Greg Bovino Calls Minneapolis Protestors ‘Cannon Fodder’ in New Interview
Former Border Patrol official Greg Bovino can’t stay out of the spotlight.
After the operation he oversaw in Minneapolis — one of several operations he led outside the chain of command — saw two protesters killed by federal agents, he left government. That didn’t stop him from becoming a fascist influencer.
In a lengthy interview this week with a show called “Died Suddenly” — a spinoff show from the creators of the 2022 anti-vax film of the same name, produced by far-right figure Stew Peters, who runs an extremist media empire — hosts Lauren Witzke and Edward Szall asked Bovino about “Renee Good guys” and “what were the American protesters like?”
“Cannon fodder,” Bovino replied.
Bovino first called protesters “cannon fodder” in an For Witzke and Szall, Bovino was more direct: they are “cannon fodder”.
Witzke and Szall are an eloquent choice of interviewers. Witzke is a self-described Christian nationalist who told TPM in 2023 that she spent 10 years smoking “rat poison and gasoline.” She is frequently accused of sectarianism. Last year, she posted a video of a polluted river in India, calling it “The Ohio River, circa 2028 under Governor Vivek Ramaswamy.” Szall, for his part, was Mike Lindell’s White House correspondent. Szall, TPM reported in 2024, was involved in a project with Laura Loomer that briefly appeared to involve neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes.
Bovino is now on X and publishes regularly. Just this week, he wrote that the government should “expel all illegal alien Muslims and denaturalize those who are inconsistent with American values.” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a Republican who was openly uncomfortable with the killing of Alex Pretti, was not “enthusiastic about mass deportations in Minnesota,” Bovino wrote.
The interview with Witzke and Szall took place next to a small stream, with what appeared to be a security fence adjoining them on the other side. A structure resembling a guard tower looms behind Bovino.
At one point, they asked Bovino to name the minority he least liked to face while operating in major American cities. Before saying what he needed to say – “there are individuals of all nationalities who can be very bad apples” – Bovino replied that they were “Somalis from Minneapolis”.
“These people had no sympathy for anything American,” he said.
According to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and numerous testimony, federal immigration agents under Bovino’s command in Minneapolis targeted people who appeared Somali — many of whom were U.S. citizens — for questioning and detention.
Bovino expressed no remorse for the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal agents. Although he and interviewers mentioned Good by name several times, Pretti did not appear. Instead, Bovino said Minneapolis was getting off easy, attributing the city’s disaster to obscure conspiracy theories.
“Minneapolis, we didn’t hit them hard. And when you didn’t hit them hard, guess what? It gives power… to these funding sources, to these individuals, to the leaders of these organizations. It gives them power. That’s what happened in Minneapolis,” he said. “If you want to know the ground truth and the secret of Minneapolis, it’s that we didn’t treat Minneapolis the way we did the other cities we were in. This softer approach started to seep into Minneapolis. And that’s definitely not the way you treat an anarchist or a rioter.”
Bovino also blamed his superiors for sabotaging him, but left out one person: President Trump.
“I felt like we had President Trump. Notice I didn’t mention anyone from his other team,” Bovino said, adding that Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski would deliver messages that Trump thought he was “doing a good job.”
—Josh Kovensky
Callais Spit in the face of Congress
For years, the Supreme Court has created tools to adapt to Congressional decisions: the big questions “doctrine” and the non-delegation “theory” are homemade excuses that right-wing judges can rely on when they want to ignore Congressional intent.
The Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais was no different. In 1982, Congress passed amendments to clarify that maps with discriminatory effects violated the Voting Rights Act, freeing plaintiffs from having to prove that lawmakers passed them with the intent to discriminate, which was nearly impossible. On Wednesday, Justice Samuel Alito struck down those amendments, reinstating the intent test and rendering the law a dead letter.
The right response to this trend is not, as legal commentator Steve Vladeck suggests, to create a more robust Congress that could actually threaten the Supreme Court with legislative responses to bad court decisions. Such a Congress, even without institutional barriers like the systematic obstruction, is incapable of responding to major decisions in the absence of a decisive Democratic trio. And does anyone really think the Court would respect legislative fixes from an Administration and Congress they oppose?
Additionally, the VRA Amendments of 1982 were passed by a Republican Senate and signed by President Ronald Reagan. This did not prevent these laws from being dismantled by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court does not respect Congress, nor the lower courts. He is a rogue actor and completely uncontrolled.
The only answer is reform, and probably expansion. The Supreme Court, as currently constituted, acts as a veto over Democratic presidents and Congresses. Since Democrats are the only party interested in restoring minority voting rights, it is impossible to imagine a future in which the Court would allow any attempt to restore the VRA’s protections, even if it bypassed the particular elements that the Court found to be unconstitutional.
-Kate Riga
Kemp won’t draw new maps until midterms – but he’s looking forward to redrawing for 2028
Despite growing pressure from fellow Republicans to call a special session on redistricting to redraw the maps following the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. CallaisGeorgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, said he would not redraw new maps until after the fall midterm elections.
Kemp, like most Republicans, celebrated Thursday’s SCOTUS decision, which dealt a devastating blow to the Voting Rights Act. In a recent interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he described the ruling as one that restores “fairness to our redistricting process and allows states to adopt electoral maps that reflect the will of voters, not federal judges.”
He added, however, that it was too late to adopt new maps before the midterm elections, despite growing pressure from Republicans to do so.
“Voting is already underway for the 2026 election,” he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But it is clear that Callais demands that Georgia adopt new voting maps before the 2028 election cycle.”
Kemp faced enormous pressure, however, following Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s announcement Thursday to suspend an already active congressional primary election to allow lawmakers to redraw congressional maps.
“The last thing Republicans need to do is be weak right now,” said Republican Sen. Greg Dolezal, a candidate for lieutenant governor, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s time to be bold. It’s time to be aggressive.”
Rick Jackson and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, both GOP candidates for governor, have both similarly called for drawing new maps.
This is not the first time Kemp has had to uphold the integrity of Georgia’s elections and election administration, despite pressure from Trump and his allies. In the wake of the 2020 election, Georgia has become a hotbed of election conspiracies. Kemp refused to help Trump in his efforts to overturn the Georgia election results.
—Khaya Himmelman
Words of wisdom
“Well, no other country has ever done it… As you know, most people consider it completely unconstitutional. We also had a ceasefire, which gives you more time – but no other country has done it. We are in the middle of a great victory…”
This is President Donald Trump answering the question of whether he will ask Congress for authorization to launch war in Iran, since that is officially the legal 60-day deadline for the conflict.
As we outlined this week, the War Powers Resolution of 1973 states that the president must either obtain authorization from Congress or withdraw from a conflict 60 days after notifying Congress. None of these things happened.
The president instead returns to an old reliable formula: affirming that a law that he does not like and that he does not want to follow because it does not correspond to his program is “unconstitutional”.
Meanwhile, some in the administration — as Trump implied in his remarks — claimed the 60-day deadline was frozen because the war in Iran was in a state of ceasefire. Experts called this position “absurd” in a conversation with TPM, saying that the White House continues to use the military for the purposes of law through its naval blockade.
The White House also sent a letter to Congress on Friday, obtained by TPM, to this effect, affirming that as far as it was concerned, the war had been “ended” by a cease-fire.
-Emine Yucel
