The Daily - An Assassination in Minnesota and a Growing War Between Israel and Iran

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

During a dark and tumultuous weekend, two shootings in Minnesota left one lawmaker dead and another seriously injured.Overseas, Israel and Iran traded devastating strikes back and forth in what some fear is a new phase of violence in the Middle East.Ernesto Londoño explains what we know about the violence in Minnesota, and Farnaz Fassihi discusses what appears to be an all-out war between Israel and Iran.Guest:Ernesto Londoño, a reporter for The New York Times based in Minnesota, covering news in the Midwest.Farnaz Fassihi, the United Nations bureau chief for The New York Times, who also covers Iran and how countries around the world deal with conflicts in the Middle East.Background reading: Here’s a timeline of the Minnesota shootings.Israel and Iran traded attacks as the toll from their conflict mounts.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Photo: Tim Gruber for The New York Times Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams and this is The Daily. During a dark and tumultuous weekend, two shootings in Minnesota left one lawmaker dead and another seriously injured. While overseas, Israel and Iran traded devastating strikes back and forth in what some fear is a new phase of violence in the Middle East. Today, my colleagues Ernesto Landonio on what we know to be an all-out war between Israel and Iran. It's Monday June 16. Ernesta, thank you so much for making time for us. I'm sure it's been a very hectic and probably quite stressful few days for the people of

Minnesota where you are. That's where there's been a manhunt for the person who was alleged to have shot two lawmakers and was just taken into custody last night. Authorities still haven't released many details about him or the details surrounding his arrest. I'd like you to take us to the beginning of the story and tell us what actually happened in Minnesota over the weekend. Yeah, in the early hours of Saturday, the police got a call about a shooting at a house in a suburb of Minneapolis, Champlain.

And when they got there, they soon realized that a state senator, John Hoffman, and his wife had been shot at approximately two in the morning. Wow. So police are very alarmed by this. And as a proactive measure, they decide to go check on the residents of another lawmaker, the former Speaker of the House, Melissa Hortman, who lived not far away. And that is where police say they ran into the shooter, a gunman, as he was about to enter the house. So there was an exchange of gunfire with police.

The gunman manages to get into the home and he guns down the lawmaker, Mrs. Hortman, and her husband, Mark, in their residence. While the police are outside. Yes, and unfortunately, Representative Hortman and her husband, Mark, died, but the senator made it out alive, and he and his wife are in a hospital recovering. Wow.

But in the chaos that followed the second shooting, the gunman was able to escape. And what do we know about the gunman at this point. So we know that he had an SUV, a vehicle that was outfitted to look exactly like a police vehicle. We also know that he apparently was wearing a uniform and body armor that would lead a bystander to think he was actually a law enforcement official. So he was pretending to be a cop basically is what the thinking was.

That is correct. And then hours later, law enforcement officials identified the suspect as Vans Bolter, a 57-year-old man. And what have we been able to find out about this man's background? We know he was a businessman with a career that had a number of acts. Recently, he had been in the process of establishing a private security company. Recently, he had been in the process of establishing a private security company, but he was apparently also working for a funeral home, and his job there was to collect bodies from the morgue. We know he had a primary residence about an hour away from the Minneapolis area, where

he lived with his wife and his children. But more recently, he had been renting a room in a house in Minneapolis alongside a longtime friend, David Carlson, a man who I interviewed yesterday who described himself as this guy's best friend dating back to fourth grade. He's a friend I knew for 50 years. You knew him for 50 years? Yeah, since fourth grade. What did the man say to you?

Well, Carlson told me that his friend had been in somewhat of a downward spiral. I can't believe this is all, it all happened. I think he was just mental health. He had been struggling financially and he had been struggling emotionally. When was the last time you saw him? Yeah, yesterday. How did he seem at the time? Well, he, you know, he paid for four months of rent in advance.

He said that, you know, quite out of character, he had given him four months worth of rent on Friday night. And he said that on Friday night, he went to bed early and said he just needed to get some rest. However, on Saturday morning around 6 a.m., Carlson said he got a text message from this guy that really alarmed him. Yeah, I'm just gonna read it so you guys can kinda understand what he was thinking.

David and Ron, I love you guys. I made some choices and you guys can kind of understand what he was thinking. David and Ron, I love you guys. I made some choices and you guys don't know anything about this, but I'm gonna be gone for a while. I'm sorry. Take your time. Maybe that shortly. The text message said in effect that he may not be alive for long. I don't want to say anything more and implicate you in any way because you guys don't know anything about this. Wow, that must have been very alarming to receive.

