Minneapolis Is Apparently the Hill that The White House Wants to Die On, Part VII

Yesterday: No Minneapolis. Today: All Minneapolis. There was a lot of movement on that story yesterday, and it takes a fair bit of time to put al the pieces together in a logical order. We'll have a more sumptuous buffet of political news tomorrow.

Truth be told, while we were definitely going to do another entry in this series today, the subject was supposed to be the various ways in which ICE/DHS are now under a giant microscope. But the world had different ideas, and so we'll be talking about how the Trump administration may be on the cusp of a retreat from Minneapolis.

The Worm Turns?

Just a couple of days ago, we pointed out (correctly) that the Trump administration was all-in on its war against Minnesota, and that it just kept turning up the heat. We suggested that, from a political standpoint (and, for that matter, from the standpoint of basic human decency), the correct thing to do would be to stand down. We also supposed that the only way that might actually happen, at least in the short-term, would be if a federal judge ordered the administration to leave Minneapolis.

What a difference a couple of days—and cutting down a U.S. citizen in a hail of gunfire—makes. The tide certainly appears to be turning; here's a rundown of eight major storylines on that front, with most of the big news coming on Monday:

1. The Canary in the Coal Mine?: There has been no public polling of the Republican primary in the Minnesota governor's race. So, we cannot say for certain how good the chances of GOP candidate Chris Madel might have been. We have to assume they were not good, in part because he is not well known, and in part because it's a crowded field with a dozen or so candidates. Further, whichever Republican survives that melee will be up against a national climate that is likely to be bad for the GOP, and a state climate that is likely to be VERY bad for the GOP.

In short, we don't know how much Madel sacrificed when he ended his gubernatorial campaign. Probably not a lot. Still, the way he pushed the eject button made headlines across the country. He posted an 11-minute video in which he said, among other things, that he supports the original goals of the ICE surge, but that "I cannot support the national Republicans' stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so." Is he actually going to re-register? Sounds like it. He's not an idiot, and he surely knows from the experiences in Los Angeles, Chicago, etc., what happens when DHS goons take over a town. That he went so quickly from "I'm on board" to, apparently, "I'm not a Republican anymore" suggests how quickly the Overton Window has moved here.

2. Republican Pushback: There has been plenty of blowback from other Republicans, including many Republicans of much greater prominence than Madel. A quick rundown of some of the more notable ones:

• Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) is demanding a thorough investigation of the killing of Alex Pretti...
• ...so is Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)
• ...so is Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID)
• ...so is Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS)
• ...so is Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
• ...so is Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC)
• ...so is Sen. John Curtis (R-UT)
• ...so is Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE)
• ...so is Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA)
• ...so are a number of House Republicans
• Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair Rand Paul (R-KY) has demanded that high-ranking DHS officials testify before his committee...
• ...so has House Homeland Security Committee Chair Andrew Garbarino (R-NY).
• Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said the Trump administration need to tone down its rhetoric.
• Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) said the Trump administration needs to "recalibrate."
• Rep. James Comer (R-KY) thinks maybe ICE should withdraw from Minnesota entirely.
• Former VP Mike Pence said the Pretti shooting was "deeply troubling," and called for an investigation.
• Former representative Marjorie Taylor Greene declared that the country is being "incited into civil war."

Clearly, this is not just the usual suspects—the handful of moderate Republicans in Congress and/or the members who are retiring and can afford to speak their minds. This is a broad spectrum of Republican politicians, among them many who generally behave as if Trump can do no wrong. It is particularly remarkable that Greg Abbott, a guy who put up razor-wire river "fences" to hinder/hurt would-be border crossers, thinks that the Trump administration has gone too far. When you've lost Greg Abbott...

3. Media Pushback: There are some Republican politicians that Donald Trump pays attention to, some of the time. But what he REALLY pays attention to is the right-wing media. As with the Republican politicians, he's getting blowback from lots of places that are generally friendly to him. Another rundown:

• The Bari Weiss-led CBS News, breaking from its recent Trumpy-ness, reported that the video of the killing does not support the administration's version of events.
  
  
• Weiss' former outlet, The Free Press, had an editorial headlined "Kristi Noem's Reckless Lies." The subhead: "After the killing of Alex Pretti, the Trump administration is taking the American people for fools."
  
  
• Numerous right-wing, and right-wing-adjacent podcasters have been lambasting the Trump administration. We've already mentioned Joe Rogan, but also on the list are Dana Loesch, Glenn Greenwald, Warren Smith and Bubba the Love Sponge. When you've lost Bubba the Love Sponge...
  
