Minnesota Attorney General debate: Keith Ellison and Ron Schutz

I think we have succeeded. I can tell you, Brian, when you mentioned take me back eight years, I think of Nicole Holtz-Smith, who was a woman who approached me when I was a member of Congress and told me about her son who went from her insurance to his own.

He went from paying nothing for insulin to paying about $1,300 a month. He tried to ration his insulin but was unable to do that. His body went into ketoacidosis and he died. When I became Attorney General, one of the first cases that I filed was against the insulin cartel.

And now, in Minnesota, insulin is kept at $35. This has been the operating principle of my service, helping people afford their lives and live with dignity, safety, and respect. Minnesota statute 8.31 requires, it says, shall, the Attorney General shall investigate all illegality, unfairness, and discrimination in the area of business, commerce, and trade.

And I have lived up to that as early as this morning. And Ron Schutz,

I say he's absolutely wrong. I'm very proud of the 350 convictions that my office has secured. I'm proud of the group that does that work every single day. Mr. Schutz doesn't seem to understand that it is courts who sentence defendants, not the prosecutors.

We bring the charges, we get the convictions, the courts sentence people, and so he's confusing those two roles. But here's the thing. I also worked with the legislature to negotiate a bill that lengthened sentences. He's concerned about sentences. We've actually got a bill that lengthened sentences, brought back longer period of time to get restitution orders, and was able to secure 18 more new people from my office with a one-to-three match from the federal government to us.

We put up one buck, they put up three. Now, we've passed that law into law, but Mr. Schutz opposed this piece of legislation. He wrote a press release trying to get people to kill the bill. So it seems to me that he might be against Ellison, but he's not against fraud because if he was against fraud, he would not care who was pushing that bill.

He would have stood with me and helped get more strength for our office.

Well, we represent the Department of Education. And when Feeding Our Future was asking, was demanding more money than they were entitled to, the Department of Education said, no, we weren't going to give... They weren't going to give that money over because there was no proof for it.

We didn't know how deep the problem was, but we knew that there was a problem because the billings and the invoices didn't match. I defended the Department of Education even when Feeding Our Future sued them and scurrilously claimed to be victims of discrimination.

We fought that right up until Feeding Our Future. These people lied to judges. They lied to journalists. And they tried to lie their way through court. Then what we did is we began to work with the FBI and later there were search warrants executed.

There was then indictments and now those people are in prison as they should be. My office worked very hard to make sure that justice was done. When we couldn't get it through the court system we thought we should get it through, we worked with our federal allies and got them convicted there.

Well, staying with you for a minute,

I'm glad you asked me about that, Brian, because here's the thing. Nobody who I... I meet with people every single day. I had several meetings this week. And so I met... These people wanted to meet with me and I met with them because I meet with people.

But I took nothing from them. I did nothing for them and no one in that meeting gave me a campaign donation. In fact, one of them suggested campaign donations. I said, no, this is an official meeting. That's on the tape you're talking about.

But then what happened is that when those people sent me some campaign donations, no one in the meeting, others, I sent them back, Brian, to the federal authorities. So I have received no campaign donations from these people and we aided in the prosecution and conviction of these people.

I'm glad they're in prison and I'm proud of the work that my team did to do that. Ron Schutz, going forward, the Attorney General's office

Well, I tell you, there are about 50 Medicaid control fraud units throughout the United States. They are evaluated from Washington because Washington gives about three bucks for every one dollar that the state puts up. And they have evaluated us as having an excellent program.

They have said, look, you are punching way above your weight. Your people are getting convictions and they support and have given us positive feedback on our program. And so I don't know what Ron is talking about. We do this work every day and I can tell you the people who do this work have no connection to politics at all.

They are line prosecutors. They do prosecution every day. They're investigators and I'm proud of the work that they do. And quite frankly, Mr. Schutz, I find it offensive for you to insult these people. They are career prosecutors and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

We just brought a bunch of convictions, brought a bunch of cases this week. These people work hard to build these cases. We're getting these convictions. And Mr. Schutz, why did you oppose my bill? Why did you put a partisan consideration in front of while we're trying to get more resources to prosecute fraud?

