Minnesota GOP Candidate Drops Out, Criticizing Republicans and ICE

A Republican candidate has dropped out of the race for governor in Minnesota following a federal agent’s killing of nurse Alex Pretti over the weekend. 

Minneapolis attorney Chris Madel announced he was leaving the race on Monday in a video announcement, saying that he could not support the “stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so.”

Madel said that he supported the initially stated goals of ICE and the federal government in Minnesota of deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records, but that federal action in the state has gone far “beyond its stated focus on true public safety threats.”

“United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear. United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That’s wrong,” Madel said in the video, adding that he had read reports of U.S. citizens being detained by ICE agents “due to the color of their skin” and spoken to those allegedly targeted by federal agents.  

“Driving while Hispanic is not a crime,” Madel said. “Neither is driving while Asian.”

Madel was a top contender in the Republican primary, finishing among the top three in polls. He criticized the rest of his party in his message. 

“National Republicans have made it nearly impossible for a Republican to win a statewide election in Minnesota,” Madel said. Madel was not a maverick in his party: He had provided legal assistance to Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed Minneapolis mother Renee Good earlier this month. 

Madel still stressed his support for President Trump, saying that while federal actions in Minnesota were an “unmitigated disaster,” many people “unfairly do not provide the president with nearly enough credit,” citing his “ceasefire” in Gaza, his proposal for a 10 percent cap on credit card interest, and his work to get NATO countries to increase their defense spending. 

All of this shows that Trump’s efforts are starting to backfire among all Minnesotans, not just Democrats or left-leaning people in the Twin Cities. Republicans in the state, even true believers like Madel, are beginning to see ICE’s actions for what they are: an attempt to assert control over Minnesota using violence. Even Republicans outside of the state are starting to wake up. 

Federal agents have terrorized, shot, and killed Minnesotans under the guise of advancing the Trump administration’s immigration goals—but the real victims, according to some officials, are ICE and Border Patrol.

Reacting to video footage of ICE’s lethal attack on ICU nurse Alex Pretti, CBP chief Greg Bovino unequivocally told CNN Sunday how he interpreted the situation, which involved several masked agents pinning Pretti on the ground before shooting him nearly a dozen times.

“With respect, it feels as though in some ways you’re blaming the victim here,” said host Dana Bash.

“The victims are the Border Patrol agents. I’m not blaming the Border Patrol agents. The victims are the Border Patrol agents,” Bovino said. “The suspect put himself in that situation.”

Pretti, a well-respected nurse who worked with veterans, was out on the streets of Minneapolis Saturday morning protesting the death of Renee Nicole Good, who was similarly shot point-blank several times earlier this month by a masked ICE agent shortly after dropping her child off at school.

Moments before Pretti’s death, video captured from onlookers at multiple angles depicted the 37-year-old filming ICE activity before intervening between another protester and an agent who had violently shoved her to the ground. The two protesters were then sprayed with a chemical irritant, and Pretti was ripped away from the other demonstrator while she continued to slip on a mound of snow.

At least seven officers were on top of Pretti, wrestling him to the ground, when one of them, standing above the situation and seemingly supporting the other agents, grabbed his gun and shot Pretti. Video footage captured audio of 10 gunshots ringing out.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claimed that the officer who killed Pretti was “fearing for his life” when he reached for his weapon.

“The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted,” McLaughlin said. “Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, an agent fired defensive shots.”

McLaughlin noted that Pretti was pronounced dead on the scene by medics.

More protests have swept Minneapolis in the wake of Pretti’s death, and Governor Tim Walz activated the Minnesota National Guard to contend with Washington’s overstep.

Senate Democrats are threatening to withhold funding to the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of the latest civilian killing in Minneapolis.

Federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, on Saturday morning, the second time this month that federal agents have killed a civilian.

On Capitol Hill, multiple Democratic senators warned that they would not approve a $1.2 trillion package to keep the federal government open if it includes appropriations for the DHS, according to NBC News. The bill was first approved in the House last week with the help of seven Democrats.

“What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling—and unacceptable in any American city,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a statement Saturday. “Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE.”

“Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included,” he added.

The Democratic Party’s weakest links in the Senate have also voiced their refusal to support funding DHS. Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, who was one of eight Democrats to break with her party’s standoff over funding for the Affordable Care Act last year, said that other funding measures could pass, but not one for DHS.

“The Trump Administration and Kristi Noem are putting undertrained, combative federal agents on the streets with no accountability. They are oppressing Americans and are at odds with local law enforcement,” Cortez Masto said. “This is clearly not about keeping Americans safe, it’s brutalizing U.S. citizens and law-abiding immigrants.”