  
• The Wall Street Journal had an editorial headlined "Time for ICE to Pause in Minneapolis."
  
  
• The New York Post had an editorial declaring "It's time to de-escalate in Minneapolis, Mr. President."
  
  
• The other jewel in the Rupert Murdoch right-wing-American-media crown, namely Fox, was initially trying to tote the water for the White House, and to make this killing the fault of Pretti, or of various groups/figures on the left. In particular, the Fox website published a substantial piece about how the shooting was really the fault of "the far-left network" Signal, because anti-ICE protesters used that site to coordinate their efforts.
  
  Eventually, however, even Fox shifted its angle. Yesterday, the story was "There is no indication Pretti was there to murder law enforcement, as videos appear to show he never drew his holstered firearm." Various Fox entertainers said the White House should be trying to find a way to calm tensions, and Brian Kilmeade specifically suggested that border czar Tom Homan should be dispatched to Minneapolis to take charge of the situation.

We do not propose that ALL of the right-wing media has turned against the White House. Certainly, the folks at NewsMax, and some of the nuttier podcasters (ahem, Steve Bannon) are pleased as can be with what's happening. But an unusually substantial number of right-wing media outlets are pushing back, and some of them rather loudly.

4. The First Head Rolls...: Gregory Bovino is an unbelievably scary guy. He was originally a garden-variety cop, but 30 years ago, he decided to join the border patrol, inspired by the Jack Nicholson film noir The Border. We can understand how a very different, and much better, Nicholson noir might inspire someone to become a detective. But seeing The Border and saying "I want to be a border patrol agent!" is like seeing Dirty Harry and saying "I want to be a cop in San Francisco!"

Thanks to Bovino's reputation for fanatical devotion to his job—many of his actions were later reversed by judges—he moved up the ranks and, of course, became a key player in the Trump administration's efforts to intimidate every brown-skinned person in the country. About a year ago, Bovino was made "commander at large" of the Border Patrol, a made-up rank that does not have any statutory basis. He has since been acting as enforcer for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and her boyfriend advisor Corey Lewandowski. Bovino has been the leader and the face of the invasion of Minneapolis.

At this point, let us share a picture and a little history lesson. Here is the picture; it shows Bovino in his preferred costume:

For those readers who don't recognize it by name, the belt he's wearing, with the strap across the chest, is a Sam Browne belt. It was created by a guy named, well, Sam Browne. He was missing an arm, and so had difficulty drawing his sword. The belt was meant to make it possible for him to grab his arms without having, well, arms. It became a fairly standard piece of equipment for officers in World War I.

Of course, World War I was the last war in which the carrying of swords was common. Thereafter, the belt largely fell out of use in the military world, except by, you know, fascists in Italy and Germany. It was adopted by many civilian police departments in the U.S. in the years after World War I, and it remains an element of the dress uniforms of a few departments today.

The point here is that the Sam Browne belt doesn't really have a purpose in the year 2026. Actually, it's worse than that. It's not only useless, it's actively dangerous. As it turns out, the strap across the chest gives bad guys something to grab onto, and maybe even to use in order to strangle the cop. That is why police departments stopped using it, except for occasions where they're not actually doing police work. So, Bovino's preference for it has nothing to do with being a more effective or a better-prepared officer, and has everything to do with cosplay. Whether he is just generally cosplaying as "scary guy" or he's specifically cosplaying as Nazi/fascist, readers can decide for themselves.

Since Pretti was killed, Bovino has been all over TV, selling the hard-right version of the party line. Maybe he did this because he felt he had to, to keep his bosses happy. Maybe he did it because he's a True Believer. Maybe both. Here, for example, is the start of the press conference he gave immediately after the Pretti shooting:

The only reason to watch that, really, is to hear that Bovino has a somewhat odd, somewhat nasal voice that doesn't play all that well on TV (and so almost certainly doesn't play well with reality TV star Donald Trump).

Bovino tried to sell the line that Pretti "resisted violently," and said that you might see videos that make the incident look one way, but that there are other videos that tell a different story. In other words, apparently everyone is entitled to the own reality. Bovino later decreed that people who use terms like "Gestapo" to describe ICE are responsible for all the violence, and that this kind of language would not be allowed anymore. It would seem he is unfamiliar with a little thing called the First Amendment. Not surprising, since the First Amendment appears in a little thing called the Constitution.