So, Brian, look, go to Hennepin County, go to federal district court. People know Keith Ellison as a trial lawyer who's picked plenty of juries, but that's not the point. I'm not going to get into that. What I will get into is the role of the office in financial crimes is very serious.

And I do want to ask you a precise question about that.

That's a great question. Thank you for asking that. I can tell you that when it comes to things like privacy, we need to continue to strengthen our laws in Minnesota. I think when people's data, we passed some good legislation, we need more. We may need to pass some legislation to protect people's private identity.

There's an anti-nudification law that we're defending right now in court. I think that there's some ways to make that law stronger. Also, one of the things we did, we actually passed this law. Something that Ron opposed is we have actually on Medicaid fraud gone back further so that we can get further, deeper in time beyond the statute, the ordinary statute of limitations so that we can get even more restitution.

But we have increased our medical debt bill. We passed a medical debt bill that improves our ability to protect Minnesota consumers. Medical billing, we've done that. And of course, these are laws that we're pursuing every single day. Ron Schutz,

Well, obviously, but that's just the basics. You know, I mean, the fact is, if we have sued multiple companies like Amazon, Eli Lilly, ExxonMobil, Philip Morris, and Meta, and Ron has substantial financial holdings in all those cases, I don't begrudge him that. That's his right.

But you can't do that if you're the attorney general of the state of Minnesota. If the attorney general of the state of Minnesota, you should be able to sue these companies unencumbered. I don't have any of these kind of conflicts, and that's why I've been able to sue Eli Lilly for gouging consumers, making insulin beyond their reach.

So I'm suing ExxonMobil on climate deception. I'm suing Amazon. I'm suing Meta. We just, and Ron is profiting from all of these companies, and I think that's a real serious problem. One of the things I hope does not happen is that an attorney general factor in their own financial exposure when they make a decision about suing a company.

I know I don't have to do that.

Well, look, I don't have to divest anything. I depend upon the pension and the retirement savings that I've been able to acquire because I've been serving the public interest for my whole career. the fact is the public should not have to wonder is Mr. Schutz not suing because he owns that stock or he's involved with that company.

When he sued Apple, he made a lot of money on that, which he's now using to run scurrilous ads against me, by the way. But 174 separate stock holdings, at least $10,000 apiece is a lot of money and you get people have a tendency to align their decisions and politics with their financial interests.

Everyone knows that. That's why we have a document for disclosure and that's what the public should know. Can you, do you, the public should never have to wonder whether he's pursuing the public interest or his own. Before we move on,

Look, Brian, you know, the President of the United States said that he wanted retribution and a reckoning against my state. I love my state. I'm dedicated to my state. And I don't let anybody get retribution against the state of Minnesota. So it's absolutely the case that I did a number of things to protect Minnesota from Operation Metro Surge.

I sued them. We have active litigation going on right now. And we are suing them for violating our state sovereignty, for all of the massive amount of damage that they did to our economy. We're doing that. I'm proud we're doing that. I also am assisting local prosecutors in the investigation and, in one case, prosecution of the people who were shot by ICE agents.

And I'm talking about Alex Pretti, Renee Good, and Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis who was shot but survived. I also, yeah, I would use my First Amendment rights and stood out on the street in 30-degree cold weather and said what ICE was doing was wrong to persecute our state.

And, of course, we did as much legal education as we could to the public. And I also did another thing that the public may not know. Yes, I sat down with Tom Homan and J.D. Vance and told them both that this surge, this targeted surge against Minnesota is unwarranted, is illegal, and it needs to stop.

Ron Schutz,

Well, look, I've been a prosecutor for years and I can tell you that when, when you, when the whole world sees videotape of a man being shot on the street ten times, it makes sense for the local authorities to take the action that I took.

And let me just say, the case was not bounced for lack of standing. It was found to be not ripe. That was the legal position. The case went on. We voluntarily dismissed when he got to Minnesota. I'm sorry, you're right. It was, it was a ripeness issue.