Senator Jacky Rosen, another Democrat from Nevada who broke with her party over the last shutdown, also said she opposed “any government funding package that contains the bill that funds this agency, until we have guardrails in place to curtail these abuses of power and ensure more accountability and transparency.”

Senator Tim Kaine, a third former defector, came out against the bill even before Pretti’s killing. He argued that Congress shouldn’t validate a president who is “acting chaotically and unlawfully.”

A few Republican senators have also criticized Pretti’s killing, calling for an independent investigation into the incident, but there has been no indication they intend to do anything to protect American citizens from ICE violence.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche went on Fox News Monday morning to attempt to walk back the baseless and absurd claims from many top officials in the Trump administration that Alex Pretti was committing an act of “domestic terrorism” before he was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis.

Blanche was questioned during a segment about the internal strife within federal law enforcement ranks over how the Trump administration has responded to Pretti’s shooting. 

“This is coming to a head, Todd. I ask you, based on the DOJ’s purview: Do the actions of Alex Pretti amount to domestic terrorism?” Fox & Friends co-host Griff Jenkins asked.

“Look we’re—it’s an investigation. So I’m not going to prejudge what his actions were or were not,” Blanche said, in stark contrast to the rest of President Trump’s Cabinet. “There’s two things that have to be part of this narrative.… Number one is the reason why that happened on Saturday is because we get zero cooperation from police.” Blanche went on to blame local law enforcement before the anchor interrupted him. 

“With all due respect sir, my question is more pointed. Do you believe your colleagues may have gone farther? You are an attorney at DOJ. 18 U.S. code 2331 has a legal definition of domestic terrorism, and it doesn’t appear to most of the country that watched the available video … it does not appear to have met that definition of domestic terrorism. So I’m just sort of wondering how you in the DOJ are viewing whether your colleagues may have gone too far.” 

“Look I don’t think anybody thinks that they were comparing what happened on Saturday to domestic terrorism,” Blanche said. “What we saw was a very violent altercation.…  I am not going to prejudge the facts.” 

That’s exactly what Blanche’s colleagues did in the immediate aftermath of Pretti’s killing.  Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino each came out and told us that Pretti meant to do violence and incite terror, deciding that their own warped version of events was the truth before any kind of investigation started. 

“A domestic terrorist tried to assassinate federal law enforcement, and this is your response?” Miller wrote Saturday on X, responding to Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar condemning the killing. “You and the state’s entire Democrat leadership team have been flaming the flames of insurrection for the singular purpose of stopping the deportation of illegals who invaded the country.”

“This individual went and impeded their law enforcement operations, attacked those officers, had a weapon on him and multiple dozens of rounds of ammunition, wishing to inflict harm on these officers, coming, brandishing like that,” Noem said Saturday.

“He brought a semiautomatic weapon to a riot, assaulted federal officers, and at some point, they saw that weapon,” Bovino said. “So, I do believe [Secretary Noem] is 100% spot-on in what she said.”

It’s hard to believe anything that Blanche says here when this false narrative has already been established.

Donald Trump is doubling down in Minnesota following the murder of nurse Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents on Saturday by sending his immigration czar to the state. 

In a Truth Social post Monday morning, Trump announced that he is sending Tom Homan to the state “tonight,” calling him “tough but fair” and saying he “will report directly to me.” The president made no mention of Pretti’s death, and instead repeated exaggerated claims of fraud in the state and attacked Representative Ilhan Omar. 

Trump’s other Truth Social posts from the weekend refused to take responsibility for the shooting, or accept any wrongdoing from federal agents in Minnesota. He fueled right-wing talking points about Pretti’s gun (he was a licensed gun owner and was disarmed before he was shot), and posted a lengthy screed calling on Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, “and EVERY Democrat Governor and Mayor in the United States of America to formally cooperate with the Trump Administration to enforce our Nation’s Laws, rather than resist and stoke the flames of Division, Chaos, and Violence.”

He refused to take any responsibility for the escalating violence from federal agents, or the reports of racism and targeting of children in Minneapolis. Meanwhile, officials in Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security are growing frustrated with the lies coming from the Trump administration, and members of the president’s own party are beginning to speak out. Cooler heads aren’t prevailing. Hopefully, no more lives will be lost before things cool down, but there’s no telling when that will be.  

This story has been updated. 

Even the Department of Homeland Security’s own officials are growing frustrated with the slanderous, blatant lies that their leaders have told regarding the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis over the weekend. 

