(DCNF)—Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on Thursday urged President Donald Trump to pursue insurrection charges against Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
Border czar Tom Homan on Thursday announced an end to Operation Metro Surge, saying that thousands of federal agents would soon leave Minnesota. O’Reilly said on his “No Spin News” show that Trump should target Walz and Frey once “tensions come down” following the end of the operation, during which the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good occurred in Minnesota in January.
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“If it were me and I’m president, I’d go after Walz and Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis. You can’t do it now. You got to wait till the tensions come down, but I’d go after them for insurrection,” O’Reilly said. “I might not win that if I’m the president. Justice Department might not win it. But it’s worth the bet. It is worth it because these — Walz, oh my, he was almost vice president!”
O’Reilly also blamed Frey for the Pretti and Good shootings.
“Those two people who were killed, that was the fault of Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis … [if] he had provided a cordon of security around the ICE agents with local police which he should have — that was his sworn duty to do to protect public safety — those two people would be alive today because the cops would have kept the protesters away, physically away from the ICE agents,” he said. “So Frey did it. It’s on him.”
Federal officials publicly criticized what they described as a lack of local assistance in quelling the unrest, which escalated after the Good and Pretti shootings.
Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act on Jan. 15 if Minnesota officials refused to protect federal agents, but he ultimately did not.
Minnesota officials, joined by Minneapolis and St. Paul leaders, sued on Jan. 12 to keep ICE out of the state. Walz and Frey both had demanded agents leave.
“Get the fuck out of Minneapolis,” Frey told ICE during a Jan. 7 press conference following the Good shooting.
Moreover, the mayor had initially asserted that police would not cooperate with ICE’s operation during an interview with WCCO, a CBS-affiliated TV station in the city, that aired on Dec. 7.
Furthermore, Walz likened ICE operations to a Nazi occupation during a Jan. 25 news conference following the Pretti shooting. He also supported anti-ICE protests and urged Minnesotans to film agents’ operations.