And so, and so he was in, he was in jail for 90 days and on the 98th day the local Texas judge said, oh, it's not ripe yet. So that's what happened. But let me get back to your question. My, the answer is that when the whole world sees a Minnesotan shot down ten times, yes, we're going to investigate.

Yes, we're going to follow the information. That's why I filed a lawsuit that very night to make sure that the federal agents did not somehow spoil the scene of the crime. That's what we did. That's the action that I took. That was the leadership that I would expect out of an AG.

And quite, if I may say so, Ron is a movement Republican. He was the chair of the Center for American Experiment. That's his First Amendment right. I have no problem with him doing that. But I would think that a, that a movement Republican at a time when our state's being persecuted by a Republican administration, he would stand up and be a little bit more vocal than just send out a presser.

Ron Schutz,

Here's what the law, state law requires. If there is a warrant for somebody who happens to be a non-citizen, the Department of Corrections will make that person available when they complete their Minnesota time. At that point, the immigration authorities have to come to the state and to pick that person up.

If you hold them for longer than the law requires, now you're violating their Fourth Amendment rights so the immigration authorities have a responsibility to get there on time with the massive amount of bill money they've been given by the Congress. I don't see why they shouldn't be able to do that.

And so the state does have the right to say, look, we are going to do what our state law says. You do what your federal immigration law says. It's not our responsibility to hold people for you beyond the amount of time that is legal to hold them.

And so that is what the state of the law is. And we're not holding people for ICE if we don't have a legal basis to hold them on our own. And that's exactly what we should do. You're listening to an MPR News Politics Friday debate in the Minnesota's Attorney General race.

Candidates Keith Ellison and Ron Schutz are with us for the full hour.

You know, Brian, that's a good question because I cannot narrow it down to one or two. I mean, look, clearly we're suing the Trump administration over Operation Metro Surge. That is a very important lawsuit to me and we're throwing everything we got into it.

We will defend Minnesota, period, full stop. But what about the fact that when a year ago, just about a year ago now, there was the longest shutdown in American history in the Congress and Donald Trump came forth and said, well, we're going to withhold your Supplemental Nutrition Assistance money, also known as food stamps.

What did I do? I sued him over that because 440,000 Minnesotans rely on food stamps. Seniors rely on it. Children rely on it. And people with disabilities and others who are just having a hard time. And so, yeah, that's important to me too.

So you're asking me to like pick between my children. All of them are important. Every single time I sued Trump, he had it come in and I'm proud of all of them. Well, Ron Schutz,

Can I just respond? Briefly. Look, this whole thing about venue is a red herring. Mr. Schutz in his practice as a trial lawyer would clearly file the case in the best place for his client to be successful. These are multi-state litigation cases and we work together.

We lead a lot of these cases but we decide on where to file them based on who's in the coalition and based on what we think will give us the best outcome. I am sure that Minnesotans would rather have me win the case than care about where it's venued or not.

And you can get all these materials online. So this is just a red herring. Mr. Schutz is trying to distract the reality of the situation. We've been winning these cases and yes, we've been filing these cases and I'm proud of all of them including the tariff case because Donald J. Trump destroyed the export markets of Minnesota farmers so we sued him and we beat him but then Trump filed more so we sued him again.

Well, look, there are rules all about this. First of all, let me just say this. Any amount of fraud is too much. People who steal from government programs offend me deeply. That's why we prosecute these people. But let me say that Donald Trump, they're using a serious issue of fraud to opportunistically move a political agenda.

That's what's going on. Operation Metro surge is supposed to be based on fraud somehow. He surges armed mass men to our state based on fraud. Withholding food from hungry people, they claim, oh, it's because of fraud. They are using a real serious issue to push a political agenda.

And look, Donald Trump has said, he has told us why he has come after Minnesota. He said reckoning and retribution. We've defended these programs because there is a legal procedure if there's going to be a withholding. The government violated it, and that's why we defeated them, Brian.