Fox News’s Bill Melugin spoke with more than a dozen sources working on immigration enforcement and reported that there is “extreme frustration” with people like Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino doing countless media hits “claiming that Alex Pretti was intending to conduct a ‘massacre’ of federal agents or wanted to carry out ‘maximum damage,’ even after numerous videos appeared to show those claims were inaccurate.”

“Sources say this messaging from DHS officials has been catastrophic from a P.R. and morale perspective, as it is eroding trust and credibility,” Melugin continued. “Some of these sources have described DHS’s response to the shooting as ‘a case study on how not to do crisis P.R.’; one said they are so ‘fed up’ that they wish they could retire; another said ‘DHS is making the situation worse,’ and another added that ‘DHS is wrong’ and ‘we are losing this war, we are losing the base and the narrative.’” 

Well no shit, Bill. All of America watched Border Patrol agents violently take down Pretti, remove his legal gun from his holster, and shoot him again and again while holding him down. That shooting came just weeks after agents shot Renee Good and called her a “fucking bitch” while she lay dying in her car. And then the likes of Bovino and Noem claimed that it was Pretti who was the terrorist, not the masked agents who killed him without a second thought.

Melugin then went on to provide some classic Fox News pro-regime insight, claiming that his sources think that agents harassing and killing Pretti was just some “‘shitty’ situation that happened in seconds where agents likely heard ‘gun!’ then the disarmed firearm may have had an accidental discharge that spooked the agents, and they shot.” 

“The agents do not have the luxury of multiple slow-motion angles,” he continued, making more excuses for the masked, militant men who have been terrorizing Minnesota all month.   

After a Border Patrol agent shot and killed nurse Alex Pretti, 37, in Minneapolis over the weekend, some Republicans are beginning to speak out against the Trump administration’s actions.

“ICE agents do not have carte blanche in carrying out their duties,” Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski said Sunday. “Lawfully carrying a firearm does not justify federal agents killing an American—especially, as video footage appears to show, after the victim had been disarmed.“

Senators Murkowski, Thom Tillis, and Bill Cassidy are all calling for independent investigations into the shooting. In a post on X Saturday night, Cassidy said, “The events in Minneapolis are incredibly disturbing.”

“The credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake. There must be a full joint federal and state investigation. We can trust the American people with the truth,” Cassidy posted.

Representative James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, went so far as to suggest that President Trump remove ICE agents from Minneapolis..

“If I were President Trump, I would almost think about, OK, if the mayor and governor are going put our ICE officials in harm’s way and there’s a chance of losing more innocent lives, or whatever, then maybe go to another city and let the people of Minneapolis decide: Do we want to continue to have all of these illegals?” Comer said Sunday on Fox News, adding that he expected Minnesotans to “rebel against their leadership.”

On Sunday, Representative Andrew Garabino, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, called on DHS, ICE, and Border Patrol leaders to testify before his committee, drawing praise from his GOP colleague Representative Michael Baumgartner, who said it was important “the American people and Congress be given a better understanding of how immigration enforcement is being handled.”

Many Republicans are concerned that ICE’s violence, coupled with the rest of the Trump administration’s heavy-handed policies, will hurt them in midterm elections this year. Representative Dusty Johnson, who is running for governor in North Dakota, called for deescalation, in an X post Sunday.

“Politicians, protesters, and law enforcement all have an obligation to deescalate the situation in Minnesota. As with any officer-involved shooting, this demands a thorough investigation,” Johnson posted.

One House Republican told Politico anonymously, “Many of us wonder if the administration has any clue as to how much this will hurt us legislatively and electorally this year.”

It may be a small fraction of Republicans right now, but cracks are beginning to form as Trump’s actions are going too far even for members of his own party. The resistance from Minnesota is working. Will the Trump administration back down, or make things worse?

Federal immigration agents shot and killed a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident on Saturday morning, the second time this month that federal agents killed a civilian.

Video of the incident shows at least seven masked agents working to tackle the man to the ground before shooting him. “What the fuck?” an outraged bystander yells in the video. “Did they fucking kill that guy?”

A second video appears to show the moments before the man was tackled. He was standing in the street, filming an agent at close range with his cell phone. The agent then pushed him toward the curb.

This is the second time federal agents have killed a resident in the city, and the third time they shot one. ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in south Minneapolis on January 7. Another ICE agent shot and wounded Julio Cesar Sosa Celis in north Minneapolis a week later as they tried to apprehend him.

