The NPR Politics Podcast - Does Alex Pretti’s death mark a turning point for Trump?

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

The fatal shooting by federal immigration officers of 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen and an intensive care unit nurse at the VA, escalated tensions surrounding the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis and prompted bipartisan calls for investigation. We discuss whether the incident could mark a turning point for the president.This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, Minnesota Public Radio host Clay Masters, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Data Bricks, the data and AI company. Are your AI agents working? Most aren't reliable for business. You need AI that's accurate. Agent Bricks, AI agents grounded in your data and built for your goals. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast for Monday, January 26th. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House.

And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And we also have with us Minnesota Public Radio's Clay Masters. Hi, Clay. Hello there. And today on the show, federal agents shot and killed another American in Minneapolis over the weekend. 37-year-old Alex Preddy was an intensive care unit nurse at a VA hospital. He was using his phone to film ICE agents. When the situation rapidly escalated within seconds, half a dozen masked agents were pinning him to the ground face down, and then he was shot in the back multiple times.

Clay, we know this because there was video. a lot of it. What more can you tell us about what happened? So the video shows Alex Preti in this neighborhood in Minneapolis, little after 9 in the morning, there was a person who was shoved to the ground. Preddy appears to be trying to support this person who was shoved to the ground. And during that, you see a swarm of federal agents approach him. He has his phone out. And then it escalates very quickly. Federal officials have said that Preti approached agents in a threatening manner with a gun before he was shot and killed by an officer. But it's very important to note here that video and eyewitness testimony from NPR News dispute that account.

Federal officials, including the Homeland Security Secretary, say that he brandished it, that he brought it, aiming to do maximum harm. What the video seems to show is that he wasn't brandishing, he was holding his phone, and he was disarmed before he was shot. just like a second before he was shot. Right. Clay, how are state and local officials responding to these events? And what has it been like there in Minnesota? 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 community support, 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 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 Prattie, 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 Cities right now. 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 Walls 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 McClain Good, where the state is being shut out of the investigation.

So there's a lot of frustration there, and there's a lot of effort that's been going on through the courts to try to at least temporarily halt the immigration crackdown. that's been ramped up since the beginning of December. Yeah, Domenico, after the shooting of Renee Maclin 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 think the politics are different this time? 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 Maclin Good, as you mentioned, not long ago, but now this 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, you know, go after the gangsters, not gardeners, in the words of Maria Salazar, the congresswoman from Florida. And, you know, 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. And I think it's important here to mention as well is that Alex Pretti had a legal permit to carry a firearm. I think that's something that's important here. That matters because Republicans have traditionally supported not just the First Amendment or the Fourth Amendment, but the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. Trey Gowdy, former Congressman Republican Fox News host, was talking. about just that on Fox News over the weekend. 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. 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 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 seemed to be on a similar wavelength. President Trump said that he is sending Tom Homan, who is his border czar, to Minnesota to sort of basically take over. And he says that Governor Wals was happy that Homan is going to Minnesota. It certainly seems as though the president is looking for a way to turn this down, which is different than his response after Renee 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 in 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. And there's absolutely no basis for that at all. You saw Christy Noem after Mackling 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 in. And Clay, how is Governor Walls responding? How is the state responding to Tom Home and the borders are being sent in? 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, Christy 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. Clay, I do want you to talk about one other thing that happened today, which I found pretty surprising, which is a Republican candidate for governor, dropped out of the race, citing the federal action in his state. Can you tell me more about that? Yeah. So just a quick snapshot on 2026 in Minnesota, there is a gubernatorial race. Governor Tim Walls 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,

there's a pretty healthy contest that is taking shape. And the surprise today was that Chris Mattel has dropped his bid for Minnesota governor. He's a Republican. 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 Mattel says he can't support what he calls retribution against Minnesota. And I do want to note, too, that Mattel's firm has 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 Maclin Good back on January 7th in Minneapolis. 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 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, you know, couple of shootings and killings, you suddenly have the Republican candidate saying, you know what, Republican can't win. 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 Damath, 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. All right, well, we are going to take a quick break and we will have more in a moment. This message comes from Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive and up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get Wise.