Yeah, he was terrified. He told me that he called the police instantly after getting this text message, even though he didn't quite know what it meant. And within hours, the police arrived with a SWAT team and they knocked the door open and clearly they were wondering if this is where the gunman had come to hide after the shootings. Did David Carlson say anything about why Bolter was renting a room in this place when he clearly had a house somewhere else with his family? Yeah, he told me it was simply a matter of convenience because working for the funeral home he oftentimes had to be available on short notice, oftentimes very late at night. So it's just easier to rent a small room in this house that was shared among a handful

of adults. Ernesto, I know that the investigation is still ongoing, but what can you tell us about Bolter's motivation? Law enforcement officials said that in his vehicle, which he left behind at the second shooting, they found several documents. They were described as a target list that included some 70 names. These names were a combination of elected officials, as well as individuals affiliated with abortion in some way, shape

or form. This included abortion providers, for instance. One law enforcement official called this a manifesto, but so far we haven't really been given a glimpse into his ideology. We haven't really been provided with a clear rationale of what he saw to accomplish with these shootings. I hear you that the police have not released the manifesto. They haven't given a detailed report about what they believe

Bolter's motivations to be. But his targets do, from what we know so far, seem to be mostly Democrats and abortion providers. So it sounds like there's a decent chance that there was some kind of political motivation here, right? Do we know anything about Bolter's politics? What do we know? Yeah, well, the roommate told me that he voted for President Trump last year and described

him as a very strong Trump supporter. On the question of abortion, he said that his friend was adamantly opposed to abortion, that as a devout Christian, he considered abortion murder. One thing we know is he had been appointed by a previous governor to a state board that includes dozens of local business people. And one curious thing about this board is that one of the members was Senator John Hoffman,

one of his targets. So they may have crossed paths, but this board was described to me as, you know, a collection of people that advise state officials on different issues affecting the economy and the workforce. And it's not entirely clear to me just how closely he would have overlapped or worked with Senator Hoffman. Right. We don't actually know whether they interacted,

whether they got along. We just know that they were both whether they got along. We just know that they were both on this board together. That's right. Ernesto, it's hard to take these shootings in isolation, just given what else has happened in the country over the weekend. We see in Minnesota this possibly politically motivated attack against Democrats, while across the country, there are hundreds of thousands of people marching in this anti-Trump protest on the day that the president is hosting a

military parade in Washington DC. And I just wonder whether you feel like there is any connection here between the shootings in Minnesota and what we are seeing around the country. We don't have any hard evidence that the shooter wanted to time this the shootings in Minnesota, and what we are seeing around the country. We don't have any hard evidence that the shooter wanted to time this alongside the military parade or the protests, but we do know that the protests were on his mind. Because the authorities said on Saturday that they found papers in his vehicle that made a reference to no kings, which was the theme of many of the protests in the country.

And that led Governor Tim Walz to urge people not to go out to protest because at the time there was an active manhunt and many elected officials and people who were on this target list were worried about whether they were next. It also feels hard to ignore the fact that these shootings seem to be the latest in a string of political violence in this country. Absolutely. I mean, we all remember that there

were two assassination attempts targeting President Trump during the campaign. The governor of Pennsylvania was the target of arson in his home while he was sleeping. There was the attack on former speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband in his residence. So unfortunately, this has become incredibly common in our political era.

But this incident stands apart in that the gunman was able to execute an influential member of the state legislature. Now, on Saturday, while Minnesotans were absorbing this disturbing and shocking news, and authorities were scrambling to find the whereabouts of the gunman, the governor told people, please don't go to the rallies.

Today is too dangerous a day to be out protesting. I went to the Capitol just to see how many people would turn out and ignore that advice. Hi everybody. And to my astonishment, there were thousands of people there. I just wanted to check in real quick and let you know that we are still holding this rally today. Many had changed the signs that they had initially made to turn out at this protest. And the new signs were honoring these lawmakers and saying, you know, they had the courage to do the difficult work of being a politician in this era. Tell me why it felt important to come here despite the violence this morning. I felt it was more important to come because of the violence this morning.

And we need to show courage on a day like today by standing outside, by standing firm in support of democracy. Ernesto, thank you so much. Thank you, Rachel. After the break, I talked to Farnaz Fasihi about the war between Israel and Iran. We'll be right back. So Farnaz, we are coming to you today because you cover Iran for the Times and late last week we saw a massive attack by Israel on Iran. Can you walk us through what specifically has been happening?

