Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz stopped by “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Wednesday night and spoke about the conflicts with ICE that erupted in his state earlier this year, asking at one point, “Where are the ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ people?”
Kimmel asked Walz if he believes Minnesota was targeted by the Trump administration because he ran against Trump as Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ vice presidential pick in 2024. “It’s not a coincidence. It’s not,” Walz responded. “I think he hates Minnesota because we take care of our people, we invest in people, we feed our people. I think that’s what it is.”
“I’m convinced they were going to pick a state. They wanted one. I think they thought Chicago, they tried it there, because they had 500 in Chicago. They came to Minneapolis with about 3,500,” he later added. “I think they wanted to roll this out, and I think they wanted to get a response from people that created violence so that they could use the Insurrection Act.”
“I mean, this guy’s an authoritarian, and that was his goal,” Walz further stated.
It was not just riots and protests that spilled onto the streets of Minneapolis in January. Two Minneapolis citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were also killed in violent confrontations with ICE and Border Patrol agents. When asked about the status of the criminal investigations into those agents, Walz told Kimmel, “They whisked them out of Minnesota. I assume they’re working somewhere else.”
“I used my executive authority to launch here a few weeks ago a truth commission where we’re gathering all of this [information]. We’re going to bring them back and hold them accountable,” he insisted. “[There’s been] no cooperation from the federal government whatsoever. No sharing information, and that is so unusual for any of these types of situations. We always share information.”
“This [was] a very dangerous situation where the federal government weaponized, literally weaponized against citizens and nothing would happen,” Walz also noted. “I said this whole time, ‘Where are the ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ people?’ Because we were sure the hell getting tread on in Minnesota.”
