MyPillow founder Mike Lindell speaks to Steve Bannon during a livestream in front of his new Minnesota governor campaign bus on Dec. 11, 2025. (Photo by Michelle Griffith/Minnesota Reformer)

Mike Lindell’s memoir, “What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO,” has enjoyed a new surge of sales since he announced a run for governor late last year.

Who’s buying the book, which details his addictions and his rise to fame?

His campaign for Minnesota governor.

Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, spent more than half the money he raised for his campaign last year buying copies of his book, according to Minnesota Campaign Finance Board data released Tuesday.

Lindell launched his campaign for Minnesota governor on Dec. 11, 2025, and in about two-and-a-half weeks raised $352,000 in individual donations.

In December, the Lindell campaign bought nearly $190,000 worth of Lindell autobiographies from MyPillow. Lindell’s campaign finance report lists the expense as “Advertising – general: Mike Lindell Books.”

Reached by phone Tuesday, Lindell said instead of typical campaign flyers, he’s giving out his book. He said MyPillow owns the books and that MyPillow is “employee-owned.”

“When we’re going around to all the places in Minnesota, other people are giving a flyer,” Lindell said. “I’m giving them the whole book so they know who I am.”

The MyPillow CEO said he isn’t sure how many copies of his book he’s given away so far, but estimated around 20,000 or 25,000. It’s unclear if the campaign paid the full price — $19.97 — or was able to use the promo code for a $10 discount.

Lindell is among 10 candidates who are seeking the Republican nomination for governor, including House Speaker Lisa Demuth; state Rep. Kristin Robbins, 2022 GOP nominee for governor Scott Jensen; and Kendall Qualls, an army veteran and health care executive.

Despite his one-time riches after developing his famous lumpy pillow, Lindell has gone broke. At his December campaign launch, a reporter asked him if he would self-fund his campaign. Lindell said no.

“Absolutely not. I can’t self-fund. I don’t have any money left,” Lindell said.

Lindell says he’s spent millions defending his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

In June, a federal jury found that Lindell defamed a former Dominion Voting Systems employee and was ordered to pay $2.3 million, pending appeal.

Then in September, a federal judge ruled that Lindell defamed voting machine company Smartmatic. The company is seeking $1.5 billion in damages, which will be decided by a jury.

During the defamation lawsuit brought by a Dominion Voting Systems employee over the summer, Lindell in court testimony said he was $10 million in debt.

On Tuesday, Lindell said he’s the only GOP candidate who can attract donations from across the country. Lindell said the GOP nominee needs to raise enough money to beat Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who launched her campaign for governor last week.

Lindell said that since the end of the year, his campaign has raised “well over a million,” though that can’t be verified until the next round of campaign finance disclosure. 

In December, Lindell’s campaign spent nearly $26,000 for an “RV Wrap,” according to the Campaign Finance Board. This presumably was to plaster his face, name and campaign website on an RV he premiered at his campaign launch. 

Masked federal agents on the scene near where a federal officer shot a Minnesotan for the third time in as many weeks. (Photo by Madison McVan/Minnesota Reformer)

This story has been updated.

A ​​federal agent fatally shot a man in Minneapolis on Saturday amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, escalating tensions after another killing earlier in the month.

It was the third shooting by immigration officers in the city in three weeks – and the second to end in death. Democratic local and state officials immediately condemned Saturday’s shooting as protests ramped up, and Republican President Donald Trump threatened again to send military troops to Minnesota.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said federal agents killed a 37-year-old man whom officials believe is a U.S. citizen who lives in Minneapolis. Video of the shooting was captured by observers and posted to social media.

The man who was killed has been identified as Alex Jeffrey Pretti in a statement from Sen. Zaynab Mohamed, DFL-Minneapolis, and by the Star Tribune and The Associated Press.

Pretti, who grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, was an ICU nurse who worked at the Minneapolis Veterans Administration hospital, according to a Wisconsin Public Radio interview with his parents, who still live in Green Bay,

O’Hara said he had no information about what led up to the shooting but said the man, whom he did not name, was a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry. O’Hara says police have not interacted with the deceased other than a few traffic tickets.

Protesters line streets

Hundreds of protesters gathered near where the shooting happened, despite subzero temperatures. Many wore gas masks and eye protection — common in the Twin Cities, where demonstrations started when immigration officers arrived in December.