So early hours of Friday morning, Israel launched a massive military strike, an attack on Iranian targets. The magnitude of these attacks are on a completely different scale to what we saw. Killing dozens of top military officials and scientists along with civilians. Among the targets, the chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Hossein Salami, has been killed according to Iran. Israel says they targeted Iran's nuclear program, claiming it was their very survival that was at stake. In response, within several hours...

Overnight, Iran's retaliation, missiles raining down on Tel Aviv. Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel. Overnight, Iran's retaliation, missiles raining down on Tel Aviv. Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel. All across the country, people are listening to the sound of Israel and Iran at war. And this was the start of what is now Israel and Iran exchanging attacks. And with each wave, those attacks are getting more intense, the casualties are increasing, which escalated extremely quickly. Israel's defense minister is warning that Tehran will burn if Iran continues to fire

missiles towards Israel. The new waves of attacks between Israel and Iran, the deaths and destruction mounting on both sides, and today's scheduled negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, also a casualty. And what was really striking was how unprepared Iran had been during the first wave of these attacks on Friday. What do you mean by the fact that Iran was so unprepared? What have you found in your reporting about why they were so caught off guard?

Well, you know, Rachel, they had thought and prepared for a potential Israeli attack on their nuclear facilities because this chatter had been going on that if nuclear negotiations with President Trump fail, Israel might attack. But Iran thought that Israel would not attack as long as these negotiations were ongoing with Washington. And Iranian officials and American officials were scheduled to meet in Oman for a sixth round of nuclear talks on Sunday. And so on Thursday, reports emerged that Israel was planning an imminent strike on Iran's

nuclear facilities. And then the United States was pulling out some of its non-essential staff from its embassies in the Middle East. And even then, Iranian officials I was speaking to were being very dismissive and saying these are propaganda tactics and pressure, diplomacy to get Iran to make concessions when it meets the United States the following Sunday for nuclear talks. And then several hours later, the strikes arrived.

And obviously, the assumption that the Israelis would not attack turned out to be a very big miscalculation. It was a very strategic mistake, Rachel. They ignored some of their own precautionary practices. Military commanders were not in bunkers. They were sleeping in their own homes when they were attacked. And there was a directive for senior commanders not to gather in one place, not to congregate in one place.

And that was ignored. And one of the strikes that took out the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guegard's aerospace. He was holding a meeting with some of his senior team members, and that meeting was struck. So Iranian officials were really shocked by not just the scope of the attacks, but also the security breach and the intelligence breach, because this attack was multi-pronged.

Their intelligence failed to pick up that Israeli attacks were coming at them. They also missed Israeli operatives entering Iran, smuggling missile parts and drone parts, where on the night of the attack, there were airstrikes, but there were also attacks being launched from inside Iran at military bases and at various sites with the operatives inside the country. So in addition to feeling that they were caught off guard, they're also reckoning with their intelligence and security falling short. I saw some text messages from government officials that were shared with me asking, where is

our air defense? How can Israel just come and attack whatever it wants, kill whoever it wants, and we're not able to defend ourselves? Wow. So they were really, really caught off guard and expressing that to each other. Exactly. The word that I heard the day after when I reached out to some of the officials I know was, we are in shock.

How badly damaged is Iran by all of this? There's the damage on the regime and the military command. It killed Iran's top chain of command, at least six senior military commanders, including the commander in chief of the armed forces and the commander in chief of the revolutionary guards. It also struck some of Iran's air defense in not just the capital Tehran, but in multiple other key cities. And it badly damaged the Natanz nuclear site, at least the part that is above ground.

Although our reporting suggests that Iran's nuclear abilities remain intact, but there's also extensive damage to civilian areas, right? Israel says that it's targeting commanders and nuclear scientists, but they're striking their homes and their residential buildings and some of these office buildings that belong to, say, Ministry of Oil. And Iranians are terrified, Rachel. They've never seen a war like this. All night they're hearing massive sounds of explosions and air defense and some of the

bombs and missiles are landing on apartment buildings in densely populated residential areas. And we're seeing a lot of destruction on streets, cars burning, apartment buildings collapsing. So there's a real sense of fear. There are very long lines at gas stations and people trying to flee the city in chaos. So it's having a real effect on ordinary people's lives. So given how much damage was just dealt to Iran, how is the Iranian government thinking about how it would respond to the attacks? Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei immediately pledged revenge

and fierce retaliation on Israel. He held a meeting with the National Security Council. Then in that meeting, sources told me that there was a debate about the risks involved for Iran going to war with Israel. Mr. Khamenei faced, if he didn't respond to this massive attack on Iran's sovereignty or on his regime and senior command chain, he would be seen as weak and it would be interpreted as defeat and surrender.

