The Times Opinion columnist Thomas L. Friedman grew up in Minnesota and spent much of his career traveling to the Middle East. In the aftermath of the shooting death of Alex Pretti, and as the Trump administration continues its crackdown in the Twin Cities, Friedman speaks with the editor Stephen Stromberg about the parallels he sees between his hometown and Gaza today.
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The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Stephen Stromberg: I’m Steve Stromberg, an editor for New York Times Opinion, and I’m joined today by the columnist Tom Friedman. Hi Tom.
Thomas L. Friedman: Hey, Steve.
Stromberg: You’re joining us early on Monday morning because of the violence in Minneapolis over the weekend. On Saturday, Customs and Border Protection agents shot and killed an I.C.U. nurse and protester named Alex Pretti — just a couple of weeks after ICE killed Renee Good in the same city.
Over the weekend, you published a column comparing Minneapolis to Gaza. But I want to start with Minneapolis, where you grew up. What has it been like watching all of this unfold in your hometown?
Friedman: Well, it’s hugely painful. I’ve been talking to friends frequently. In fact, I chose to write that column over the weekend literally because friends appealed to me to speak out.
I’ve been dealing with some personal health issues, so I haven’t been able to actually get out to Minneapolis as I want to and normally would. I’ve obviously been watching it closely, and it’s just been so painful to see my hometown destabilized in this way, but also torn apart.
I finally decided I had to say something.
Stromberg: What are you hearing from the ground?
Friedman: What I’m hearing from the ground, from my friends, is a mixture of pride and anguish. Pride at the way Minneapolis has come together to defend residents from being dragged out of their homes or arbitrarily stopped on the street because they look like an immigrant — and basically doing it peacefully, with many more cellphones than snowballs.
But at the same time, real pain at the way that the city, its economy and its community are feeling assaulted by the federal government. So it was both those things that really impelled me to want to write about Minneapolis.
Stromberg: Let’s talk about that column, because you brought an interesting angle to it. You compare events in Minneapolis to recent events in Gaza, where Israeli forces killed three Palestinian journalists, and where a couple of months ago Hamas executed Palestinian rivals.
What parallels do you see, as someone who has covered the Middle East for so long and, of course, as someone who hails from Minneapolis and has that personal connection?
Friedman: I wrote a column in which I pointed out that the Gaza war still had no name. Nothing really stuck — not the Yom Kippur war, the October war, the Six Day War. I gave it what I thought was the right name, the War of the Worst.
This was the first Israeli/Arab-Palestinian war where the worst of the worst were driving it from each community: The worst in the Palestinian community, Hamas; the worst in the Arab community, Hezbollah in Lebanon; and the worst in Israel, the far-right annexationist settlers.
That’s always really been a part of the background of this. It felt, to me, that the war, the street war in Minnesota, also seemed to fall into that category. It was driven by the worst people in the Trump administration — people like Stephen Miller and the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, and President Trump himself.
They weren’t trying to solve a problem. They were trying to use a problem — to exploit a problem — to drive a wedge between us, which pretty much applies to all the actors in the Gaza war as well.
That’s where it started in my mind that all these people were actually using violence to strengthen their political standing.
Bibi Netanyahu does not want the war in Gaza to end because he knows if it ends with Hamas in any way having political influence in Gaza and Israel out of Gaza, he will be seen by his own constituency as a loser.
Hamas doesn’t really want to rearm; it doesn’t want to leave Gaza, even though the war had started with the worst disaster on Palestinians since 1948, because they want to hold onto power.
So Hamas and Bibi have always been mutual enablers. And Trump, we know, for a long time has abjured looking for a legislative fix for our immigration problems — something that would tighten the border, but also create a pathway to legal citizenship for the many millions of illegal immigrants here.
I have a real allergy to people who want to exploit problems for their political ends, not solve them. And it seemed to me that there was a real common denominator here.
Stromberg: You get even more specific than that. You point out that the Republican Party is facing midterm elections this year, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is also likely facing an election this year.
What do you think they’re trying to achieve in that context?
Friedman: 2026, Steve, is going to be a very important year for both Israel and the United States. I believe Israel today has the worst government in its history, led by the worst leader in its history. This is a government that, in the middle of the war, continued pursuing a judicial coup to break the oversight of the Supreme Court over Israel’s political executive branch — basically in order to pursue an annexationist agenda in the West Bank.
