By now even Trump must have realized his march to absolute dominance took a wrong turn in Minneapolis. This doesn’t mean he’s ready to change course. I agree with Greg Sargent that all the media narratives about Trump’s “pivot” and “de-escalation” in Minnesota are so much hooey. He’s making some cosmetic changes — replacing Bovino with Homan, for example — and perhaps will tone down some rhetoric just a notch. But the basic ICE operation in Minnesota will not change. Not yet. Sargent:
Note the problem here. Trump does apparently want to minimize clashes between government security services and protesters. But he doesn’t appear to want those heavily armed government militias to stop doing the things that are causing those clashes in the first place.
What’s really going on here is this: Trump is looking to defuse anger among congressional Democrats for purposes that don’t portend a meaningful shift. An administration official gave away the game to Punchbowl News, admitting that these “de-escalatory measures” are about placating Senate Democrats so they don’t seize this moment to demand restrictions on ICE as part of any government funding package.
From what I’m reading, Senate Dems are still dug in and refusing to pass DHS funding without significant changes. Does this mean a shutdown? The Hill reported this morning that Senate Majority Leader Thune has thrown up his hands and declared the Dems need to be negotiating with the White House over what they want regarding DHS.
The budget bill in question has six parts. Dems are prepared to pass five of those six parts right now, but want DHS funding held back for more work. Thune is refusing to do that. Chuck Schumer “has called on GOP colleagues to work with him to ‘overhaul’ ICE and Customs and Border Protection, which are both funded through the Homeland Security appropriations measure,” says The Hill. So we’ll see who caves.
For the latest on what’s going on in the Senate, see live coverage at TPM. Just half an hour ago Chuck Schumer called for both The Gnome and Stephen Miller to be “removed.” “It’s outrageous that Kristi Noem still has a job in the administration after federal officers murdered two American citizens in just two weeks,” Schumer tweeted. “Noem is incompetent and she must go. And her boss Stephen Miller must be removed as well,” he said.
Chuck is fired up. I didn’t know he had it in him.
Jamelle Bouie has a marvelous column up now comparing Minneapolis to the Battle of Gettysburg. (I have only one New York Times gift link remaining for the month and am hanging on to it, but if anyone can donate a gift link do put it in the comments.)
Gettysburg was supposed to be the blow that forced the United States to negotiate an end to the Civil War. Gen. Robert E. Lee would demonstrate the superiority of his Army of Northern Virginia — on Union soil, no less — and prove to key European powers that the Confederacy was here to stay so as to push them off the sidelines. The Gettysburg campaign was, in other words, a strategic offensive meant to advance the overall goals of the rebellion if not win the conflict altogether.
What Lee did not anticipate was the iron resolve, the ferocious tenacity, of the Union defenders.
The history nerd in me loves this stuff. I’d say right now Trump et al. are in a place comparable to Robert E. Lee’s army after the second day of Gettysburg. They’d had some success but had failed to take key positions, in particular the high ground of Little Round Top. And they’d suffered terrible casualties. But they didn’t consider themselves defeated. Then the next day Bobby Lee ordered Pickett’s Charge. After that they considered themselves defeated, and skedaddled back to Virginia. That was July 1863, and the war didn’t end until April 1865. But for the remainder of the war Lee was strictly on defense.
So the question is, what will be Trump’s (or Miller’s) next move? Will he really dial things back in Minnesota? Will he change tactics, perhaps redeploy? Or will he order a Pickett’s Charge? There are a lot of news stories today claiming that Trump has changed course, but I will believe that when I see it. And I haven’t seen it yet.
Do see Quinta Jurecic at The Atlantic, ICE’s No. 1 Ally. That ally would be the Department of Justice. The Attorney General, aka Trump’s girl Pam, is doing everything she can to protect DHS in Minnesota, including blocking any real investigation into the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. And that much doesn’t seem to be changing.
And today Trump’s girl Pam is in Minneapolis, vowing to stay the course.
Attorney General Pam Bondi is now in Minneapolis, where she says several protesters have been arrested.
“Federal agents have arrested 16 Minnesota rioters for allegedly assaulting federal law enforcement – people who have been resisting and impeding our federal law enforcement agents,” she wrote on X a few minutes ago.
She said more arrests can be expected.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: NOTHING will stop President Trump and this Department of Justice from enforcing the law,” she added.
So Pam, at least, has raised her sword and is marching decisively toward the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. How many will follow?
This is interesting — when the Trump Administration announced it was sending some ICE personnel to Italy to help with security at the Winter Olympics, Italy objected. “Tens of thousands of Italians have signed petitions demanding that ICE not be allowed at the Games, while opposition lawmakers have demanded that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government deny Trump’s ‘thugs’ entry to Italy.” So word gets around.
See also Clamor is growing in Europe to boycott Trump’s World Cup. Aw, poor baby. And after he got that nice FIFA peace prize. I bet Trump is planning to wear his medal to some World Cup games. But the stadiums may be half empty. I do feel bad for stadium vendors and any businesses hoping to pick up some tourist business from the World Cup. But I don’t feel bad for Trump.
Update: Check out Bruce Springsteen’s new song!
Let me know if I got this right. Pam Bondi is saying they arrested 16 protesters without murdering any of them? How do we nominate her for a Nobel Prize? She could give it to Trump and make everyone happy.