Bovino was also all over social media this weekend, arguing with both regular folks and Republican officeholders. And he had a very embarrassing appearance on CNN. When Jake Tapper observed that a judge called Bovino a liar, Bovino responded by insisting there was no lie, and that nobody seems to be able to identify the lie or lies he supposedly told. He thus fell for the trap that Tapper had set, because Tapper promptly rattled off a dozen lies Bovino had told, with supporting evidence. Oops.

In any event, about 15 minutes after Fox's Kilmeade suggested that Bovino should be removed from power, with Homan taking over, Trump decided to remove Bovino from power, and put Homan in charge in Minnesota. For a while the administration was trying to spin this as some sort of lateral move. But The Atlantic was all over the story, and so shared the truth with the world. Bovino has been stripped of his made-up title, has had his social media accounts taken away from him, and has been sent back to his old home base in El Centro, CA, where he will quickly be eased into retirement. Bovino has previously said that his goal, on retirement, was to start an apple orchard. Well, Gregory, your career is ending in humiliating fashion, as the White House kicks you to the curb over your deplorable management and your deplorable media presence. How do you like them apples?

Incidentally, the first high-profile staffers to be shown the door in Trump v2.0 are Dan Bongino and Gregory Bovino. Should social media guru Dan Scavino be nervous?

5. ...Will the Second Head Soon Follow?: Bovino isn't the only one who could be in hot water here. Keeping in mind that it's NEVER Trump's fault, he may find he needs more and bigger scapegoats than just Mr. Sam Browne belt. And it would seem that next up on the targets list is DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

She is, of course, fundamentally responsible for everything DHS does, and thus everything ICE and the Border Patrol do. So, she bears responsibility for the killing of Pretti, not to mention the general climate of chaos and violence in Minnesota. She's also been very ineffective at selling the administration's line during her media appearances. In particular, she's tried to make the case that this was all Pretti's fault, because he was carrying a gun, and if you carry a gun (even if you don't use it, or even draw it), you're asking for trouble. As we have already written, this is not a message that pleases the NRA and other gun lobbies. Meanwhile, quite a few folks have observed the hypocrisy, since one of Noem's "signature" achievements as governor of South Dakota was getting a law passed that allowed for concealed carry without a permit. She is also well-known, of course, for her general love of guns, particularly when she needs to "deal" with animals who don't meet with her approval.

And the real clincher here, beyond the fact that Trump has to blame SOMEBODY, is that Noem tried to quash the investigation of the Pretti shooting. This has a lot of Republican officeholders, among them some of the ones listed above, very unhappy.

Yesterday, the very conservative National Review had an editorial headlined "Fire Kristi Noem into the Sun." It may be difficult to tell from just the headline, but they are not fans. They would prefer to see her canned, or at very least, to be reduced in visibility so much that you hear about her even less often than you hear about Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner.

At the moment, the markets have Noem as 5% to get fired... by Friday of this week. Overall, they have her at 44% as the first Cabinet official to be broomed (followed by AG Pam Bondi at 17% and Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer at 13%). There is also much supposition that if Noem gets canned, Lewandowski will join her in the unemployment line.

6. The Democrats in Array: The Democrats are not known for being well organized. Heck, that Will Rogers line—"I am not a member of any organized political party—I am a Democrat."—celebrated its 100th birthday last year.

At the moment, though, Democratic leadership appears to be very well organized, indeed, with a clear strategy developing. To start, and as we have written before, the poo-bahs know that the base wants an impeachment. They also know that the OTHER base would start frothing at the mouth if the target of that impeachment is Trump. The obvious solution is to impeach some other Trump official, one that MAGA doesn't care too much about. And the definite frontrunner for that honor, at this point, is Noem. The articles of impeachment have already been filed, and the bill has at least 146 Democratic co-sponsors in the House. It probably won't get a vote this year, but if Noem is not fired, Democrats will be able to say, "Vote for us if you support efforts to hold Kristi Noem accountable."

Beyond that, there is the budget, and the potential shutdown looming. The Democrats have a plan there, too. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has offered to fast-track all of the spending bills that make up the budget (in other words, 11 of the 12), except for the DHS bill. If Republicans take the deal, then the government largely won't shut down. If the Republicans refuse, the Democrats can say, "Hey, we offered to pass the bills, and they wouldn't play ball."

Meanwhile, the blue team is drawing a line in the sand on ICE, in part because it's the right thing to do, and in part because the base would brain them if they did not. Instructive, on this point, is what we might call "Canary in a Coal Mine, Part II." Last week, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), who represents the very swingy NY-03 (PVI: EVEN), voted to advance the DHS bill out of the House, with funding intact. Now, he's singing a very different tune. He issued a statement on the subject yesterday:

I failed to view the DHS funding vote as a referendum on the illegal and immoral conduct of ICE in Minneapolis. I hear the anger from my constituents, and I take responsibility for that. I have long been critical of ICE's unlawful behavior and I must do a better job demonstrating that.