I believe that if this government is re-elected and can complete that agenda, it will be the end of Israel as you have known it, as a liberal democracy.
And in America, if Republicans hold the House and Senate in 2026 and continue to have all the levers of power — the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate and the House — and Trump does not have to worry about re-election, I just can’t imagine what he might attempt to do. He would be totally unfettered, and that will be a disaster for America.
Stromberg: On the politics for a minute, a recent Times/Siena poll finds that a majority of Americans strongly disapprove of the way ICE is doing its job. Just Monday night, The Wall Street Journal reported that some Trump advisers are worried about polls like these and about the escalation in Minneapolis. There have been some rumblings in Congress, certainly among Democrats and even some Republicans. Yet the president has so far persisted.
I say “so far” because he told The Journal that ICE would leave Minneapolis eventually, which is possibly a prelude to a back down. We’re not sure.
But it still feels like he hasn’t gotten the memo until the last 24 hours or so. Is that how you read it? Is he just so isolated from reality and how things are playing out that he feels like he’s still winning, or at least can’t back down politically?
Friedman: I pointed out in my column that JD Vance showed up in Minneapolis last week and appealed for calm and peace and for people to cooperate with ICE. I pointed out that that was really unusual because Vance is, I think, a deeply cynical person, and has been one of the people most active in denouncing what was going on there — a really divisive leader.
For him to then show up in Minneapolis and say: Let us reason together. Can’t we all just get along? I thought it was a tip-off that he was definitely channeling the views of Republicans in the House and the Senate, which he presides over, that this is not working. It’s not working on the ground; it’s not working politically.
I suggested there was probably already a split, and that was before the latest tragic killing of a demonstrator. So I will not be the least bit surprised if Trump begins to pivot. It struck me even over the weekend that he was letting Kristi Noem take all the heat for this. He could then come in as Grandpa and say: Come on, let’s everybody calm down. I’ll step back if you step back. So, that’s how I see that.
Now, I also pointed out in my column that since the whole immigration crisis emerged, going back to the first Trump administration, my personal position is: I’m for a very, very high wall on the border with a very, very big gate. I’m super pro-immigration.
But there is no way we’re going to maintain a consensus in this country on immigration if people feel the border is open, and I feel that was a huge mistake of Democrats in the last election. I regret I didn’t speak out even more strongly against it because if people feel their communities are changing faster than they can culturally absorb, and if they feel a sense of loss of control, they’re going to do what? They went out and re-elected Donald Trump after Jan. 6.
So, I think Democrats have to sit down and reflect on that as well. I am not for open borders. I’m radically pro-immigration, and the only way I’m going to be satisfied with my aspiration is if Americans feel the border is controlled.
Now, that said, Trump had a chance to do that. He’s controlled the House, the Senate, the White House and the Supreme Court. He could have passed any legislation he wanted for controlling the border and creating a legal pathway for people who are here working hard, being good citizens, contributing to their communities, both financially and culturally.
He could have done that. It’s exactly what we need. And he hasn’t done it because Donald Trump wanted that as a divisive issue. He is a divider, not a uniter. That is what he also has in common with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — they both want to win by division, not addition. They both want to win by splitting their populations so finely that they can win the next election with 50.000001 percent of the vote. And both of them are imperiling the unity of their democracies.
Stromberg: So you see Trump as comparable in cynicism to Netanyahu?
Friedman: Oh, they’re brothers from different mothers. Let’s be very clear about that. Yeah.
Stromberg: This has me thinking of last week’s crisis. Remember last week, when we had a completely different thing to worry about? Trump’s push for Greenland, a needlessly tense Davos summit, a supposed framework that’s going to fix the issue that Trump created. We had been scheduled to record an episode on exactly that topic. We were supposed to talk later in the week, but now, we’re talking a day earlier on a different crisis. All of this has me thinking that the notion of American exceptionalism, the claim that our system, our political culture, our principles, our leaders, are unique in the world.
It seems to have had a bad month, if not a bad decade. Is America’s moral mojo gone? What does all this mean for the United States and the world?