Federal agents deployed tear gas and flash bangs to push back the crowds, which lined up at several intersections near the site of the shooting shouting, “Shame!” and “ICE out, f*ck ICE!”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey again urged the federal government to end its two-month immigration siege, which has brought 3,000 federal officers to Minnesota, or nearly five times the number of sworn Minneapolis police officers.

“How many times must local and national leaders plead with you, Donald Trump, to end this operation and recognize that this is not creating safety in our city?” Mayor Jacob Frey said.

Gov. Tim Walz said he’d spoken to the White House after the shooting, but he doesn’t have confidence federal officials will change their actions or leave the state. He said the Department of Homeland Security has rushed to judgement and is already slandering the man who was killed.

“Minnesotans: You know who you are, and you demonstrate it every single day,” Walz said. “And we damn sure know who these people are. The American public knows. This needs to be the event that says, ‘enough.’”

Law enforcement blocked off the streets and deployed tear gas to dissuade angry demonstrators from going near the site of the shooting, which was on Nicollet Avenue just south of 26th Street. Over 100 federal agents were on the scene after the shooting.

O’Hara urged demonstrators to go home. State Patrol and other state law enforcement were there also in an attempt to keep the peace.

Video captures shooting

In a graphic video now circulating on social media, six federal agents appear to wrestle the man to the ground in front of the New American Development Center. One of the agents hits the man three times with what appears to be a firearm. Bystanders are surrounding the group and filming on their cell phones.

Over 10 shots can be heard in the video, but it’s unclear if more than one agent fired a weapon.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a social media post that officers were conducting a targeted operation in Minneapolis against someone illegally in the U.S. “wanted for violent assault,” when another person approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm handgun.

Video shows an agent in a gray jacket approach the man as he’s being held on the ground by multiple other agents and then walk away with what appears to be a gun in his hand, before shots are fired.

“The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted. More details on the armed struggle are forthcoming,” Homeland Security said. “Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, an agent fired defensive shots. Medics on scene immediately delivered medical aid to the subject but was pronounced dead at the scene.”

U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said in a press conference that the officer who shot the man is “highly trained” and served as a Border Patrol agent for eight years. Bovino said the agent has “extensive training as a Range Safety Officer,” to ensure people on a gun range are using it safely.

The parents of Alex Pretti, Michael and Susan Pretti, released a statement Saturday, castigating the Trump administration for slandering their son with “sickening lies” that they called “reprehensible and disgusting.”

They defended their son’s conduct, saying he was protecting a woman who had been pushed down by federal agents. “Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.”

Conflict between state and federal law enforcement

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which typically investigates law enforcement shootings, said in a social media post their agents arrived at the scene of Saturday’s killing at the request of the Minneapolis Police Department but were blocked from accessing the location by the Department of Homeland Security.

BCA Superintendent Drew Evans said that after BCA officials were blocked from the scene of the shooting, they obtained a signed judicial warrant to gain access. BCA officials returned to the scene, but DHS agents still denied access.

The BCA began a joint investigation into the ICE officer shooting of Renee Good earlier this month before being abruptly shut out of the investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, hindering local prosecutors from being able to consider if criminal charges are warranted against the officer.

Walz expressed disbelief that the federal agents were able to leave the scene with little to no investigation.

“You kill a man and then you just leave?” the governor said. “Is there a single case in American history where you just, like, walk away and say, ‘I guess that just happened and we’re not going to clean up our mess.’”

Walz said the federal agents involved in the shooting will be held accountable.

“Minnesota’s justice system will have the last word,” the governor said.

Trump posted a rambling response to the shooting on his social media platform referencing U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s bank account and saying “what you’re witnessing” is part of a cover up for Medicaid fraud.

“The Mayor and the Governor are inciting insurrection, with their pompous, dangerous and arrogant rhetoric,” Trump wrote, reviving a threat to invoke the Insurrection Act and send military troops into the streets of Minnesota. 

Accounts contradict Homeland Security

Homeland Security statements about the previous shootings have later been found to be false or misleading. After the Jan. 7 killing of Good, the department referred to her as a “domestic terrorist.”

A 911 call after a second shooting, of a Venezuelan man in north Minneapolis, suggests that the agent shot at the man as he was trying to escape into a house, which would contradict the Department of Homeland Security account that the federal immigration agent fired a shot defensively. In a sworn affidavit, an FBI agent confirmed that the agent shot the man when he had begun running toward the house, the Star Tribune reported.

