that it's not hidden, you know, I'm not talking about mainstream media, but independent media such as yourselves, are doing a tremendous service on behalf of our democracy. And so I think people are just much more aware, I think, if they care to be. to avoid sort of those mainstream outlets that are merely pushing his agenda, to ignore what we're seeing. You know, I saw a sign that said, believe your eyes, not the lies.

And I thought that's exactly, you know, whether it was Renee Good's murder or Alex's murder here. The video, you know, thank God there were people out videotaping this whole thing. Those realities are not fake news. So there's a lot of, I think, people that have been surprised by how Minnesota has been showing up. Even, like, J.D. Vance has said it's, like, weird and specific to... Yeah. What is it about the Twin Cities? Like, what don't people understand about this place?

That this city changed fundamentally five years ago when George Floyd was murdered, and we were at the precipice of that movement. And obviously they're organizers who have been organizing Black-Rive Rights movements forever. And this city organized in a way that we were prepared for this. We have been here in a similar capacity through George Floyd and through COVID. And then people did not hesitate to immediately start organizing. It's roughly zero degrees here around. Yeah, give or take.

Nice spring day. Unbelievable. And you're saying that when you were out here for the for the for the protest over the weekend or Friday There was 20 degrees colder than this Would you consider that winter? I mean this is is fucking cold and people are out all over the city I think the timing is good that that that this whole thing is going down with ice ironically being here And getting their butts kicked with a little Minnesota coldness I don't want to say fuck ice because You couldn't pay me enough to fuck anybody from ice

I probably shouldn't say stuff like that. What happened in Minnesota Nice? This is Minnesota Nice. If they can't handle bad words, maybe they shouldn't come here. Let's leave it there. You see polling that says that ICE is not making city safer, that now most Americans believe that, and they believe that because of the images they're seeing on their screens.

But when you actually talk to people that are on the ground, you understand what it actually means, which is people being afraid to call the police, people being afraid to seek help, people being afraid to go to work or leave their homes, their homes and also local law enforcement, even if they're not involved in what ICE is doing, they are having to respond to this chaos. They're having to make sure that protests are safe, that the conversations between the protesters and the anti-protesters don't become dangerous

situations, that this has basically unleashed all kinds of chaos all across the Twin Cities and focusing on that means they can't focus on what they're supposed to. to be doing. So yeah, the images certainly suggest that ICE is making cities less safe, but you talk to people here and you get it. You get it, actually, the ways in which it has making people in these communities feel less safe and make them less able to get help if they need it.