Friedman: Well, I consider myself a deep patriot. I love my country. I think it’s one of mankind’s greatest inventions, the United States of America. It plays a uniquely important role in the world. One of the problems with Stephen Miller and Donald Trump is that they never lived abroad.
When you live abroad, what you learn is that foreigners love to make fun of America. We’re so naïve and we’re so silly. We think every problem has a solution. But deep down, they deeply envy America. They envy our optimism and they envy and appreciate our sense that — albeit a crazy notion — every problem does have a solution. And if America goes dark, the whole world goes dark. If we go selfish, the whole world goes selfish. The world has been the way the world has been since the end of World War II, which is to say a period of history more peaceful and prosperous on a relative basis than possibly any 75 years in world history. It’s been that way because America was the way America was.
Yes, we overpaid for NATO. We let countries like Japan after the war have access to our markets to rebuild in a way that they took advantage of. Even China, after it joined the World Trade Organization. But the other side of that was that as the world’s biggest economy, we benefited enormously from the economic growth, and disproportionately over the last 75 years. And we attracted the world’s best brains and most energetic people.
Last time I checked, Steve, God distributed brains equally around the world. What he didn’t distribute equally is countries that would openly embrace those brains. And that’s been America’s single greatest competitive advantage. Look at who runs our biggest tech companies today. Their names are Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella. They brought their energy and talent here. And by the way, I wrote this a while back: Any Haitians who can make a boat out of milk cartons and sail their way to the Florida coast, I want them in my country. But I want a legal framework that will create a pathway for these people to become my neighbors.
Stromberg: I was in Singapore about 10 years ago, speaking to a senior government official there, and he said: United States, you don’t understand the gift that you have. You have the greatest gift, which is people. Everyone wants to come to your country. I think about that a lot, especially these days, because it does seem like that is changing.
You speak about Trump and his exertion of leverage. It seems like he’s thinking very short-term, and he doesn’t think about the reputational effects of pressing Europe on Greenland and these relationships that he’s fraying. He doesn’t think in those terms. This great American moment, this great Pax Americana that you’re talking about, how long is that viable? Is that sustainable, as long as this sort of behavior continues?
Friedman: I think it’s sustainable with the right leadership, and I think there are many Republicans and Democrats who would offer that leadership. But I want to take you back to the beginning of your question, Steve. It’s, again, about the immigration issue, which is so important to me.
I was born in Minneapolis in 1953. In 1948, my dad’s sister and brother-in-law — my uncle — was in D-Day and came back from the war and decided to try to set up a business in west central Minnesota, in a town called Willmar. They moved there in 1948. At the time, Willmar was very white, Protestant, Catholic, mostly Scandinavian and German immigrants and three Jewish families, one of whom was my aunt and uncle. They were the exotica in town.
So fast-forward, and seven, eight years ago, I went back to Willmar, Minn. Willmar today is 40 percent Somali, Hispanic and other immigrants. I wrote a column about how the town had transformed and had done so actually rather peacefully — not without problems, not without challenges.
I started my visit at Willmar High School, and we’re standing in the lobby and it comes to breakfast time and they have a breakfast break for students, so they’re all lined up for coffee and rolls, and it looks like a Benetton ad. I mean, it’s just incredibly diverse. So I say to the principal: Do you have to have diversity class? He kind of chuckled and said, yeah, we tried that. And the students said get lost, because Xiao is now dating Juan’s sister and Aisha is best friends with Xiao’s brother. This diversity is normal for them.
I do believe our country is in a transition now from a white-majority country to a minority-majority country. It is a wrenching transition for some people because there are Americans who have gone into the grocery store in the last 20 years, and the woman at the cash register was not wearing a baseball hat. And they went to the office and their boss rolled up a robot and it was studying their job. Their sense of home, of cultural norms and of work have all been destabilized at the same time. And along came a man named Donald Trump who said: I will build a wall. The wall was not just about immigrants; it was a wall against the gale forces of change. And I have a lot of sympathy for these people. We need leaders who can help us navigate this transition.
I warned Democrats, at the end of the column I wrote, that it is absolutely vital that you couple every protest in Minneapolis or elsewhere with a very loud commitment to a high wall with a big gate, to creating a legal process. If Trump won’t do that, then make sure every American understands you will do that. It’s vital that Democrats make clear that if they get in power, they’re not going to open the border. That was the disaster that got Trump re-elected. Instead, they’re going to partner with Republicans to create that legal framework to manage our opportunity and our challenges of immigration.