As Reformer sibling publication Stateline recently reported, Homeland Security recently revised its account of a December shooting in Glen Burnie, Maryland, after local police contradicted its initial version. The agency first claimed both men injured in the incident were inside a van that ICE officers fired at in self-defense, but later said that one of the injured men had already been arrested and was in custody inside an ICE vehicle when he was hurt. The other man was shot twice and is facing two federal criminal charges.

In August, federal immigration agents fired at a family’s vehicle three times in San Bernardino, California. Homeland Security maintained the shooting was justified after at least two agents were struck by the vehicle, but available footage shows an agent breaking the driver-side window moments before gunfire erupted. Surveillance footage from the street does not show agents being struck by the vehicle.

The Saturday shooting comes one day after tens of thousands of people protested ICE in downtown Minneapolis in subzero temperatures.

The Minnesota National Guard has been on active duty for over a week, meaning that they are prepared to rapidly respond if they are deployed. Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt on Saturday requested support from the National Guard to help them provide security at the federal Whipple Building — the site of ongoing protests. It’s unclear how many guard members will be stationed there.

Reformer Deputy Editor Max Nesterak and Reporter Alyssa Chen contributed to this report.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.

Tens of thousands of people march in downtown Minneapolis in subzero temperatures to protest the massive presence of ICE agents over the past several weeks Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

Tens of thousands of Minnesotans marched in downtown Minneapolis Friday in a negative 30 degree windchill to protest the federal government’s continuing surge of immigration enforcement — demanding civil rights and a withdrawal of the 3,000 officers sent here by the administration of President Donald Trump.

The demonstration took place on “ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth & Freedom,” a general strike supported by Minnesota unions, progressive faith leaders and community activists. Proponents encouraged all Minnesotans to stay home from work, school and refrain from shopping — disruptions of normal orders of business to protest the presence of federal immigration agents in Minnesota.

The massive protest began at The Commons Park at 2 p.m. in Minneapolis. The march ended with a rally at Target Center. 

Natasha Dockter, the first vice president of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators’ teachers chapter, handed out hand warmers to demonstrators at The Commons alongside other teachers.

“I’m out here today because what’s going on in our city is completely and totally unacceptable. It’s impacting the lives of our students and their families that we serve,” Dockter said.

Sergey Goro and Ben Daniel were visiting the Twin Cities from San Francisco and Seattle for the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships, which was delayed due to the extreme cold. 

Goro said that he’d been to No Kings protests — demonstrations against the Trump administration’s authoritarian policies — in San Francisco, but that they weren’t as large as the Minneapolis protest. 

Daniel agreed: “We can really feel that everyone’s on board here — that this is ridiculous and it’s gotta stop.” 

Daniela Morales, 16, carrying a Mexican flag, said her parents are both Mexican immigrants and that she attended the protest on behalf of people who can’t speak out. 

“I’m really glad to see everybody come out and support each other and our neighbors and fight against the administration,” Morales said. 

Other protests led to arrests

A morning protest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport led to the arrests of roughly 100 clergy by MSP and Bloomington law enforcement Friday, according to a statement from protest organizers.

Demonstrators at the airport were standing or kneeling on the roadway outside Terminal 1’s departures area and led away by law enforcement.

Jeff Lea, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, said in an email that the airport “worked in advance with event organizers to best accommodate their right to freedom of expression while also ensuring uninterrupted operations.”

“When the permitted activity went beyond the agreed-upon terms, MSP Airport Police began taking necessary action, including arrests, to protect public safety, airport security and access to Terminal 1,” Lea wrote. Lea confirmed there were around 100 arrests.

At least one demonstrator was also arrested at the nearby Whipple Federal Building, where federal agents deployed chemical irritants into a crowd of protestors, the Star Tribune reported. Around noon, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office announced that it had given three dispersal orders for protestors to unblock an access road at the building. The Whipple Building, now a base for federal immigration operations, has been an ongoing site of protests.

Life stood still Friday for many Minnesotans. Over 700 businesses closed Friday to support the “ICE Out” day, according to Bring Me The News, which is keeping a running list.

“It is time to suspend the normal order of business to demand immediate cessation of ICE actions in MN, accountability for federal agents who have caused loss of life and abuse to Minnesota residents and call for Congress to immediately intervene,” the demonstration’s website states.