And if he did go to war and attacked, it would inevitably invite more attacks from Israel. And Iran was initially planning to strike Israel with a thousand ballistic missiles in the first round of attack, but a lot of its missile bases were damaged. So we ultimately saw that Iran launched about a hundred ballistic missiles at Israel. And obviously, Iran strikes on Israel have only continued through the weekend. What do we know about the damage that those strikes have caused within Israel? Iran's attack has caused damages in Israel. Some of those ballistic missiles have landed in the middle of residential neighborhoods.

They've struck apartment buildings and a defense ministry building. There's been scenes of sort of carnage and chaos and civilians dead and injured in Israel. But the extent of the damages to Israel's military and Israel's command and government is not the same as the extent of damages to Iran's government, because Iran just doesn't have the same air defense capabilities as Israel. They don't have the Iron Dome, for instance. They don't have the Iron Dome. Iran is really relying for both offense and defense on ballistic missiles, really.

I want to go back to Israel for a moment. What was Israel's stated reason for this attack to begin with? Israel said that Iran was advancing its nuclear program, that it didn't believe that it was going to reach a deal with the United States where it would give up enriching uranium or closing down its nuclear program. And more importantly, Mr. Netanyahu had been saying for many months that Iran is weaker than it has ever been. And if there's a moment to strike at the regime

and weaken its defense and eradicate its advanced nuclear program, this is it because its proxy militant groups in the region have been decimated or really weakened. The regime is struggling financially at home because of the sanctions. There's dissent inside the country, with a lot of people angry at the government. So Iran was having a lot of domestic challenges and Mr. Netanyahu had said that its nuclear

program was advancing dangerously. But we know that Iran was very seriously engaging with the United States to reach a diplomatic deal for the nuclear program and there was a chance that there would have been a breakthrough if they had continued. We know that Iran has advanced its nuclear program. The UN's atomic agency, the IAEA, has said in its reports that Iran has enough enriched uranium fuel for making 10 bombs if it chose to weaponize its program. But at the same time, the IAEA has said that we haven't seen any evidence that Iran has

made that decision or it was secretly trying to weaponize. And even if Iran made that decision, it would take about a year for them to actually be able to build nuclear warheads and a bomb. But as you said earlier, there had been nuclear talks planned between the US and Iran for Sunday. What did the US actually know about Israel's plans to attack Iran ahead of those talks? So President Trump has said that Mr. Netanyahu informed him that Israel planned to strike

Iran, but that the US was not involved in those strikes and had not taken part in the attacks. The Iranians have made most of their pledges of retaliation against Israel, but Iranian officials have also said that even though the US claims it wasn't involved in the attack, they are complicit because the United States arms Israel, it is its number one backer in the world, and after the attacks it has stood by Israel and supported them. Farnaz, clearly we know what Netanyahu has said about the stated reasons for these attacks, but we also know from your description that the attacks so far have gone beyond just hitting nuclear facilities.

And so I'm just wondering, based on the way the attack has unfolded, if it could be about issues just beyond Iran's nuclear capabilities. Israel has significantly escalated the scope of its targets since Saturday by attacking energy infrastructure. And to ordinary Iranians and the Iranian government, this suggests that part of the motivation maybe for this war is to make Iran a weak state, is to create chaos and to really cripple the government's ability to access oil resources and income. And that could really have an effect on people's lives. What are the concerns right now inside of Iran about how this is likely to progress? I think the scariest thing for Iranians is that right now nobody knows where this is going, how

long this war is going to last, what the scope is going to be. And I think the bigger question for the region and internationally is the very real risk that this war could spread, that the United States could get involved. So there's a real fear that this war will be quite catastrophic. Farnaz, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me, Rachel. Thank you for having me, Rachel. As of Sunday night, Iranian strikes killed at least 10 people in Israel, according to an Israeli rescue service, bringing the total death toll to 14. And the country's main airport and airspace remained closed.

In Iran, the Health Ministry reported that more than 200 people have been killed since the attacks began on Friday. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Americans are likely to start feeling the impact of the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran as more expensive oil causes prices at the gas pump to rise. Global oil prices rose about 1% in Asia on Monday, hovering at about $75 a barrel after Israel struck several Iranian oil and gas facilities over the weekend.

Those targets included one of the world's largest natural gas fields and an oil refinery. Today's episode was produced by Diana Nguyen, Rochelle Banja, Eric Krupke, and Mary Wilson. It was edited by Brendan Klinkenberg with help from Paige Cowitt, contains original music by Alicia Beatupe and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly.

That's it for the daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.