That's why we beat them in court on these matters.

I can certainly answer that, Brian. So let me tell you, I'm 100% with Planned Parenthood. I believe very strongly in women's right to choose. And when I was a state legislator, when Governor Pawlenty was in office, there were some laws passed that interfered with that right.

It didn't outright block it, but it got in the way of it, and it made it much harder and more difficult. When I was the attorney general, a group of folks from a nonprofit sued to strike some of those laws down. Now, here I am, a person who doesn't agree with those laws, but it is the job of the attorney general to defend laws that are constitutional, and I think they're bad laws, but they're not unconstitutional.

So my office did defend those laws, and when a court issued an opinion striking down those laws, I made a decision not to appeal because I thought people needed certainty, and I thought the trial court made the right decision. But it is the job of the attorney general to defend laws sometimes you don't agree with if those laws are constitutional, even if unwise.

Ron Schutz,

Ron's going to have to make a decision if he's the AG, and I wonder what it's going to be, because it's not always very simple. Sometimes you've got to stand on your principle and my principle is that women have a right to make a choice over their own body.

Do you care to respond?

I'm glad Ron brought that up. Can I mention another case? Very briefly, I want to get back to health care. There's an anti-nudification statute that Elon Musk's company is challenging in court. This is a statute that prohibits companies like Grok from using your real face and put a nudified body on it that can literally do anything.

They say it's their First Amendment right to do that. Minnesota law says it isn't. Yes, you better believe I'm defending that law, and I absolutely would do so, and I'm proud to do so. I'd defend that law also. I agree with the law.

I don't think that should be the case. I would absolutely defend that law. I want to go back to health care. I'm already defending that law. I want to go back to health care. You're the attorney general.

You've got to take them one at a time, Brian. I mean, here's the thing. Minnesota legislature very correctly passed a medical transactions law. For those who might want to take a look at it, it's at 145D in Minnesota statutes, and it requires the attorney general to evaluate these transactions or mergers from the standpoint of the public interest.

Now, what do we do? We engage in a very exhaustive public process. We take in public comment. We don't just put up a website. We actually have community meetings. We've had them all over. One of them that just was finalized between Sanford and North Memorial, community and labor unions and the parties involved feel has the hallmarks of perhaps being a success.

There might be others where they object. As you know, health partners and Aetna just announced that they were exploring something. We've got a long way to go before that one gets concluded. And Sutter, an out-of-town outfit, wants to align with Allina. That one is still in the process of being worked through.

We have to take these things. Here's what we know, Brian, that when these mergers happen around the country, oftentimes they mean fewer services and higher costs for consumers. That I will not allow. And so we go through our process to protect unions, rights to protect people's personal rights.

very simply because the victim asked for it. Look, it's very difficult for a victim of a crime to write out a letter saying that my, you know, saying that I think that the person who mistreated me should receive a pardon. But she did so.

I, you know, the office, the clemency office did all the due diligence to make sure that the letter was authentic and so I thought that it's important to listen to victims. Victims often are not listened to in our criminal justice system. Now, there were a lot of people who had pardons up that day who didn't get them because they didn't have victim support.

But I thought that was important to make sure that we were standing and listening to victims in that case.

So, Brian, let me just put this in the proper perspective. First of all, he's talking about a criminal prosecution. We just convicted somebody in Winona who was a coach and criminally victimized three people. That person, I think they're getting away more than 17 years in prison, I can tell you that.

So, that's apples and oranges. When it comes to this issue of pardon, Ron, one of your donors, Mr. Jim Knoblach, was credibly accused of sexually abusing his child. He gave you a campaign donation. It was brought to your attention, and you have not returned it.

The problem is, we're talking about, you know, you're very selective on these issues. And so, what I'm saying is, I listened to victims after reading the entire file, after listening to the entire case, and that's the decision that I made. But Ron also said wrongfully, he would not pardon anyone unless they were wrongfully convicted.

That's not the pardon board. Nearly everybody who comes in front of the pardon board has been convicted, duly convicted, properly convicted, and is seeking clemency, which is mercy. And so, what Ron's saying is, he's going to be a no on every single case.