The Department of Homeland Security says the man who was killed Saturday was armed, though it remains unclear what led to the shooting as well as whether he was actually holding a gun when he was shot.

Minneapolis Council Member Aisha Chughtai, who represents the area where the shooting occurred, posted on X that more than 100 ICE and Border Patrol agents were present at the scene, and that they “deployed chemical irritants in one of the most dense neighborhoods” in the city.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called for an end of the federal government’s anti-immigrant operation in his state. “I just spoke with the White House after another horrific shooting by federal agents this morning. Minnesota has had it. This is sickening,” he posted on X. “The President must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.”

ICE beat, cuffed, and jailed an army veteran and Purple Heart recipient for protesting in Minneapolis—and then the Department of Homeland Security lied about his charges.

On Friday, ABC News reported that 39-year-old William Vermie was arrested while watching ICE agents go after two young men in his community. He was taken to the Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, where he said he was detained for eight hours and never given the opportunity to call a lawyer.

“They read me my rights and asked me if I wanted to answer any questions without a lawyer, and I said no,” Vermie told ABC News. “And then they said, ‘You’ll have an opportunity to contact one later.’”

“I have privilege,” Vermie added. “I was medically retired, I’m a combat vet, I’m white, I’m middle class. If I can’t advocate for people who need it, then who else is going to do it? Who else is going to stand up and speak truth to power?”

The DHS used its X account to call Vermie a liar after his story was published.

“FACT CHECK. This individual was arrested for assaulting a law enforcement officer—a felony and a federal crime. All detainees have the opportunity to communicate with their family and lawyer,” the agency wrote. “These smears from the media have directly lead to a 1,347% increase in assaults on DHS law enforcement and a 8,000% uptick in death threats.”

In reality, as ABC reported, no charges against Vermie were filed. Bystander video shows Vermie’s arrest on the sidewalk but doesn’t capture evidence that he assaulted an agent.

This is not a fact-check; it’s just another baseless claim from an administration that believes enough of its citizens are gullible enough to buy whatever version of reality it’s selling. People at the highest levels of government, from the president on down, have lied profusely to us about what has occurred this month in Minnesota, and for months in the rest of the country.

A top Homeland Security official is insisting that the American public trust the Trump administration with their children—even as reports circulate that ICE and Customs and Border Protection have detained multiple children in Minnesota.

Greg Bovino, a senior tactical commander for the U.S. Border Patrol, practically boasted about his agency’s ability to deal with children during a press conference Friday on the department’s Minneapolis operations, attempting to brush reports of child detentions under the rug by sharing anecdotes about officers playing soccer with locked-up kids.

“Here in the U.S. Border Patrol, I will say unequivocally that we are experts in dealing with children,” Bovino said. “Not because we want to be, but because we have to be.”

Later in the press conference, while crowing that both CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were “probably the most experienced [law enforcement agencies] anywhere in the United States” when dealing with children, the Border Patrol chief suggested that circumstances are not so dire for children in detention centers.

“I know that in my particular Border Patrol sector—that saw thousands of individuals coming across the border during that last administration, including hundreds of children—I remember our agents in the back parking lot playing soccer matches with those children.

“I would challenge any law enforcement agency to show me the fantastic care that ICE and U.S. Border Patrol provide children,” he added, before warning people to not commit crimes lest they have to deal with his agency.

Bovino further compared the family separations to those experienced by U.S. citizens when parents are arrested by local law enforcement—though the difference there is that police are constitutionally required to have probable cause that an individual committed a crime before they arrest them.

Reports emerged Thursday that ICE had also detained at least four Minnesota children, one of whom was a 5-year-old preschooler, Liam Ramos, who was abducted by masked agents in his driveway shortly after he and his father arrived home. ICE also detained a 2-year-old at a traffic stop in Minneapolis.

Just hours after Bovino recounted his dystopian, rather than feel-good, story about detained children, another report emerged that immigration agents had grabbed a child. ICE detained a family of three, including a 7-year-old girl, outside a hospital in Portland, Oregon, last week. The girl’s parents had been rushing her to emergency medical care after she had a nosebleed that wouldn’t stop.

ICE’s violent and relatively untrained militias, meanwhile, have been expressly permitted to operate with impunity by the Trump administration, allowing them to harass, batter, and kill their neighbors with little recourse.

It has become glaringly obvious over the course of the last year (or even just this last week) that the Trump administration’s pledge to focus on deporting violent criminals was little more than centrist lip service. In reality, immigration agents have arrested practically anybody in order to meet Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller’s quota of 3,000 or more arrests per day.