Steve Bannon and Co. Declare War on Minnesota After Pretti Shooting

Far-right political operative Steve Bannon is calling on the Trump administration to crack down even harder in its “Operation Metro Surge,” claiming on his War Room podcast Monday that Minneapolis protests are part of a larger, advanced Marxist-antifa network.

“This is just not Minneapolis—this is an organized, well thought through effort to invade the country,” Bannon said of local activism in Minneapolis in the wake of a Border Patrol agent shooting Alex Pretti 10 times.

“Let me be blunt. If you blink in Minneapolis, they’re gonna overwhelm you, and they’re gonna win. You cannot blink in Minneapolis. That is one of the festering sores of this country, and that’s where they all come together.... You have to lance the boil there,” Bannon said, calling for even more targeted militance from the federal government.

Bannon was joined by fellow right-wing commentator and conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, who offered his own belligerent insight, claiming that leftist insurgents are flooding into Minneapolis on “Soros buses.”

“There are now these insurgents that are coming in.... We’ve got evidence of people coming from Boston, people coming from New England who are now flooding into Minneapolis,” he said, a claim that has not been corroborated. “Thanks to the One Big Beautiful bill, we can go into Maine, we can go into these places. But if you blink now in Minneapolis, they’re gonna send the insurgents to Maine.... If you blink in Minneapolis, you’ll never make it to Detroit, to Chicago, to Philadelphia, to Los Angeles, to New York. Take the fight here.... Put the insurgency down immediately.”

“They wanna put the people that defend the American republic on trial.... Double down, triple down. Sending Homan there is a good first effort,” Bannon continued, referring to Trump’s announcement earlier in the day that border czar Tom Homan will head to Minneapolis. “This is a Marxist—this is the red-green alliance coming together to try to take down the American republic.... It’s a domestic terrorist mob.”

What a strange reality these people live in. Is it not possible that Minneapolis residents watched masked men in tactical gear invade their city, pull people from their homes, arrest children, and shoot and kill two of their neighbors—and then organically decided to act on their constitutional right to protest? Perhaps these policies really are just as unpopular as nearly every major poll says they are, and blaming George Soros is not a sufficient dismissal of this activism.

Furthermore, the left wishes they were as organized as Bannon seems to think they are. What has antifa won? Who are their leaders? The conversation between Bannon and Posobiec was sparked by a tweet from a left-leaning account smaller than theirs that read “minneapolis could be our Fallujah. organize supply drives.” It has less than 80 likes currently. They also pointed to a GoFundMe for a “Community Defense Initiative” that barely raised any money and has since been taken down. And yet Bannon is calling for even more federal agents to flood into Minneapolis.

President Donald Trump says he doesn’t care whether he has the same neurological disease his late father suffered from—whatever it was.

Speaking to New York magazine’s Ben Terris, the president recounted stories about his father, Fred Trump, who died in 1999 at the age of 93.

“He had one problem,” Trump said. “At a certain age, about 86, 87, he started getting, what do they call it?” He pointed to his forehead, and looked expectantly at White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“Alzheimer’s,” Leavitt said.

“Is it something you think about at all?” Terris asked.

“No, I don’t think about it at all. You know why?” Trump replied. “Because whatever it is, my attitude is whatever.”

Trump’s laissez-faire attitude about his cognitive decline comes amid, well, a lot of apparent instances of cognitive decline. The president has repeatedly claimed that he has taken multiple cognitive tests amid multiple mysterious visits to the hospital for vague exams. Last week in Davos, Trump claimed that a massive bruise on his hand was the result of taking a “big aspirin.” But doctors have theorized that the president’s discolored hands could be a sign of something much worse.

A Republican candidate has dropped out of the race for governor in Minnesota following a federal agent’s killing of nurse Alex Pretti over the weekend. 

Minneapolis attorney Chris Madel announced he was leaving the race on Monday in a video announcement, saying that he could not support the “stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so.”

Madel said that he supported the initially stated goals of ICE and the federal government in Minnesota of deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records, but that federal action in the state has gone 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 in the video, adding that he had read reports of U.S. citizens being detained by ICE agents “due to the color of their skin” and spoken to those allegedly targeted by federal agents.  

“Driving while Hispanic is not a crime,” Madel said. “Neither is driving while Asian.”

Madel was a top contender in the Republican primary, finishing among the top three in polls. He criticized the rest of his party in his message. 

