By Jeffrey Blehar
Monday, January 26, 2026
I don’t need to explain to you what happened over the
weekend in Minneapolis, though on the off chance you’ve been sheltering
underneath a rock for the last two days, I will. Amid the ongoing anti-ICE/CBP
protests in the Twin Cities, a protester named Alex Pretti was gunned down by
Border Patrol authorities. Pretti was legally carrying a concealed weapon while
filming federal authorities on the street. After trying to help a woman shoved
by an officer, he was forced to the ground and disarmed (he did not reach for his
weapon). At this point — and I regret having had to watch the footage as many times as I did — he was shot nine
or ten times in the back and head.
This was a horrible tragedy, one that should be
thoroughly and properly investigated.
This, however, was unlike the “is the dress gold or blue?”
miasma of the Renee Good shooting, where multiple camera angles from
equally oblique views allowed people online to create their own narratives.
While questions remain unanswered, the videos create a more serious optics
problem for the feds. Near as I can tell, the best possible narrative available
is that this was the result of a tragic miscommunication among the ICE/CBP
officers (when one of them shouted “gun” as he confiscated Pretti’s weapon),
possibly fueled by an accidental discharge of the weapon. I also think that
anyone who walks into a situation as explosive as this should have the sense to
follow Johnny Cash’s sage advice: “Don’t take your guns to town.” That,
however, can be of little consolation to a dead man or to his family and
friends.
My constant counsel to the Trump administration is to
know where to pick their battles. And President Trump — or whoever is really
calling his domestic shots, perhaps Stephen Miller — has been supremely easy to
manipulate into self-defeating conflicts: He chases PR heat rather than policy
light, hence his focus on top-directed action in “high conflict” blue cities
like Chicago and now — with the shiny object of Somalian fraud beckoning him
into the trap — Minneapolis. And that’s why ICE and CBP have always been
walking the thinnest of lines there: The goal for both sides is splashy,
capital-C Confrontation. (The only way Trump knows how to think of the world is
via headlines.) Trump will lose that game, even though he believes himself —
with some reason — to be a master of it.
So no, I’m not going to offer any thoughts as to whether
or not I believe the progressive activist left has successfully checkmated a
blundering Trump (watch this space for more tomorrow), but I will say this: Any
hope of Trump’s presidency clawing its way out of the hole it has dug for
itself begins with firing Kristi Noem, current secretary of homeland security
and the administration’s most prominent “ridealong disaster” during its first year. Preferably out
of a rocket, and into the sun. Damage control is needed, and she is the most
visible avatar of damage.
Honestly, I’d advise Trump to can nearly everybody within
the remote orbit of DHS leadership except for Tom Homan — that is, if I thought
he was reading me. But I will settle instead for the hope that this one message
will break through: Stanch the bleeding by canning your most incompetent
lieutenant.
Out came Noem this weekend, in the wake of the shooting,
to announce via previously undisclosed powers of clairvoyance: “This individual
who came, with weapons and ammunition, to stop a law-enforcement operation of
federal law enforcement officers, committed an act of domestic terrorism.
That’s the facts.” Oh, are they? Alex Pretti committed “domestic terrorism” by
being there? “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived to
inflict maximum damage and kill law enforcement,” Noem said. I am envious of
her mind-reading ability. For my own part, I saw a guy executed while face down
on the street.
I could mention worse. I could cite Bill Essayli,
low-level Trump myrmidon but high-level Twitter fool, writing,
“If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they
will be legally justified in shooting you.” Kash Patel, director of the FBI,
went to Fox in a panic to
blubber: “You cannot bring a firearm, locked and loaded, with multiple
magazines to any sort of protest that you want — it’s that simple.”
But I will advise him instead to simply cut bait on his
most visibly over-her-head subordinate. Trump doesn’t even have to fire her —
confirmations are dicey these days — but can at least denigrate and demote.
Kristi Noem should immediately become the least visible member of this
administration. I get that Trump doesn’t like admitting defeat, or error. (It
is not in the nature of Trump to err, only to “win” in different, less
recognized ways.) So instead, bank a win in this case by acknowledging that you
have been let down by one of your subordinates, and restore public confidence
by taking her to the figurative gravel pit.
Just my advice.
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