The biggest threat to Trump? Ordinary people.
It's Been a Minute
NPR
4.7 • 9.2K Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2026
⏱️ 16 minutes
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Summary
When Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU Nurse, became the second person killed by federal agents in Minneapolis this month, citizens were there to document the killing. Today, we're exploring how Minnesotans trained for this moment and how, despite deep cultural divides between them, they stood together in the face of government aggression.
Brittany is joined by Adam Serwer, staff writer at The Atlantic, to unpack his time on the ground with communities in Minneapolis and the role of bystanders in these moments of state violence. For more of Adam's reporting from Minneapolis, read his latest piece, "Minnesota proved MAGA wrong."
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This message comes from Normal Gossip, a Radiotopia podcast. |
| 0:04.2 | Join host Rachel Hampton as she shares juicy, strange, funny, and utterly banal gossip about people you'll never know and never meet. |
| 0:13.1 | Subscribe to Normal Gossip wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:19.3 | Adam, many of us across the country are seeing what's happening in Minneapolis through |
| 0:23.7 | cell phone footage and clips filmed by, you know, everyday Americans walking around the street. |
| 0:29.1 | But you have been on the ground there. Do the videos, the rest of us, are seeing capture what's |
| 0:34.4 | going on, or are we missing something beyond the frame? The videos do capture a part of what's going on? Or are we missing something beyond the frame? |
| 0:38.3 | The videos do capture a part of what's going on. And I think the existence of the videos in and of itself tells you something. |
| 0:45.3 | And the only measure of accountability that the people of Minnesota have is by recording these things when they happen and showing the world what's |
| 0:55.0 | happening here. One of the most important things that people are doing here is observing, right? |
| 1:00.1 | They follow ICE around. They alert people when ICE is in the neighborhood. But that's not the |
| 1:05.0 | only thing people are doing. There are massive operations that are sort of locally organized |
| 1:09.4 | around schools and churches where they're |
| 1:11.3 | feeding people who are in hiding. And I went on some of these food runs. I saw these people. They are |
| 1:16.5 | at home. Their cars are covered with snow because they haven't taken them out because they're |
| 1:22.5 | just sitting at home waiting for the invasion to be over. |
| 1:33.0 | As you likely have heard by now last Saturday, Alex Prettie, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, |
| 1:35.8 | was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis. |
| 1:41.0 | Citizen cell phone videos from multiple angles show Preddy with a phone in his hand before at least six officers tackle him, |
| 1:44.6 | pitting him face down on the ground and shooting him in the back. |
| 1:48.4 | Department of Homeland Security and the wider Trump administration have given various |
| 1:53.2 | interpretations over what the nation saw happen in this footage, and in the footage of |
... |
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