“National Republicans have made it nearly impossible for a Republican to win a statewide election in Minnesota,” Madel said. Madel was not a maverick in his party: He had provided legal assistance to Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed Minneapolis mother Renee Good earlier this month. 

Madel still stressed his support for President Trump, saying that while federal actions in Minnesota were an “unmitigated disaster,” many people “unfairly do not provide the president with nearly enough credit,” citing his “ceasefire” in Gaza, his proposal for a 10 percent cap on credit card interest, and his work to get NATO countries to increase their defense spending. 

All of this shows that Trump’s efforts are starting to backfire among all Minnesotans, not just Democrats or left-leaning people in the Twin Cities. Republicans in the state, even true believers like Madel, are beginning to see ICE’s actions for what they are: an attempt to assert control over Minnesota using violence. Even Republicans outside of the state are starting to wake up. 

Federal agents have terrorized, shot, and killed Minnesotans under the guise of advancing the Trump administration’s immigration goals—but the real victims, according to some officials, are ICE and Border Patrol.

Reacting to video footage of ICE’s lethal attack on ICU nurse Alex Pretti, CBP chief Greg Bovino unequivocally told CNN Sunday how he interpreted the situation, which involved several masked agents pinning Pretti on the ground before shooting him nearly a dozen times.

“With respect, it feels as though in some ways you’re blaming the victim here,” said host Dana Bash.

“The victims are the Border Patrol agents. I’m not blaming the Border Patrol agents. The victims are the Border Patrol agents,” Bovino said. “The suspect put himself in that situation.”

Pretti, a well-respected nurse who worked with veterans, was out on the streets of Minneapolis Saturday morning protesting the death of Renee Nicole Good, who was similarly shot point-blank several times earlier this month by a masked ICE agent shortly after dropping her child off at school.

Moments before Pretti’s death, video captured from onlookers at multiple angles depicted the 37-year-old filming ICE activity before intervening between another protester and an agent who had violently shoved her to the ground. The two protesters were then sprayed with a chemical irritant, and Pretti was ripped away from the other demonstrator while she continued to slip on a mound of snow.

At least seven officers were on top of Pretti, wrestling him to the ground, when one of them, standing above the situation and seemingly supporting the other agents, grabbed his gun and shot Pretti. Video footage captured audio of 10 gunshots ringing out.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claimed that the officer who killed Pretti was “fearing for his life” when he reached for his weapon.

“The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted,” McLaughlin said. “Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, an agent fired defensive shots.”

McLaughlin noted that Pretti was pronounced dead on the scene by medics.

More protests have swept Minneapolis in the wake of Pretti’s death, and Governor Tim Walz activated the Minnesota National Guard to contend with Washington’s overstep.

Senate Democrats are threatening to withhold funding to the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of the latest civilian killing in Minneapolis.

Federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, on Saturday morning, the second time this month that federal agents have killed a civilian.

On Capitol Hill, multiple Democratic senators warned that they would not approve a $1.2 trillion package to keep the federal government open if it includes appropriations for the DHS, according to NBC News. The bill was first approved in the House last week with the help of seven Democrats.

“What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling—and unacceptable in any American city,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a statement Saturday. “Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE.”

“Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included,” he added.

The Democratic Party’s weakest links in the Senate have also voiced their refusal to support funding DHS. Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, who was one of eight Democrats to break with her party’s standoff over funding for the Affordable Care Act last year, said that other funding measures could pass, but not one for DHS.

“The Trump Administration and Kristi Noem are putting undertrained, combative federal agents on the streets with no accountability. They are oppressing Americans and are at odds with local law enforcement,” Cortez Masto said. “This is clearly not about keeping Americans safe, it’s brutalizing U.S. citizens and law-abiding immigrants.”

Senator Jacky Rosen, another Democrat from Nevada who broke with her party over the last shutdown, also said she opposed “any government funding package that contains the bill that funds this agency, until we have guardrails in place to curtail these abuses of power and ensure more accountability and transparency.”

Senator Tim Kaine, a third former defector, came out against the bill even before Pretti’s killing. He argued that Congress shouldn’t validate a president who is “acting chaotically and unlawfully.”

A few Republican senators have also criticized Pretti’s killing, calling for an independent investigation into the incident, but there has been no indication they intend to do anything to protect American citizens from ICE violence.