The senseless and tragic murder of Alex Pretti underscores what happens when untrained federal agents operate without accountability. President Trump must immediately end "Operation Metro Surge" and ICE's occupation of Minneapolis that has sown chaos, led to tragedy, and undermined experienced local law enforcement.

You think maybe his office has gotten a few phone calls? Or maybe a few thousand phone calls?

The Democrats are also hammering out a list of demands for what it will take to get their votes on the DHS bill. The finally list will reportedly be ready today, but here is the rough draft:

• An independent federal-state investigation, which includes Minnesota officials, of ICE murders and tactics.
• A ban on ICE use of face masks.
• A requirement of body cameras.
• A ban on roving ICE patrols.
• A ban on the invented category of "administrative warrants" that bypass judges in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
• An end to arrest quotas.

Note that there's nothing here about shutting down ICE (which could be a bridge too far for some voters). It's all about reining in their most dangerous and most anti-constitutional behaviors. Most of all of these ideas are pretty popular, and most or all of them already have the support of some Republicans in Congress. It certainly appears the blue team is holding the much stronger hand, here.

7. Waging Peace?: Perhaps the biggest signal is a very dramatic change in posture from Trump himself. The President has refused to answer the question of whether the Pretti shooting was justified, and has taken to referring to the deaths of Pretti and Renee Good as "tragedies." After taking a hard line the last few days, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, undoubtedly on orders from above, told reporters: "Nobody in the White House, including President Trump, wants to see people getting hurt or killed in America's streets."

Last week, Trump blamed everything on Gov. Tim Walz (DFL-MN) and Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey (DFL), and the Department of Justice launched investigations of the two men. Yesterday, in addition to replacing Bovino with Homan, Trump spoke on the phone with Walz and with Frey. Afterward, Trump said that his conversation with the Governor was a "very good call" and that they "seemed to be on a similar wavelength." And Frey said that he and Trump agreed that "the situation can't continue." Again, what a difference a few days can make.

8. The Damage May Be Done: Maybe, if all goes well, the poor people in Minnesota can go back to their normal lives in short order. Trump is mercurial, of course, and he can change course on a dime, particularly depending on what the Fox entertainers say on any particular morning. But he sure looks like someone who knows he's created a mess for himself, and is trying to back off.

Still, even if he pulls the jackboots out of The Gopher State, he remains very interested in punishing people there. Amid all this conciliatory talk, Bondi is still trying to blackmail Minnesota officials to turn over their lists of voters. The DoJ is still planning to investigate Rep. Ilhan Omar (DFL-MN), at Trump's request. And does anyone really imagine that DHS will stop invading U.S. cities? When L.A. got too hot, they moved to Chicago. Which Chicago got too hot, it was Minneapolis. Now that Minneapolis is too hot (metaphorically speaking), it's Portland and Lewiston in Maine. The point is, Trump wants to solve the immediate problem that is causing him issues right now. He has no particular interest in addressing the underlying problem(s) that KEEP causing him issues.

Because of his hamfisted approach, Trump's polling is taking a beating. We'll have more on this later in the series, but he, Noem, and the administration's immigration policy are deeply underwater. The horrific scenes out of Minneapolis are not going to be forgotten. Good and Pretti will remain dead. So, even if Trump changes course permanently, he's got blood permanently on his hands, and his numbers will continue to suffer. And, once again, he is not likely to change courses permanently.

And finally, for readers' consideration, Trump biographer (and now staunch critic) Michael Wolff argued yesterday that Trump is reaching the end of his time as an effective power broker. Wolff thinks there are three dynamics in play here, all of them working toward the decline and fall of Trumpism. The first is that, in his view, Trump is old and tired, and knows he doesn't have a lot of time left in the White House, or on Earth. The second is that Trump has never cared much about governance, and he's now gotten most of what he wanted out of his second term (grift, some monuments, a "Nobel Peace Prize"), so he's losing interest. The third is that all these TACO moments—Greenland, Minneapolis, Canada, etc., make him look weak. And the thing the base loves him for is his being STRONG.

We are not inclined to go quite as far as Wolff here. But we have consistently argued that the death of Trumpism is going to come by a thousand cuts. At it's clear to us, at least, that a big chunk of those cuts were inflicted over this past weekend.

Tomorrow's posting will be more normal, we promise. (Z)

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