Stromberg: You’re reminding me, I’m harking back now to my high school years. I was in Los Angeles in an inner city — very diverse high school — and we were required to do a genealogy project and we had folks anywhere in the world you can think of. And this is their story about how they came to the United States. It was all prefaced by my U.S. history teacher pointing out that he was a man of Chinese origin whose daughter would be — is, in fact — a candidate to be in the Daughters of the American Revolution. And only in America can this happen. This is a very positive way to think about America’s increasing diversity and the image of these communities that you paint. Of course, it’s also the image that Donald Trump has successfully demonized.
Friedman: I will just say one thing about my fellow Minnesotans, who I’m really proud of for the way they’ve risen up against what is basically a deliberate provocation. Minnesota is a unique place. I always tell people this story. When I was about 5 years old there was actually a Jewish Mafia in Minneapolis, and my dad grew up with a lot of these guys. They were mostly bootleggers. One day, when I was young, my dad came home and said one of his friends had been sent to jail. When you’re 5 years old and your dad says he knows someone who went to jail, it just blows you away. I said, “Dad, what did he do?”
My dad thought for a second. I was just 5. He said, “Son, he was shopping in a store before it was open.” That’s Minnesota for breaking and entering. It’s that kind of place. Whenever people ask me where I’m from, I say, “Well, I live in Beirut or Jerusalem or Washington, but I’m from Minnesota.” And you will never understand my column if you don’t understand that. My column is called Foreign Affairs. It used to be, anyway. But it really should be called Always Looking for Minnesota.
I grew up in a time and place where politics worked . I grew up in this amazing community. My contemporaries were Michael Sandel, Norm Ornstein, Al Franken, the Coen brothers, Peggy Orenstein. We all grew up in this extraordinary time and place that instilled an incredibly powerful sense of community in us. That’s what Minnesota is about. And that, to me, is both the tragedy of what is going on now and the beauty of watching people who are deeply dedicated to creating, out of many, one. To getting back to our national project and taking to the streets to convey that message.
Stromberg: I want to dig into that a little bit more because you ended your last column on a hopeful note. You do call for comprehensive immigration reform. This is the sort of thing that before Trump, Democrats and Republicans had both previously supported; it was the sort of thing that seemed only a matter of time.
And I read into this a faith in democracy’s ability to self-correct. Am I reading you correctly? Is there a hopeful horizon that you’re seeing, maybe a few elections down the road or only one?
Friedman: I go back to that scene at Willmar High School of those students. I do believe a generation is coming where this kind of deep diversity will be the norm. So my default setting is optimistic. And by the way, that’s without drugs. It comes naturally to me. It does come from growing up in Minnesota and seeing this change.
But there are two things that really worry me. One is if we lose our institutions, coming back will be next to impossible. Institutions really matter. And there are many criticisms one can make of Trump, but one thing he has done that is just a travesty to me is that he’s put in charge of some of our key institutions — from health and human services, to the F.B.I. to homeland security — people who in no other administration would be seen as qualified for these jobs.
Our institutions are what distinguish us. What would the Chinese give for one day of our F.B.I.? What would Russians give for one day of our Justice Department? And if we lose those institutions, coming back is going to be very, very difficult. Those institutions are in peril right now.
The other thing I would add is: We are going through a wrenching technological, social and cultural transition. The pot would be boiling no matter what, but then along came Mark Zuckerberg, and he created an industry that profits by enraging and dividing us. That boils the pot even more. And then along came Donald Trump, and he took the lid off the pot and he made it permissible and politically profitable to say and do things to and about each other that no American president has ever done. So we need two things: We need to ensure that our institutions hold. That’s why the 2026 election is so important. And we need to turn the heat down on the pot and put the lid back on.
Stromberg: Tom, thanks so much for your time.
Friedman: My pleasure. Thank you.
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This episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Jillian Weinberger. It was edited by Alison Bruzek and Kaari Pitkin. Mixing by Sonia Herrero. Original music by Carole Sabouraud and Pat McCusker. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. The deputy director of Opinion Shows is Alison Bruzek. The director of Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.
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