Over a dozen churches across Minnesota announced prayer vigils to “mourn, pray and plant seeds of hope with one another,” according to ISAIAH, the nonprofit coalition of Minnesota faith and community groups.

Dozens of school districts across the state closed Friday because of the dangerously cold temperatures. Minneapolis Public Schools were already planned to be closed Friday for a teacher record-keeping day.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance gives remarks following a roundtable discussion with local leaders and community members amid a surge of federal immigration authorities in the area, at Royalston Square on January 22, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Trump administration has sent a reported 3,000-plus federal agents into the area, with more on the way, as they make a push to arrest undocumented immigrants in the region. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Vice President JD Vance on Thursday blamed Minnesota elected officials for the clashes between federal agents and protesters, arguing that their refusal to facilitate the federal government’s immigration enforcement is the cause of the chaos across the Twin Cities.

Vance held a closed-door roundtable with federal agents, law enforcement and businesses. The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, confirmed after the fact that they were in the room with Vance, though other participants are unknown.

Democrats who said they were not invited included Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.

Vance took questions from reporters, defending the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and downplaying recent, high-profile instances of alleged civil rights violations committed by federal agents.

In at least one instance, Vance misled the public when he said the Trump administration is focused on Minneapolis because “that’s where we have the highest concentration of people who have violated our immigration laws.” This is false.

Pew Research estimates that 130,000 undocumented immigrants lived in Minnesota as of 2023.

States that are the most populous — California, Texas, Florida and New York — had the highest concentration of unauthorized immigrations, a combined 8 million in 2023.

A reporter asked the vice president about agents detaining a 5-year-old boy, whom the Columbia Heights Public School district says agents used as “bait” to draw family members away from their homes.

Vance said the incident is an example of the media failing to provide context about ICE’s arrests. Vance said the boy was not arrested, but the boy’s father was in the country illegally. When ICE approached the father, he ran and left his child, Vance said.

“Are they supposed to let a five-year-old child freeze to death? Are they not supposed to arrest an illegal alien in the United States of America?” Vance asked sarcastically. “… If we had a little cooperation from local … and state officials, I think the chaos would go way down in this community.”

At a Thursday press conference, a lawyer for the boy’s family disputed that the father was in the country illegally, stating he came into the country a few years ago seeking asylum.

Vance said the administration wants Minnesota law enforcement to work with the federal government and honor ICE “detainers.” Detainers are written requests from ICE that a local jail or other law enforcement detain an individual for an additional 48 hours to give ICE time to decide to take the person into federal custody to begin removal proceedings.

Minnesota officials say that they honor ICE detainers. In addition, some of the arrests that ICE claims to have made in recent weeks were people already in prison that Minnesota handed over.

Vance downplays arrests of U.S. citizens

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit last week alleging that immigration authorities are racially profiling Minnesota residents and detaining people with legal status, even U.S. citizens. Numerous U.S. citizens have said they’ve been arrested by ICE.

When asked about alleged instances of racial profiling and arrests of U.S. citizens, Vance said citizens are arrested because they’ve assaulted immigration agents, and agents are not looking for people based on skin color.

“When there are American citizens who have been caught up in some of these enforcement operations, very often it is people who have assaulted a law enforcement officer,” Vance said. “They’re not being arrested because they violated the immigration laws. They’re being arrested because they punched a federal law enforcement officer. That is a totally reasonable thing.”

He again blamed Minnesota officials.

“So long as we had more cooperation, I think they can do these things in a much more targeted way. They would actually know where some of the bad guys are,” Vance said.

Vance said that based on what he heard in his roundtable Thursday, he doesn’t believe the Insurrection Act needs to be invoked at this time, like President Donald Trump threatened last week. The Insurrection Act is a rarely-invoked 19th century law that would allow Trump to send the military to Minnesota.

“What I do worry about again is that the chaos gets worse. If more and more ICE agents are getting assaulted, if other law enforcement officers start getting assaulted, that would be a real problem,” Vance said. 

After Vance’s visit, Walz said the estimated 3,000 federal agents patrolling Minnesota shouldn’t be there.

“I’m glad the Vice President agrees the temperature needs to be turned down, but actions speak louder than words,” Walz said on X. “Take the show of force off the streets and partner with the state on targeted enforcement of violent offenders instead of random, aggressive confrontation.”