ICE vs. Minnesota Nice: Mayor Frey's Minneapolis Resistance
The Lincoln Project
The Lincoln Project
4.6 • 9.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 February 2026
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rick Wilson is joined by Jacob Frey, Mayor of Minneapolis, for a raw, unfiltered conversation about the escalating ICE raids, federal overreach, and what many residents are calling an occupation of an American city. As immigration enforcement, civil liberties, and constitutional rights collide, Frey breaks down how ICE operations are impacting local communities, why local leaders are pushing back, and how an overwhelming citizen response, mass protests, and community organizing have turned Minneapolis into ground zero for the national fight over Trump-era immigration policy, authoritarian policing, and states’ rights vs federal power. As tensions have been boiling in Minneapolis, it all felt predictable to local leaders — from the broad Department of Homeland Security directives that sent massive federal immigration enforcement into the city, to the repeated warnings Mayor Frey kept sounding about rising dangers and community impact — but it was the fatal shootings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, each a galvanizing flashpoint, that ignited the streets and turned simmering opposition into a civic reckoning.
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Mayor Jacob Frey is on X @Jacob_Frey & @MayorFrey, and you can find him at his website www.jacobfrey.org. You can also find information about Minneapolis at www.minneapolismn.gov/government/programs-initiatives/city-federal-response/.
Rick Wilson is on X at @TheRickWilson, on Bluesky at @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and you can check out Rick's Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. You can check out more of LP's work at www.lincolnproject.us and on X at @ProjectLincoln.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In America, the way our constitution and our system works is you rise based on your own merit, you fall based on your own flaws. |
| 0:09.2 | You are held accountable as an individual. |
| 0:11.5 | The entire community, however, is not. |
| 0:13.8 | So you do not hold the entire Somali community accountable for the actions of those that committed crimes. |
| 0:21.3 | You do not hold an entire city accountable for the actions of a few. |
| 0:26.5 | Your task will not be an easy one. |
| 0:28.8 | Your enemy is well trained, well equipped in battlehardt. |
| 0:32.7 | There is not a liberal America and a conservative America. |
| 0:36.3 | There is the United States of America. |
| 0:41.3 | Good night. And good luck. |
| 0:43.3 | Hey, everybody. It's Rick Wilson. Welcome back to the Lincoln Project podcast. I'm your host. As |
| 0:46.5 | always, I'm delighted to be joined today by a guy you have seen in the news in the last few weeks for reasons I think we would all agree are undesirable, |
| 0:56.5 | but he has been a strong leader in a moment of great crisis for his city. |
| 1:00.9 | And it's Jacob Frye, who is the mayor of Minneapolis. |
| 1:04.9 | And I am just so grateful he had some time today to talk with us about this, because |
| 1:09.3 | mayor, you have been absolutely stalwart about this, and the city has been marked by this invasion by ICE and by DHS forces. |
| 1:20.5 | Protests are intensifying in Minneapolis as the immigration crackdown continues following the deaths of two people killed by ICE agents. |
| 1:28.9 | It comes after a judge denied a request to temporarily halt immigration enforcement. |
| 1:34.8 | ABC's Johnny Fernandez reports. |
| 1:37.3 | Minneapolis protest continues after two U.S. citizens were killed by federal immigration agents last month. |
| 1:44.6 | Meanwhile, a court challenged to remove ICE agents from Minnesota hits a roadblock. |
| 1:49.7 | A federal judge denying a petition by the state to end the immigration operation in Minnesota, |
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