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On ThruLine, listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Limelsohn Foundation, dedicated to improving lives through invention, innovation, and climate action. And we're back. And we've been discussing the aftermath of what happened this weekend in Minneapolis, when federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Prettie. Clay, we have seen the Trump administration use similar tactics for immigration enforcement operations in other places, sending in large numbers of ice and border patrol, a big show of doing immigration enforcement. We've seen Portland, Oregon, Chicago, for example.

What do you think makes Minneapolis different? This has been going on now for a long time in a very visible way. I think what, at least, you know, 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, you know, I was out on Friday and there were people just out patrolling their neighborhoods. And we've even seen the head of Border Patrol, Greg Bovino, 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're

seeing happen across the Twin Cities. Yeah, and I have to say about Minneapolis in particular, you know, it's a place with a highly educated population. You have a lot of activism. And, you know, they have among the highest voter turnout rates in the country in 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. Yeah. And I will say that last week, the White House sent out a memo to federal agencies telling them that they needed to identify all federal spending in so-called sanctuary cities and sanctuary

states with the idea President Trump has pledged that he's going to withdraw all federal funding from states that don't cooperate as he has seen it. Is there a blurring of lines between immigration enforcement and other political goals in this state? 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 you want, 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. And I should note, too, that Secretary of State Steve Simon, who is in charge of elections in the state of Minnesota, I was talking with him yesterday, and he said that he will not allow the U.S. Department of Justice to access the state's voter rolls. And remember, elections in this country are decentralized for a reason. Each state runs their own elections, whether you have a Republican or a Democrat at running the election processes in those states as secretaries of state. That's why these elections are run by those officials, those local officials in those states. Domenico, obviously, this has been

a very messy situation recently. But do you have any sense of whether the administration's response is going to be persuasive to voters? Well, I mean, when you talk about voters, we have to talk about which voters, right? Because I 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 four funding Homeland Security in general, you're seeing a lot of that middle sort of coalesced to say, you know, this isn't right. This is going too far. And they want de-escalation and a tamping down of the rhetoric at the very least. And I promise we will talk about this more in a future podcast. But Clay and Domenico, we have a government funding deadline in just a few days here. at the federal level. And all of a sudden, what's happening in Minnesota is getting wrapped up in that

funding legislation that, in theory, could have avoided a government shutdown. But now you have Democrats saying they don't think that they can support funding for these kinds of actions. 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, 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. Over the weekend, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota on Meet the Press said that she didn't plan to vote for the DHS funding. That's something she had not committed to in previous interviews that I've had with her the last couple of weeks. And since we're talking about senators, I found it really notable when you look at some of these Republican moderate senators like Tom Tillis of North Carolina, who 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 vein for where the politics are headed in all of this. Right. And when you see the president ever so slightly trying to distance himself from the actions of his own administration, you know where the politics are. Of course, yep. All right, we're going to leave it there for today. Thanks for being here again, Clay. You're welcome. And if you don't want to miss any of our political analysis, please make sure to hit that follow button in your favorite podcast app. I'm Tamara Keith.

I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. On Planet Money, we have covered a lot of topics. Like just try searching something on the internet and adding Planet Money to the end of it. Tariff prices, Planet Money, that's an episode. Stop Sign War, Planet Money, that too. Alaska Halibut Derby, Planet Money. If you can ask it, we have probably answered it. Planet Money, listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

This week on Up First, more violence in Minneapolis. Democrats say they will block a spending bill in the Senate after another deadly ice shooting. How will Republicans respond? And could the Trump administration rethink its strategy on immigration? We'll keep you posted every morning with three stories you need to know to start your day up first. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts.