WASHINGTON DC – As the sun came up over Washington on Wednesday, President Donald Trump took to his social media account to warn the government of Iran that “time is running out” for negotiations to avert a US military attack.
His threat served as a fresh effort to distract the American public from the fact that time is running out for Trump to avert the formation of a circular firing squad within his own administration over Saturday‘s fatal shooting of a 37-year-old nurse by federal agents in Minnesota.
The killing of Alex Pretti, who became the second US citizen shot to death in Minneapolis this month by masked, federal deportation agents, is threatening to destabalise the highest levels of Trump’s administration.
Calls are growing among Republicans for heads to roll, and the removal from the scene of Greg Bovino, the swaggering former Border Patrol commander who walked the streets of Minneapolis dressed in a “Nazi-style” trenchcoat, has done nothing to calm the waters.
On Tuesday, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina joined the growing chorus of top Republicans demanding the firing of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who called Pretti a “domestic terrorist” over the weekend and said he intended to “inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement”.
Tillis, observing that there has been no evidence to support any of her claims, called Noem’s actions “disqualifying”. He said Noem should be out of a job. “It’s terrible, it’s making the President look bad.”
A makeshift memorial to Alex Pretti, who was shot dead by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on 26 January (Photo: Octavio Jones/AFP via Getty Images)Noem isn’t alone in making remarks that are coming back to bite the President. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, while details were still coming out, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called Pretti a “would-be assassin”, later dropping the “would-be”.
His claim was approvingly reposted by Vice President JD Vance, who had been in Minneapolis 24 hours earlier defending federal agents who, in a separate incident, detained a five-year-old boy and used him as bait to try to entrap his immigrant mother, who had remained inside the family’s home.
Meanwhile, polls show support for Trump dropping, with recent events front-and-centre in people’s minds. A Daily Mail/JL Partners poll found that 53 per cent of voters surveyed said that events in Minneapolis were a “turning point” moment for them, including 39 per cent of Republicans polled.
Trump has also been given flack for comments about Pretti’s gun, which he was legally allowed to carry, angering many in his Maga base who hold firm to their right to bear arms.
The President now claims, unsurprisingly, not to have known about Noem and Miller’s earlier comments about Pretti. “I haven’t heard that, but certainly he shouldn’t have been carrying a gun,” he said on Tuesday.
But he told reporters that Pretti was legally in possession of a pistol as he filmed federal agents at work and called his death “unfortunate”.
Noem is now going to the mat in an effort to save her own skin and has issued a stark warning to Trump: “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen [Miller],” she told a friend, who reported her remarks to the website Axios.
Trump, in a Wednesday phone call with ABC News, called Tillis and other Republicans demanding Noem’s firing “losers” and “terrible Senators”. Even so, we have seen in the past how loyalty can be a one-way street for Trump, and if needed he is more than happy to jettison allies.
The grounds for firing Noem would also apply to Miller, the architect of the President’s mass deportation programme and Trump’s de facto chief ideologue in the White House.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller could be under pressure following two killings by federal agents this month (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)It was certainly notable that on Saturday, Noem and Bovino both read an identical, word-for-word statement when they briefed reporters more than a thousand miles apart, suggesting the possibility that Miller was pulling the strings behind-the-scenes.
Miller is also urgently trying to save his own position. On Tuesday night, he suddenly reversed course, suggesting that the Border Patrol agents who killed Pretti “may not have been following… protocol”.
He blamed the government’s weekend statements on “reports from… the ground” furnished to Washington by the Border Patrol, a potential attempt to point the blame in Bovino’s direction.
American voters are getting tired of the violence on the streets and the statements out of the White House.
The killing of Pretti came weeks after the death of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother who was shot at close range by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on 7 January. The Vice President has called Good’s killing “justified”, claiming that she “rammed an ICE officer with her car”, an assertion not supported by video footage gathered at the scene.
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Despite the pressure, Trump is unlikely to fire Miller, at least for the moment, and may consider that his White House is safer with Noem inside the tent rather than outside it.
But the President is in a jam, with the pro-gun National Rifle Association coming to Pretti’s defence and Democrats threatening impeachment proceedings against Noem unless she is ousted.
Loyalty to friends and allies has never been a notable Trump trait. But on this occasion, he appears to want to circle the wagons, with a possible attack on Iran serving as a tempting distraction waiting in the wings.
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