Reacting to a report from Bill Melugin of Fox News that federal immigration officials in Donald Trump’s administration are furious about the events in Minneapolis — which have led to the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti — conservative pundits are escalating pressure on the agency’s leadership.
According to Melugin’s report, a half dozen officials told him the shooting of Pretti and the explanations offered afterward have been “catastrophic” for the agency, with some now considering retirement.
On X, Melugin wrote, “Specifically, I’m told there is extreme frustration with DHS officials going on TV and putting out statements claiming that Alex Pretti was intending to conduct a ‘massacre’ of federal agents or wanted to carry out ‘maximum damage,’ even after numerous videos appeared to show those claims were inaccurate.
“While they say it was a terrible decision to show up with a gun and inject himself into a federal law enforcement operation, there is no indication Pretti was there to murder law enforcement, as videos appear to show he never drew his holstered firearm.”
With conservative pundit Erick Erickson writing, “Late night phone call with a senior White House official who tells me the President is not happy with how the Department of Homeland Security has handled the response to this incident,” long-time conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg also joined the growing criticism.
“This underscores the point I’ve been trying to make for a while. The DHS/Steve Miller approach is bad even if you support what Trump wants to do. It puts ICE agents in needless danger, turns public opinion against the WH, and makes it harder to get the illegals they claim to be going after. But Miller, Noem & Crew want spectacle more than anything. And they’re willing to take a lot of collateral damage in the process,” he wrote on X.
Senior Editor Peter Laffin of the conservative DC Examiner, who writes on Restoring America, argued that the White House needs to act quickly to contain the blowback.
“Noem, Bovino, and Miller (and Vance who retweeted Miller) incinerated the agency’s credibility by pushing an obviously false narrative in the immediate aftermath. Changes need to be made,” he urged.
Goldberg also took aim at Vice President JD Vance’s explanation of the broader unrest surrounding the incident. Vance wrote, “When I was in Minneapolis, I heard a number of crazy stories. But near the top of the list: A couple of off duty ICE and CBP officers were going to dinner in Minneapolis. They were doxed and their location revealed, and the restaurant was then mobbed. The officers were locked in the restaurant, and local police refused to respond to their pleas for help (as they’ve been directed by local authorities).
“Eventually, their fellow federal agents came to their aid. This is just a taste of what’s happening in Minneapolis because state and local officials refuse to cooperate with immigration enforcement. They have created the chaos so they can have moments like yesterday, where someone tragically dies and politicians get to grandstand about the evils of enforcing the border.”
Goldberg responded bluntly: “This might have happened. I’m at a total loss why anyone would take the “they’re eating the dogs and cats” guy at his word.”
