Inside Trump’s Minnesota U-Turn
MAGA won’t love it — but a pull-back was smart, politically.
It’s not often we see DONALD TRUMP back down. When the Never-Admit-Defeat President takes a hit, he typically swings back 50 times harder.
But in a sign of just how much the politics of immigration have turned upside-down, the president is doing something extraordinary in the wake of ALEX PRETTI’s killing.
He’s pumping the brakes. And smartly so.
After deputies bungled the administration’s response to this weekend’s tragedy, the president has personally led a damage-control campaign to de-escalate the situation over the past 48 hours.
👉He proclaimed to have “very good call[s]” with Minnesota Gov. TIM WALZ and Minneapolis Mayor JACOB FREY — two Democrats he’s been at war with for weeks and whom his very own Justice Department is investigating. Now the president says they’re all on a “similar wavelength” — and that he wants to strike a deal to pull federal agents out of their state in return for cooperation.
👉He’s sidelined DHS Secretary KRISTI NOEM and the face of ICE’s antagonistic deportation efforts, GREGORY BOVINO — and instead empowered longtime ICE veteran TOM HOMAN, who has argued for a more targeted strategy for deporting criminals.
👉He’s also rejecting suggestions by Noem and Bovino that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist.”
“No I don’t think so,” Trump told reporters today when asked if Pretti was an “assassin,” as deputy chief STEPHEN MILLER insisted on Saturday. “I’m looking at that whole situation. I love everybody. I love all of our people. I love his family — and it’s a very sad situation.”
Some MAGA diehards are fuming. Movement godfather STEVE BANNON is howling that “RACHEL MADDOW’s right… It wasn’t just a blink. It was a crater.”
“Let’s not sugarcoat it,” Bannon said on WarRoom today. “Frey and Walz are spiking the football.”
But the reality is that the president was boxed in not only by the damning video of Pretti’s death, but also by his own deputies: Their insistence that Pretti was out to “murder” ICE agents arguably did more damage to the administration’s credibility in one weekend than anyone has all year.
Americans have eyes. And the president is nothing if not an astute political animal who can smell a losing strategy a mile away.
HOW WE GOT HERE — Turns out political junkies weren’t the only ones glued to their phones and televisions over the weekend, dissecting every angle and detail of what happened to Pretti. The president himself was holed up inside the White House during the snowstorm, seething over his deputies’ response to the shooting and watching in dismay as even Republicans noted that their explanation didn’t square with the facts.
He watched one of his personal favorites, an upset Fox News’ MARIA BARTIROMO, press FBI director KASH PATEL about how an anti-ICE protester merely carrying a cell phone camera could wind up dead.
What did he see? He saw weakness, per the WSJ — what he hates most: “Trump worried that his administration’s enforcement activities in Minnesota looked chaotic, not strong, according to people familiar with the matter.”
There’s also this little fact in the back of the president’s mind: The polling is now against him on this issue. Once, vows of an immigration crackdown carried Trump back to the White House. Now, the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll shows majorities of the nation think his deportation effort has gone too far — and that was before Pretti’s death took center stage.
WILL HEADS ROLL? — Here’s a question that will dominate the political betting markets this week: Will Noem have a job by the State of the Union?
The president told reporters today that “no,” he does not expect Noem to step down. On the way to Iowa today, he even threw her a bone, insisting, “I think she’s doing a very good job. The border is totally secure!”
But Trump allies say this isn’t the end of the story for Noem. On our morning political talk show “The Huddle,” my co-host SEAN SPICER argued, “I don’t see how Noem comes back from this.”
“She was already on thin ice. This was a complete and utter disaster. You have problems within MAGA World now. You’ve got the NRA” upset, Sean said, arguing that Trump officials “have to know whether to try to wait it out — or take the nearest off ramp.” (His take? Noem needs to find the exit…)
In fact, Sean has some advice for the admin: Replace her now while you still control the Senate — just in case the midterms go sideways... That way, “you can get a new person in,” he added.
“You do not want to have to negotiate [with Democrats] over your next DHS secretary!” he said.
It’s unclear if the president will go that far, but clearly he senses a problem. Trump met with Noem for two hours in the Oval last night, per the New York Times. Meanwhile, the president and his inner circle have demoted Bovino, a Noem ally that the DHS secretary had promoted to “commander at large” of the deportation effort.
(That one in particular stings; Bovino had become something of a MAGA darling, with his own film crew following him and an aggressive social media presence.)
It’s also important to note that Border Czar Homan, whom the president elevated to oversee ICE operations, has been in something of a cold war with Noem for months. The two despise each other and have been described as oil and water. (Worth noting as well that Homan will report directly to the president, not Noem.)
And the knives don’t stop there. Fresh reporting in the conservative-leaning Washington Examiner suggests Noem and her allies tried to bully top ICE officials and even suggested they’d go after their families in an attempt to push them out.
Notice there hasn’t been major pushback from the White House on the sudden airing of dirty laundry. Why? Because it’s helpful to have a fall guy. Someone has to take the blame — and right now, Trump allies are more than happy to let Noem play that role.
👀 🎥 TODAY’S WATCH — Check out today’s episode of our new digital morning show, “THE HUDDLE,” where DAN TURRENTINE, SEAN SPICER, and I peel back the curtain on the latest Minnesota chaos. Subscribe to our new YouTube channel. Or, if you’re more of a listener rather than a watcher, subscribe to our show on Apple or Spotify.
This is a huge mess, and requires cool heads, wisdom, and patience, and cooperation between the Minnesotan state government and the Trump adminsrtation.
Noem was never up to the job. Homan is exactly the right face to put forward. He is careful with his words and unflappable.