- Trump tells Fox News Iowa interview Bovino “maybe wasn’t good here”
- Border Patrol commander leaving Minneapolis amid strategic shift
- Administration distances president from Noem and Bovino’s extreme claims
URBANDALE, IA (TDR) — President Donald Trump called Border Patrol commander-at-large Greg Bovino an “out there kind of a guy” on Tuesday, one day after pulling Bovino out of Minnesota.
Trump spoke to Fox News’ Will Cain on Tuesday from Iowa, where he discussed reports of Bovino being reassigned away from Minneapolis following the shooting of Alex Pretti.
Federal officials have defended the shooting of Pretti, as they also have with the shooting and killing of Renee Good earlier this month, but Trump said on Tuesday a “shake up” was needed after the “very unfortunate” shooting of Pretti.
“I don’t think it’s a pullback. It’s a little bit of a change. Everybody in this room that has a business, you know, you make little changes. You know, Bovino is very good, but he’s a pretty out there kind of a guy. And in some cases that’s good. Maybe it wasn’t good here,” Trump said.
Trump Agitated By Coverage Making Administration Look Bad
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CNN reporter Kristen Holmes revealed on “The Arena” on Tuesday that Trump was angry with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s public statements about Pretti’s killing because they made the administration “look bad”.
“President Trump was agitated watching the coverage, specifically watching Secretary Noem and Bovino go up there and what he believed was they made the administration look bad,” Holmes said.
“Their talking points around the events that unfolded, the shooting of Alex Pretti, particularly noting that some of the things that they were saying just didn’t match up with the video,” she added.
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Trump held a more than two-hour meeting with Noem on Monday night, according to reports.
Video Contradicts Official Narratives
Multiple videos of the shooting and eyewitness accounts contradict the initial response from Bovino and Noem. They depicted Pretti as someone who was “brandishing” a firearm and trying to “massacre law enforcement.”
Noem claimed Pretti arrived to “inflict maximum damage and kill law enforcement.” Stephen Miller, Trump’s immigration policy architect, described Pretti as a “would-be assassin.”
However, videos taken of Pretti’s shooting show him on the ground when he was apparently shot from behind by an agent. Video reviewed and verified by ABC News does not appear to show that Pretti drew his gun on the agents and instead was holding up a cell phone, not a gun, to record agents during the incident.
Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse and U.S. citizen, was lawfully carrying a gun with a concealed carry permit.
White House Distances Trump From Extreme Claims
During a White House briefing Monday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt distanced Trump from some of the more extreme comments coming from his top officials.
When a reporter asked if he agreed that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” — a term that Noem, as well as Miller, used — Leavitt declined to support their remarks.
“I have not heard the president characterize Mr. Pretti in that way,” she said. “However, I have heard the president say he wants to let the facts and the investigation lead itself.”
Trump, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, notably declined to say whether he thought the agents involved in the Pretti shooting acted appropriately and said his administration was “reviewing everything and will come out with a determination.”
Homan Sent To Take Control Of Operations
The decision to send Tom Homan to Minneapolis is being seen by some as Trump pushing Noem to the sidelines, since Homan does not report to her as Bovino does.
“Tom Homan … is in Minnesota now, he’s meeting with governor [Tim Walz], and he’s meeting with the mayor [Jacob Frey], I think later,” Trump told CNBC. “And I hear that’s all going very well.”
Trump spoke on the phone with Walz and Frey on Monday. Both officials are Democrats who for weeks have been strongly critical of the Trump administration’s surge of immigration enforcement officers to Minneapolis.
“We’re going to de-escalate a little bit,” Trump said Tuesday, referring to the situation in Minnesota.
Bovino Returning To California
Bovino is set to leave Minneapolis on Tuesday, and there is an expectation that the number of federal agents in that city will be reduced, administration and law enforcement officials told NBC News.
Bovino is losing his “commander” title, federal officials told NBC News, and will return to the border in El Centro, California, to resume his previous job as sector chief there, where he is reportedly planning to retire.
Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott will be joining Homan, sources told NBC News.
Trump Still Blames Protesters As “Paid Agitators”
Despite the strategic shift, Trump continued to claim that people protesting in Minnesota are “paid agitators”.
“But when I watch some of the people I’ve been watching over the past few weeks, these are paid insurrectionists, these are paid agitators. These people aren’t normal,” Trump said during the Fox News interview.
Congressional Pressure Mounting
More than 120 members of the House of Representatives have said they support impeaching Noem. The largest union of federal employees, which represents some Border Patrol agents, is also calling on Noem to be impeached or fired.
Immigration agents across the country are quietly rebelling against the Trump administration after being thrust into what they describe as a “no-win situation” following the killing of Minneapolis ICU nurse Alex Pretti, according to a report by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein.
The shooting is being investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI, Leavitt told reporters. Customs and Border Protection is also conducting their own internal review.
MS Now, citing three people briefed on the matter, reported Tuesday that the Department of Justice had decided not to conduct a civil rights investigation of Pretti’s death. Instead two units of the Department of Homeland Security will investigate their officers and the man they killed.
Will Trump’s strategic retreat in Minnesota—replacing Bovino with Homan and de-escalating operations—be enough to quell growing bipartisan criticism of DHS enforcement tactics?
Sources
This report was compiled using information from Raw Story’s reporting on Trump’s comments, CNBC’s coverage of Trump’s de-escalation statements, NBC News’ analysis of the strategic shift, NBC News live updates on Bovino’s departure, ABC News reporting on White House distancing, and Wikipedia’s Operation Metro Surge entry.
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