Minnesota’s Attorney General Keith Ellison did not speak as a private citizen last week. He spoke as the state’s top law enforcement officer on The Dean Obeidallah Show—a progressive SiriusXM program whose host has called the current administration a “fascist regime,” frames politics as a war, and has explored running for Congress as an unapologetic progressive.
The relevant exchange was direct. The host asked whether people would need to take to the streets in major ways if efforts succeeded in preventing Democrats from being seated or otherwise interfering with results the way Ellison claims happened in 2020. Ellison’s answer: “Yes.” He affirmed belief in peaceful protest and the First Amendment, then stated: “But if they try to take our vote away, we should absolutely be in the street and I’ll be right out there with everybody else as long as I’m not sitting in a courtroom.” He closed the point by saying people “should be ready to protest, take to the streets.” Circulating clips from the same appearance include the additional language that Republicans “mean it” and that supporters should “be ready to get your dukes up.”
Source: The Dean Obeidallah Show, October 7, 2026 interview | Gateway Pundit coverage of the remarks
This is not abstract commentary. It is a sitting Attorney General, weeks before an election, telling a progressive audience that street action is the appropriate response if election results are challenged in ways his side dislikes—and that he will join them.
Who is “they”? Who is “our”?
“They” is the Trump administration, Republican officials, election integrity advocates, and any court, legislature, or administrative action that enforces citizenship requirements, cleans voter rolls, or questions results. In Ellison’s framing, routine legal processes and federal scrutiny become “taking our vote away.” The same interview and prior appearances on the same show cast prior executive orders on voting rules and Postal Service procedures as plots to steal elections—even when those efforts lost in court.
“Our” is the Democratic/progressive base that tunes into Obeidallah’s program and the broader DFL political and nonprofit networks in Minnesota. It is not a neutral reference to all Minnesotans. It is the coalition that has controlled the state apparatus while billions in fraud schemes operated under their watch.
The track record that makes the threat real
Minnesota already has the receipts on what “take to the streets” has looked like when this coalition feels outcomes are threatened.
In late May 2020, protests over George Floyd’s death escalated into multi-night rioting, looting, and arson across Minneapolis and St. Paul. More than 1,300–1,500 properties were damaged or destroyed. Estimates of total damage reached $500 million—the second-costliest civil disturbance in U.S. history after the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The Third Precinct was abandoned and burned. Two people died in the unrest. The National Guard’s largest deployment since World War II was required. Ellison, then Attorney General, prosecuted the officers involved; the broader pattern of property destruction and breakdown of order occurred under DFL local and state leadership.
Source: Minnesota Reformer damage accounting | MPR News timeline
The same political networks oversaw the largest COVID-era fraud schemes in the country. Feeding Our Future and related programs produced more than $250 million in documented theft of child nutrition funds, with federal prosecutors describing a “fraud vortex.” House Oversight investigators reported that Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison’s offices had awareness of fraud concerns in high-risk programs years earlier. Leaked audio from a December 2021 meeting shows Ellison telling participants later convicted in the scheme that he was there to help and suggesting they “fight” the state officials scrutinizing them. Campaign donations from individuals later tied to the fraud followed; some were returned years later. Ellison has described the meeting as routine constituent engagement and said he was misled. The pattern of delayed or reactive action remains a documented criticism.
Source: FOX 9 on the Ellison meeting audio | Center of the American Experiment fact check
More recently, a federal grand jury indicted ten foreign nationals for voter fraud in Minnesota elections. Charges include false claims of citizenship to register or vote and illegal voting by aliens in the 2022 and 2024 general elections plus the August 2026 primary. These are not abstract theories. They are indictments.
Source: U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Minnesota press release (September 30, 2026)
What the Attorney General is actually doing
Ellison is pre-positioning a narrative. Before ballots are counted, he has told his side that challenges equal vote theft and that the remedy includes mass street action he will personally support. This lowers the threshold for unrest if results favor the other side and provides political cover for it. It treats legitimate election administration and post-election legal processes as illegitimate by default. It comes from the same office that has spent years litigating against federal efforts on voter rolls and election rules while Minnesota faced documented non-citizen voting cases and massive program fraud.
A chief law enforcement officer does not get to issue veiled mobilization directives to the political network most associated with the state’s recent street violence and fraud scandals and then claim it is merely First Amendment commentary. The First Amendment protects speech. It does not immunize an Attorney General from the consequences of signaling that street action is the contingency plan when courts and election officials do not deliver the preferred outcome.
Minnesota does not need another cycle of preemptive excuses and street theater. It needs clean voter rolls, actual enforcement against fraud regardless of the networks involved, and officials who treat election integrity as a duty rather than a partisan weapon. The producers, farmers, veterans, and families who built this state are not the “they” in Ellison’s formulation. They are the ones whose taxes and trust have been looted while the political class prepares the next round of mobilization.
The statement is on the record. The precedents are on the record. The question is whether Minnesota will treat it as the warning it is.
Phillip C. Parrish
Freedom Talk with Phil
parrish4mn.com