The GOP has taken a mixed response to President Donald Trump‘s efforts to tamp down violent interactions between Minnesota protesters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
Many Republicans championed Trump sending border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota in the aftermath of a second protester’s death over the weekend. But other MAGA supporters have slammed Trump’s behavior as a retreat, akin to handing anti-ICE protesters victory.
Trump’s efforts to reset the narrative include demoting Gregory Bovino from the Border Patrol’s commander of at-large operations overseeing ICE embeds. Bovino will return to his job overseeing Border Patrol operations in El Centro, California.
Before jetting off to Iowa on Tuesday, Trump also told reporters that he did not think Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse fatally shot by Border Patrol agents, was acting like an assassin, despite previous comments from Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller accompanied Trump to Iowa, but Noem did not.
“No. No, I don’t think so,” Trump said when asked.
“With that being said, you can’t have guns,” he continued. “You can’t walk in with guns. But it’s a very unfortunate incident.”
Yet some of his most diehard supporters were left unsatisfied with Trump’s recent phone calls with Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
“This is a retreat, and it ain’t a strategic retreat,” Steve Bannon said during a Tuesday broadcast of his show WarRoom. “Why is that? Because the people around the president. You see who set up the phone calls. Frey and Walz are spiking the football.”
“We’re at war,” he added. “If you don’t think we’re at war, then you’re going to play conventional politics. Oh, you know, that poll of independents, you know, we’re slipping in that poll of independents. If you play by conventional methods, you’re going to lose, because they’re not playing by conventional methods.”
Former Trump campaign surrogates pushed back against allegations that Trump was retreating in an interview with the Washington Examiner.
“It is not a retreat,” said Autry Pruitt, who served as a Trump surrogate in 2016. “President Trump, through the polling that I’ve seen so far, is experiencing a public relations problem, if you will. Americans do not want to see citizens gunned down.”
Video of Pretti’s death contradicted reports by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Miller that he attacked officers or that he was brandishing his gun.
“The video speaks loud, so he’s got to do something to take down this temperature from a PR perspective, and he’s got to do something so that we don’t have other American citizens shot unless they were actively shooting at a federal officer,” Pruitt said.
Others, such as Trump whisperer Laura Loomer, told viewers of her show, Loomer Unleashed, that she supported Homan replacing Noem if the president decides to shake up the Department of Homeland Security.
“I think Tom Homan should be the secretary of DHS,” Loomer said Monday night. “I mean, if you’re going to have Tom Homan go to Minnesota, why not just put Tom Homan in control of DHS altogether? I think that Tom Homan does a fantastic job. He’s widely respected, and he would be an amazing DHS secretary. Nothing against Kristi Noem.”
“We love Tom. I think it’s a great move,” said Andrew Kolvet, a spokesman for Turning Point USA, on The Charlie Kirk Show. Kolvet also pushed back against comments online, chastising the president.
“I think the internet’s got this all wrong,” Kolvet said. “A lot of people are saying President Trump blinked. You know, he had this call with Frey, he had a call with Walz. What they’re doing is a huge, huge deal. We are now seeing Minneapolis PD rush in to defend federal law enforcement, that’s a big change, that’s a positive change after the calls with the president. So we’re seeing movement here, we’re seeing a little give and take, I do not see anybody saying we’re not going to arrest all the illegals, nobody’s saying that.”
But Loomer also called for Walz and Frey to be “criminally charged” in a social media post. She also called for the Insurrection Act to be invoked, as did Bannon during his show.
Gun rights groups were among those outraged over comments from FBI Director Kash Patel and others blaming Pretti for bringing a handgun to protests, despite having a legal permit to carry, although some were assuaged by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s Monday briefing.
“The first few reactions from senior officials, not just Kash Patel and Kristi Noem, but even the secretary of the Treasury, sounded like they were straight out of the Obama administration, not the Trump administration,” said Dudley Brown, president of the National Association for Gun Rights. “I believe the White House press secretary’s comments were a de-escalation on the constitutional issues involved, and I’m not taking any issue with that.”
Brown said he had expressed his displeasure with the comments threatening the Second Amendment to high-level administration officials.
“They know exactly where we are on this anyway, but I wanted to make sure to make comments to those friends,” he said. “And I told them, ‘You don’t need to respond.’ And they’re monitoring all the media that we’re doing. So I’m pretty sure that’s been a topic of conversation in the White House.”
Trump notably did not respond on Tuesday when reporters pressed him about the Second Amendment.
The president does, however, continue to stand by Noem. “I think she’s doing a very good job,” he said Tuesday. He also defended shaking up the leaders stationed in Minnesota. “I do that all the time,” Trump said. “I shake up teams.”
TRUMP SAYS ALEX PRETTI WASN’T ACTING AS AN ASSASSIN
But Democrats are calling for Noem’s ouster, and some Republicans such as Pruitt say Homan’s past experience may be better suited for Trump to put in an interim appointment as an acting deputy secretary of homeland security.
“That’s another thing he could do to keep Neom in her place, let her take a back seat, and keep Homan forward,” Pruitt said. “I do think his fear might be that Homan doesn’t play as well as Noem can on television. But right now, dead bodies don’t play well at all.”
