Minnesota’s Attorney General Isn’t Backing Down

Reveal

The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX

News

4.7 • 218 Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

More To The Story: Earlier this year, parts of Minneapolis resembled a war zone. The Minnesota city had become the violent epicenter of President Donald Trump’s immigration raids as thousands of masked agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol roamed the streets in what was known as Operation Metro Surge. Thousands of immigrants, many of whom had no criminal record, were detained. Children were arrested. High schoolers were pepper-sprayed. And two US citizens—Renée Good and Alex Pretti—were shot and killed by immigration agents. Following weeks of protests, the White House reversed course and ramped down immigration enforcement. But hundreds of agents are still there as state officials like Attorney General Keith Ellison are left to clean up the mess.

On this week’s More To The Story, Ellison talks with host Al Letson about the economic damage from the Trump administration’s ICE raids and persistent fears within immigrant communities, his congressional confrontation with Sen. Josh Hawley over a Covid-19 fraud scheme, and why he refuses to back down from the what he describes as the “Trump onslaught.”

Listen: How Minneapolis Taught America to Fight Back (Reveal)

Read: Top Trump Official Says FBI Won’t Investigate Killing by ICE Agent (Mother Jones)

Watch: Minnesota and Immigration Enforcement Officials Testify Before Senate Committee (C-SPAN)

Read: Transcript of Feeding Our Future/Keith Ellison Audio Recording

Donate today at Revealnews.org/more
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly
Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I don't believe politicians should stay in office forever, but I am not going to abandon my post in the middle of this Trump onslaught.
0:10.4	I will not. Absolutely not.
0:14.2	Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has had a tough year from pushing back against what DHS called the biggest immigration operation
0:22.8	in their history, to surviving heated congressional hearings.
0:26.9	But Ellison isn't giving up the ship.
0:29.2	Coming up, my conversation with Keith Ellison.
0:31.6	You don't want to miss it.
0:32.4	You don't want to miss it.
0:47.3	Music This is more to the story. I'm Al Letson.
0:48.3	Beginning this past December, thousands of immigration agents descended on the city of Minneapolis
0:55.7	in what the Department of Homeland Security called Operation Metro Surge. Businesses were
1:02.0	disrupted, families were torn apart, and lives were lost. The surge ended in February, and the
1:08.6	bulk of the agents are gone, raising the question, what is left in
1:13.0	their wake? Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison lived through the chaos and under his leadership,
1:19.3	the state of Minnesota, along with the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, sued the DHS to end
1:26.1	the surge. Ellison said the unlawful deployment of thousands of armed,
1:30.7	masked, and poorly trained federal agents is hurting Minnesota. He's here with me today. Mr. Ellison,
1:37.0	how you doing? Good, Al. Glad to be with you, sir. Everybody calls me Keith, so feel free.
1:42.0	All right. Thank you. So, Keith, the last time we spoke was in 2020 right after the death of George Floyd.
1:51.6	Right.
1:52.4	You've been a long-term proponent of police reform.
1:56.0	Yes.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.