President Donald Trump said Monday that Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has agreed to fully cooperate with federal authorities as part of an effort to reduce tensions in the state. Trump said Walz called him requesting that the two work together regarding Minnesota.
The president described the conversation as “a very good call” and said the two leaders were “on a similar wavelength.”
In a statement posted on Truth Social, Trump said he would have Tom Homan contact Walz and said federal authorities wanted “any and all Criminals that they have in their possession.”
Trump said Walz “very respectfully understood that” and added that he expects to speak with the governor again soon.
The president also cited what he described as “tremendous SUCCESS” in Washington, D.C., Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana, saying crime has declined in areas where federal authorities have intervened.
Trump said crime in Minnesota is “way down” but added that both he and Walz “want to make it better.”
The announcement comes after weeks of heightened tensions in Minneapolis tied to federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Federal agents shot and killed 37 year old Alex Pretti during an immigration enforcement operation over the weekend.
That shooting marked the second fatal shooting by federal agents in the city this month, following the earlier death of Renee Good.
Before his call with Walz, Trump announced that he was sending Homan to Minneapolis.
Democratic politicians in and out of Minnesota are continuing to fan the flames of outrage with gaslighting remarks aimed at demonizing federal immigration enforcement agents and operations. One of the worst is Gov. Tim Walz, who made another Nazi reference regarding ICE and Border Patrol agents who are facing resistance everywhere they go in Minneapolis – much of it from paid agitators, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Walz sharply criticized federal immigration enforcement following a deadly Border Patrol shooting in Minneapolis, comparing the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to the Holocaust and the experience of Anne Frank.
Speaking during a press briefing Sunday, Walz said some residents, including children, are now “hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside” amid ongoing federal immigration operations in the state. He drew a historical parallel to the story of Anne Frank, the German-Jewish teenager who hid with her family during Nazi persecution in World War II, as he urged changes to federal enforcement tactics.
“We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank,” Walz said.
The comments came in the wake of a Jan. 24 incident in which a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a Minneapolis resident and Veterans Affairs intensive care unit nurse, during an enforcement operation. Federal officials have said Pretti was armed and resisted agents; local accounts and bystander video have prompted public scrutiny of the encounter.
Walz and other Democrats in the state including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have previously used such inflammatory language which Republicans say are only fanning the flames of outrage and increasing the likelihood of violence against federal immigration agents.
Meanwhile, a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement criticized Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Saturday, saying their responses to recent federal immigration enforcement actions amount to a “subversion” of the Trump administration’s authority.
