January 26, 2026 – The USA Potato

Yesterday President Donald J. Trump blamed Democratic officials for the killing of VA intensive care nurse Alex Pretti in Minnesota Saturday morning. Since then, administration officials and their supporters seem to be coalescing around the idea that the reason there have been violent clashes in Minneapolis is not the violence of federal agents there, but that city officials aren’t cooperating with federal officials.

As Allison Gill of Mueller, She Wrote notes, this language comes straight from the Insurrection Act, and indeed, MAGA leader and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon told the Wall Street Journal yesterday that he thinks Trump should invoke that act. Bannon said Pretti “knew exactly what he was doing and he knew the consequences. The violent domestic terrorist mob in the streets of Minneapolis needs to stand down now.”

On right-wing social media, Bannon echoed the language of a dystopian vision of the world that claims immigrants are invading the United States and those protecting them in Minneapolis are dangerous. He told his supporters: “This is just not Minneapolis—this is an organized, well thought through effort to invade the country.” MAGA adherents are embracing the daft idea that the Minnesota people who have come together to protect their neighbors are an organized, paid insurgency.

But the tide seems to be running against them.

This morning, Trump’s social media account posted that the president is sending Tom Homan to Minnesota. Homan is a White House advisor under scrutiny for allegations that he accepted $50,000 in cash stuffed into a CAVA bag after promising to steer government contracts toward those offering him the money. According to Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council, Homan has been clashing with the extremist faction led by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, her advisor Corey Lewandowski, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller because he thinks their made-for-TV violence is doing long-term damage to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol.

Aaron Rupar of Public Notice commented: “[I]f Tom ‘Cava Bag’ Homan is your emergency crisis comms guy, you’re f*cked.”

Trump’s account also posted his version of a phone call with Minnesota governor Tim Walz that would let Trump deescalate the situation there. Despite the fact that, as journalist Laura Bassett notes, the administration has been leading its followers to believe Walz is going to jail, Trump’s account posted:

“Governor Tim Walz called me with a request to work together with respect to Minnesota. It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength. I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what we are looking for are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession. The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I! We have had such tremendous SUCCESS in Washington, D.C., Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana, and virtually every other place that we have ‘touched’ and, even in Minnesota, Crime is way down, but both Governor Walz and I want to make it better! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP”

This morning, Republican Chris Madel withdrew from the Minnesota governor’s race, saying “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…. Operation Metro Surge has expanded far beyond its stated focus on true public safety threats.”

“United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear. United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That’s wrong,” Madel said.

He added: “I am above all else a pragmatist. The reality is that the national Republicans have made it nearly impossible for a Republican to win a statewide election in Minnesota.”

Neil Mehta and Valerie Bauerlein of the Wall Street Journal noted that Preya Samsundar, a Republican strategy consultant, agrees, noting that her own mother, who immigrated legally, has begun to carry her passport with her.

Some Republicans are backing away from the administration over its tactics and violence in Minnesota. Former vice president Mike Pence today called images from there “deeply troubling” and called for a full investigation into Pretti’s killing. By Sunday, Republican senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina had all called for investigations.

Today those calls reached deeper into the party, with Republican senators John Curtis of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas, and Todd Young of Indiana also calling for an investigation and “accountability.” This afternoon, Jordain Carney and Adam Wren of Politico reported that Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, had called a hearing for February 12. He has asked Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner Rodney Scott, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director Joseph Edlow, and ICE acting director Todd Lyons to testify.

One House Republican told Meredith Lee Hill of Politico: “Many of us wonder if the administration has any clue as to how much this will hurt us legislatively and electorally this year.”

As Kate Riga of Talking Points Memo noted today, even MAGA firebrand Texas governor Greg Abbott said on a Dallas talk show that the White House needs to “recalibrate and maybe work from a different direction to ensure that they get back to get what they wanted to do to begin with—and that is to remove people from the country.”