Crying as I'm listening to the Boss… for an old guy, he hit out of the park.
Maha: There is a Bluesky feed here https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:o4s55v3tsfph6whswxccpsia/feed/aaaixbb5liqbu which aggregates posts which include gift links (for NYT, WSJ, Atlantic etc etc).
So this morning, there's the promise that ICE will "eventually" withdraw from Minneapolis and avoid interaction and confrontation with protesters. Miller makes a half-assed concession that in the murder of Pretti, "protocols might not have been followed." These concessions are what Trump is bringing to Congress to preserve funding for DHS. The bigger problem for Trump is the demand for accountability in ICE, with consequences.
Liz Warren has a good 5-point list of specific demands regarding ICE.
The snow queen has been running taxpayer funded ads about how they are deporting "criminal migrants", they have been running these ads on prime time network news for almost a year now, everyday. The democrats have video of two people being murdered by ICE/CBP they have video of toddlers being detained, videos of armed masked thugs breaking people's windows, running people off the roads, asking people for papers because they are black, throwing chemical agents, they have video of the head of CBP throwing a seig heil salute, where is the counter programming, where is the fucking counter messaging? Today's democratic party has to be the weakest political party in the history of this country, they are completely useless.
Gettysburg is in Pennsylvania as I recall from my dismal High School days. We tried to cover the civil war but mostly it was an ongoing civil war between our class history buff and the teacher as to what happened. I never did understand if Pickett was the inventor of the fence or not. I still can't say. Later in life I did get exposed to the plantation mentality mostly by the school of hard knocks. I'd say that southern mental peculiarity was never properly defeated during or after the civil war and seems to survive to this day. It did seem to have gotten set back some in the recent battle of Minneapolis, as they don't take well to plantation type role play. Their polite is not a subservient facade as it appears in plantation mentality land. Their resistance to it is admirably fierce. Their cause is noble and their war tactics superior by far. It is wise to bring some culture to a culture war and so far, their side is the only one to figure that out. Now we wait for the Goons to mentally process how they were routed.
From what I read, the Senate made a deal (subject to a vote) to give DHS a two-week funding deal while they negotiate reforms. If the deal passes the Senate, the House has to vote on it.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? As I read it, that depends on who is negotiating for the Democrats to limit the abuses of ICE. At the moment, the GOP and the White House is trying to make nice. Reportedly, they have a deal in Maine. And they're trying not to interact in Minneapolis with protesters. I even read they are only going after criminals.
Great! For how long? If you are only going after criminals, they should be able to come up with a count and compare it to the size of the detention facilities they have contracts for. Because I think Miller designed ICE to be Trump's Gestapo and this bump in the road hasn't diverted anyone from their true intent.
The public is pissed – nationwide. A guy on his knees with one hand on the ground and a cell phone in the other hand was disarmed and THEN shot in the back a total of ten times by two cops. A verdict that the shooting was justified was issued before the body was cold by the same people in charge of the 'investigation' now.
Democrats in Congress have to learn this real fast. You can do politics 98% of the time and stand on principle only 2% of the time, and be successful. The moment we are in exists in the 2% space. US federal cops executed a man on the street while they were being filmed, totally sure that they will NEVER face consequences. I do not care WHAT deal the GOP offers in exchange for protecting the shooters. As a voter, the answer is NO!
If there is a full investigation, and the facts laid before a Grand Jury, they should be indicted for murder. They should have every right to put on their defense and I trust in a jury to decide. If convicted, they should go to prison, where their lives will be hell. I'm a felon and that's how the game is played in prison when you have bad x-cops in your reach. They can request solitary for the rest of their natural lives and go insane. I will shed no tears.
The thing is, it will end the rise of fascism. ICE will disintegrate when the thugs know they can't be protected from justice and their victims will be on the juries. Somehow, it takes all the fun out of being a bully who can do anything to anyone..
Trump and Miller can't let real limits with teeth be placed on ICE any more than Trump can let the real, full, unredacted Epstein files out.
You missed a key point about the Battle of Gettysburg. The southern tip was abandoned by Union General Sickles, leaving a small, outnumbered force to hold the weakest part of the Union line. This was the MINNESOTA FIRST REGIMENT! They were outnumbered something like 1600 to 300. They were ordered to hold the line for at least five minutes until reinforcements arrived. So they CHARGED the rebel line, taking 80% casualties.
This was the turning point in the battle, preventing the Union forces from being split in two (like Nelson did at Trafalgar). The Minnesota Historical Society still has the flag captured then. I think it was from Virginia. They keep asking for it back and we tell them, “come and take it from us!”
Source: “The Last Full Measure” by Richard Moe. I just finished this book about three days ago.
FWIW, I left out a couple of interesting details in my comment about the Minnesota 1st above. They defended the southern tip of Cemetery Ridge, which was the center of the Union line. They repelled the South’s divide-and-conquer strategy.
And General Sickles, who abandoned his post on Cemetery Ridge on his own ill-advised adventure, was later scandalized as a US congressman when he was the first person to successfully beat a murder charge by claiming insanity. He killed his wife’s lover, the son of Francis Scott Key.
I love reading this interesting historical shit.