“A Terrifying Line Is Being Crossed”: Mayor Jacob Frey on the Turmoil in Minneapolis

From The New York Times, this is The Interview. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro. Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey knows that what is playing out on the streets of his city will have profound implications for the whole country. Since December, there's been an influx of thousands of federal agents into Minneapolis as part of what the Department of Homeland Security has termed Operation Metro Surge. And Frey has had to shepherd a city riven by protests infuriated by the killing of two American citizens at the hands of ICE and CBP and shaken by aggressive immigration raids that have left some residents afraid to leave their homes. I spoke to mayor Frey on Thursday afternoon, not long after border czar Tom Homan, who's been dispatched to Minneapolis, promised to deescalate the situation there. He said in a press conference that there would be a drawdown of agents, only to have president Trump later deny that there was any plan to pull back. Meanwhile, protests against ICE have now spread nationwide, and congressional Democrats are pushing for reform of an immigration enforcement agency that they say is out of control. For its enforcement agency that they say is out of control. For its part, the federal government is promising to crack down on the protesters, and the justice department has opened an investigation into Minnesota elected officials, including mayor Frey and Minnesota governor Tim Walz, for what they allege is a conspiracy to impede federal immigration agents. While there are many differing opinions on what is happening in Minneapolis, it's clear that this confrontation between the federal government, a state, and its people is an inflection point. For the view on how this conflict is playing out on the ground and where it might be headed, here's my conversation with mayor Jacob Frey. Mayor Frey, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you taking the time. We are here in Capitol Hill, normally not where you find yourself, but you obviously have been taking meetings today. You've been at a mayor's meeting. And I wanna talk to you about that in a little bit. But I actually wanna start our conversation by asking about a phone call that you had with president Trump earlier this week. I'd love to get your sense of that conversation and if you can just describe that call to me. First off, never in a million years did I think that I would be having a a phone call with president Trump about this large scale invasion that we're experiencing in the city that I love. So none of this feels normal. Yeah. I had a reach out from the chief of staff in Susie Wiles saying that the president was looking to talk to me. We had already reached out maybe a couple of weeks prior looking to have some form of audience with the president, so that we could explain how damaging operation Metro surge has been to Minneapolis and continues to …