And immigration officers themselves are speaking up. This afternoon, Nicholas Nehamas, Hamed Aleaziz, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, and Alexandra Berzon of the New York Times reported that immigration officers deployed to urban areas are angry at the aggressiveness the Trump administration is employing and at the administration’s sending them into dangerous situations. They say the arrest quotas, long hours, and public anger at them are taking a significant toll on morale. Most of those the journalists interviewed said they were unhappy that administration officials had jumped to blame Pretti for his own killing. One agent said he had “always given the benefit of the doubt to the government in these situations” but no longer believed “any of the statements they put out anymore.”

Throughout the day, there were signs that the administration was preparing to throw Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino under the bus. An unsigned editorial in The Free Press, an outlet closely aligned with the administration, lambasted Noem for pushing lies that the American people can see with their own eyes are untrue. “Perhaps Republican operatives consider the politics of division as a viable strategy for their party to survive the midterm elections,” the editorial said, but it noted that “the administration’s deportation tactics as well as the conduct of federal agents in Minneapolis are driving voters away from the president and his party.”

Then, this afternoon, CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez reported that Bovino and some of his agents are leaving Minneapolis and returning to the sectors from which they came. Before hitting the road, though, on Friday federal agents took into custody Juan Espinoza Martinez, whom a jury acquitted this week after the Department of Justice accused him of participating in a plot to hire someone to kill Bovino. While CBP appears to be leaving, the operation itself will continue.

Tonight Alvarez and her colleague Michael Williams reported that DHS had suspended Bovino’s access to his official social media accounts.

In response to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s suggestion in a letter on Saturday, shortly after Pretti’s killing, that Governor Tim Walz could “restore the rule of law” in Minnesota by handing over the state’s voter rolls, Walz said: “I think everybody understands what the last request was, totally unrelated to anything on the voter files. This is again…Donald Trump telling everybody that the election was rigged…. I would just give a pro tip to the attorney general. There’s two million documents in the Epstein files we’re still waiting on. Go ahead and work on those.”

This afternoon, Trump turned back to tariffs, saying he is increasing tariff rates on South Korean “Autos, Lumber, Pharma, and all other Reciprocal TARIFFS, from 15% to 25%.”

This evening, Trump’s social media account posted that he “just had a very good telephone conversation with Mayor Jacob Frey, of Minneapolis. Lots of progress is being made!”

Frey responded with a statement: “I spoke with President Trump this afternoon and appreciated the conversation. I expressed how much Minneapolis has benefited from our immigrant communities and was clear that my main ask is that Operation Metro Surge needs to end. The president agreed that the present situation cannot continue.

“Some federal agents will begin leaving the area tomorrow, and I will continue pushing for the rest involved in this operation to go.

“Minneapolis will continue to cooperate with state and federal law enforcement on real criminal investigations—but we will not participate in unconstitutional arrests of our neighbors or enforce federal immigration law. Violent criminals should be held accountable based on the crimes they commit, not based on where they are from.

“I will continue working with all levels of government to keep our communities safe, keep crime down, and put Minneapolis residents first.

“I plan to meet with Border Czar Tom Homan tomorrow to further discuss next steps.”

—

Notes:

https://minnesotareformer.com/2026/01/26/chris-madel-drops-out-of-race-for-gop-nomination-for-governor-blasts-immigration-crackdown/

https://www.startribune.com/chris-madel-ends-gop-bid-for-governor-says-he-cant-support-federal-retribution-against-minnesota/601570793

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/the-lawyer-for-the-agent-who-shot-renee-good-thinks-ice-has-gone-too-far-065fe1fe

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/26/mike-pence-minnesota-shooting-00746688

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/minnesota-sos-rejects-bondis-ransom-request-for-voter-data-in-exchange-for-end-to-chaos

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/live-blog/ice-killing-senate-democrats-funding-shutdown?entry=1537082

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/25/republicans-concern-minneapolis-shooting-00745707

https://www.wbez.org/immigration/2026/01/26/juan-espinoza-martinez-bovino-murder-plot-ice-custody