Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D.), who called ICE the “modern-day Gestapo,” told President Donald Trump on Monday to “turn down the temperature” after the commander in chief threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act amid clashes between anti-ICE protesters and law enforcement in Minnesota.
“I am making a direct appeal to the President,” Walz wrote on X. “Let’s turn the temperature down. Stop this campaign of retribution. This is not who we are.”
“And an appeal to Minnesotans: I know this is scary,” Walz continued. “We can—we must—speak out loudly, urgently, but also peacefully. We cannot fan the flames of chaos. That’s what he wants.”
Walz said ICE was the “modern-day Gestapo” during a May 2025 commencement ceremony. “Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks off the streets,” he told the graduates.
“They’re in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons, no chance to mount a defense, not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye, just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans, and disappeared.”
Walz’s Monday plea to dampen the rhetoric came after Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and send the military to Minnesota over increasingly tumultuous demonstrations in the state.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The clashes in Minneapolis intensified Wednesday evening after an ICE officer shot a man in the leg as he was allegedly attacked by men with shovels, CBS News reported. A large crowd formed at the scene, and skirmishes between law enforcement and protesters continued into Thursday.
Walz on Wednesday evening—in a six-minute-long primetime address—urged Minnesotans to protest ICE and indicated that agents would be prosecuted in the future. “If you see these ICE agents in your neighborhood, take out that phone and hit record,” Walz said. “Help us create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans, not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution.”
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