It is the innocence process. There's a whole other procedure for people who are wrongfully accused.

Keith, that's just a non-answer.

First of all, let me point out to people listening, the number one cause of death for people under 18 is guns. Annunciation shooting, two beautiful children shot down, and an entire community terrorized. My dear friend, Melissa Hortman, and her husband, and Senator Hoffman and his wife, gun violence is a very serious scourge in our community, and you better believe that I would defend every Minnesota law on the books to protect people from gun violence, and yes, I'm actively suing Glock right now because you can put a $10

device in a Glock and convert it from a semi-automatic into a machine gun, which is illegal. I'm suing them over that, and I sued Fleet Farm because Fleet Farm, though, you know, a decent company, they still sold guns to straw purchasers. What is a straw purchaser?

Somebody who buys guns because they have a clean record and then turn around and sell them, and yes, I sued them when that happened, and I got injunctive relief, which makes it a lot more difficult for straw purchasers to get guns.

Yes, it is, and I think it's a very good one. I was glad to be able to testify in favor of it, but also we're trying to get stronger laws when it comes to ghost guns. These are guns that could be manufactured with a 3D printer, but wouldn't have any serial numbers on them and make them impossible to trace.

The only way we traced those fleet farm guns is because they had serial numbers on them. Police officers across the state of Minnesota, across Minneapolis and St. Paul and Minnesota, will tell you that an untraceable gun makes the public much more at risk, so I absolutely believe it's a good law.

I'm glad I testified for it, and I want to see more done. Ron, I think, should tell you that he's opposed to the University of Minnesota Law School's Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. He said he would not continue that program. I'm proud of that program, and I'm trying to find more ways to protect people from gun violence.

Did he get that right?

Certainly. I would defend any legal measure that the state issues, executive order or whatever, to me, the only way you have a right to not defend it is if it's unconstitutional, and so if it's constitutional, I'm going to defend it in court because that's my job.

The mining executive order.

Well, Mr. Schutz is right. Prediction markets are damaging to people's ability to afford their lives. I will tell you, when I was in Congress, I actually was on the committee that allowed for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to have jurisdiction over these kind of trades, but never was who was going to win the NBA finals on the minds of anybody in the Congress.

What was on the minds of Congress was people getting things like credit default swaps against mortgage mortgages back securities that went down. Nothing on this sports stuff. So I think that we're defending the Minnesota law right now. We intend to win it. And I think that Congress needs to act to make these clearly something that is regulated by the states.

Well, honestly, there is a law already in place. Minnesota statute 216B, which says that these large consumers of energy cannot push prices on to consumers, cannot foist the burden on to consumers for those costs and cannot undermine water quality and a range of other things.

So I'm all foursquare with that law. I think it's a great law. And I've sat down with the people in Hermantown, Minnesota, and they are very concerned about that and transparency.

Thank you. You know, Brian, thanks for having us here today. And I'll thank my opponent, Mr. Schutz, as well, for the time. My my core goal is to help people afford their lives. That's why I left Congress and why I became the attorney general, why I made lowering the price of insulin my first thing that I did.

But I didn't stop there. We also started a wage theft unit where we actually fight for and get back millions of dollars of stolen wages of workers. I sued John Deere because they were interfering with farmers ability to repair equipment. That is a cost lowering measure.

I sued Meta and and I sued them because they were pushing these addictive algorithms which were hooking our kids. I sued Philip Morris because they were doing the same thing with these vapes. Now, my opponent owns stock in all these things. He literally profits from John Deere, Eli Lilly, Meta and all these different kind of companies that we mentioned before.

This is a conflict of interest which you should not tolerate. You should vote for the person who has no conflict of interest, whose only goal is the public interest, which is what I've been doing. Look, I've convicted over 350 people of Medicaid fraud, one a one every eight days.

And I will continue to do that plus more. I ask for your vote. Please vote and vote for the person who's going to fight for your family and help you afford your life.