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Trump's approval ratings hit new lows following the shooting of Alex Pretti, potentially setting up for a bloodbath midterm election.

Rep. Chip Roy appears determined to blame anyone other than the agents who fired their weapons.

Donald Trump announced Monday that he is sending his border czar, Tom Homan, to Minnesota to take charge of the chaotic immigration operation that led to the killings of Alex Pretti and Renée Good by federal agents. According to Trump, Homan “knows and likes many of the people” in the state, and his arrival comes […]

The president’s favorite TV network still has some sway with the Oval Office.On Monday morning, Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade floated a novel idea on air: Solve the collapsing environment in Minnesota by introducing border czar Tom Homan into the situation. Kilmeade mentioned the idea at 6:15 a.m., again an hour later, and then a third time at 8:10 a.m.As CNN’s Brian Stelter put it, “Maybe Trump was watching, maybe he wasn’t,” but just 20 minutes after Kilmeade’s third suggestion, Donald Trump followed his advice and announced Homan’s imminent involvement in the North Star State. Shortly afterward, it appeared that Customs and Border Protection boss Greg Bovino—who had until Monday overseen Immigration and Customs Enforcement and CBP activity in Minnesota—was getting the shove.Homan’s inclusion appears to be a Hail Mary by the White House to salvage a highly advertised immigration crackdown that has turned sour for even the most conservative of Republicans.The GOP has balked at the national backlash to ICE’s violence in Minnesota, which so far has involved the senseless killing of two U.S. citizens: Veterans Affairs ICU nurse Alex Pretti and award-winning poet Renee Nicole Good.In the aftermath of their deaths, thousands of Americans have taken to the streets in protest. Trump’s job score has nosedived, hitting a net approval of -19 percent. In an attempt to pivot ahead of midterms, Trump is headed to Iowa Tuesday to reframe his administration’s priorities. Suddenly, the word of the day is affordability, with the president set to give a speech on energy and the economy while the White House decides what to do with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.The country, by all means, appears fed up with the reality of Trump’s immigration agenda, which has thus far deported people from the United States without due process, ripped children from their parents, and ushered thousands of untrained ICE agents into cities and neighborhoods where they are not wanted. A CBS News poll published days before agents killed Pretti found that 61 percent of surveyed Americans felt that ICE agents were “too tough” when stopping and detaining people.On air, Kilmeade implored Trump to display calm leadership, reading aloud an editorial in the New York Post (another Rupert Murdoch–owned entity) positing that the American left will utilize the situation in Minneapolis to instigate a “civil war.”“The bottom line is, these images are not the ones that are going to help you keep the majorities,” Kilmeade said Monday.

Customs and Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino may be on his way out after delivering a full-throated defense for killing a U.S. citizen in broad daylight. Bovino has reportedly been removed from his position as commander-at-large. He will depart Minnesota for his previous post as a border official in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire shortly afterward, The Atlantic reported Monday night.The Department of Homeland Security reportedly suspended Bovino’s access to his social media accounts, after he spent most of Sunday responding to people calling out his outlandish claims about Alex Pretti. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claimed Monday night that Bovino had “NOT been relieved of his duties,” in a post on X. But several people pointed out that she did not deny the bulk of the reporting regarding his departure from the organization. Bovino thoroughly made a mess of the Trump administration’s P.R. response to the latest killing by a federal agent, baselessly claiming that Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, had intended to harm CBP officers. He also praised his agents, who shot Pretti at least 10 times as he was pinned to the ground, for killing him.Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash Sunday, Bovino backed up Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s outrageous claim that Pretti had “brandished” a weapon at a group of officers. Video of the incident showed that he had been filming officers with his cell phone and tried to help a fellow protester who had been pepper-sprayed. Donald Trump reportedly complained that Bovino and Noem had appeared too “callous” in their television appearances Sunday, which motivated the president to send “border czar” Tom Homan to Minnesota to do damage control. “[Bovino]’s a cowboy, and it was a mess. It was only escalation, and no one was going to back down,” a source familiar with the operations told Axios. “Homan going is a good thing. Someone needed to step in.”

You can watch this episode of Right Now With Perry Bacon above or by following this show on YouTube or Substack.The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was only formally created in 2003. But as author Jessica Pishko explains, the U.S. government has for decades had officials who enforce immigration law. In the latest edition of Right Now, Pishko, author of a 2024 book on sheriffs, discusses how ICE has evolved from its early days up to the present. She details how Trump is deploying ICE agents in an even more aggressive way than in his first term. She also says that many of the worst abuses in Minneapolis and other cities are being committed by Customs and Border Protection, whose officers are even more aggressive than ICE and have even less training in day-to-day policing. One of the main issues today, Pishko argues, is not that ICE or CBP exist but that Trump is using them as a permanent national police force. The most effective reform, according to Pishko, would be to end mass detentions and other draconian immigration enforcement policies, so that there would be no need for a massive immigration law enforcement apparatus. In the short term, we should try to roll back funding for ICE and CBP and quickly fire officers who are behaving improperly.