MAGA Senator Accuses Minnesota A.G. of Causing Alex Pretti’s Death

A MAGA lawmaker is blaming ICE’s heightened violence on local Minnesota leaders.

Senator Ron Johnson tore into Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison during a Senate hearing Thursday, accusing him of causing the deaths of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, both of whom were shot and killed last month by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

“I, as a government official, would have said, ‘Back off. Let us work with ICE. Let’s cooperate with them. Let’s see if we can’t deescalate this,’” Johnson said. “But you, attorney general, did the exact opposite.

“Two people are dead because you encouraged them to put themselves into harm’s way!” Johnson said. “And now you are exploiting those two martyrs. That was a tragedy. It never should have happened.”

The Wisconsin Republican then claimed that activists in the region were being “trained” and “deployed” to escalate the situation with federal officers, citing instances in which protesters—such as Pretti—were captured on film kicking ICE vehicles.

On the ground in Minneapolis, that level of fabricated insurgency doesn’t seem necessary—locals are so irate with federal law enforcement and immigration agents that they have literally chased agents out of town.

But federal agents’ unwelcome presence, in Johnson’s view, not only precipitates but also apparently warrants the agents’ impulsive violence.

“Is it any wonder they’re at hair-trigger alert?” Johnson continued. “A tragedy was going to happen, and you encouraged it, and you ought to feel damn guilty about it.”

Then, after Johnson concluded his time speaking, he raised his voice again: “Yeah, sit there and smirk. Smirk. It’s sick! It’s despicable.”

Given an opportunity to respond, Ellison said that Johnson’s “theatrical performance” was “all lies.”

“You disgust me,” Johnson spat back.

After more than a month of protest and pushback from residents and local officials alike, Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan announced Thursday that ICE would withdraw from Minnesota. But Homan warned that “quick reaction forces” would remain in the state to go after so-called “agitators.”

Meanwhile, in Washington, Republicans and Democrats in Congress have come to another impasse over DHS funding, which is set to expire February 13. The two parties have been unable to reach a bipartisan consensus on whether to reform the violent agency.

Democrats have agreed to pass the package so long as Republicans concede to 10 demands on how to reel in ICE agents, such as requiring them to identify themselves, take off their masks, and obtain judicial warrants before forcing their way onto private property.

GOP congressional leadership, however, does not seem willing to change the status quo at all, decrying the seemingly bare minimum stipulations as “impossible” and “totally unrealistic.”

Two-thirds of young American men disapprove of President Trump, according to a damning new poll from the centrist Third Way think tank.

A nationwide survey of 1,462 men between the ages of 18 and 29 found only 38 percent generally approve of Trump’s first year of presidency. Fifty-eight percent say Trump has “negatively impacted their finances.” Sixty-five percent are struggling to pay the bills. And 61 percent believe that the president isn’t carrying out his campaign promises.

This report should sound alarm within the Trump administration. A bloc Trump won by 14 points in 2024 seems to have completely turned against him, and they’re citing issues from Epstein to the economy as driving factors. The respondents’ top three concerns were the draconian immigration raids (60 percent very concerned), lack of transparency on the Epstein files (63 percent), and Trump’s making massive health care cuts while offering tax breaks to the one percent (66 percent). Trump being the anti-woke president who lets you say slurs again doesn’t seem to be satisfying his base any longer. And perhaps the worst part—they hate JD Vance too. Only 26 percent of respondents were confident enough to proclaim their support for a President Vance in 2028.

See the full poll here.

Attorney General Pam Bondi was slammed for spying on members of Congress who viewed the Department of Justice’s unredacted files on Jeffrey Epstein.

When Bondi appeared at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, she repeatedly referred to a binder of prewritten personal attacks, but it seems her notes contained something else too: a record of what lawmakers had looked up when given early access to the files this week.

One photograph of Bondi’s notes showed that they included a section called “Jayapal Pramila search history,” and appeared to include a list of the documents the Washington state Democrat had reviewed.

“This is spying, this is the DOJ spying on members of Congress and what we search,” Jayapal told reporters Wednesday night.

Speaking to MS NOW, Jayapal questioned whether the DOJ had intentionally laid a trap to get intel on Democratic lawmakers. “Is this [the] whole reason they opened [the files] up to us two days early? So they could essentially surveil members to see what we were gonna ask her about?” she said.

Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin told reporters that he had reason to believe that the DOJ was monitoring all lawmakers’ search history as they searched the files for evidence of a sex-trafficking operation. “I think it’s outrageous that they would do that, and it’s Orwellian,” Raskin said.

Pennsylvania Representative Summer Lee told Migrant Insider’s Pablo Manriquez that while keeping tabs on lawmakers’ search history wasn’t necessarily illegal, it was obviously problematic.

“It is a gross abuse of our ability to do and conduct oversight. They are essentially spying on us as we are looking through, and trying to do any sort of investigation, and bring about any sort of transparency about these Epstein files,” Lee said.

And Democratic lawmakers weren’t the only ones who had a problem with being spied on.

“It’s creepy,” South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace told reporters.

Jayapal told NPR News that after discussing the issue with House Speaker Mike Johnson, she believed there was “bipartisan agreement” that lawmakers should be able to review the files without being surveilled.

Virginia Representative Suhas Subramanyam had already warned on X Tuesday that the DOJ was “keeping a history” of all the files lawmakers were viewing. Congress members who were given access to the supposedly unredacted files were forced to share just four computers, navigate a broken search function, and were only permitted to take notes on a legal pad, the Democrat wrote.

Newly unredacted emails from the Epstein files reveal that Melania Trump was in friendly contact with Ghislaine Maxwell.

The first lady warmly reached out to Maxwell after New York magazine published its famed profile on Maxwell’s longtime criminal associate and boyfriend, Jeffrey Epstein, who was referred to in the piece as the “International Moneyman of Mystery.”

“Dear G! How are you?” wrote Melania Trump. “Nice story about JE in NY mag. You look great on the picture.”

Several photos were included in the body of the New York magazine piece, including separate images of Epstein with Bill Clinton, model Brenda Schad, Donald Trump, Robert Kennedy Jr., and Maxwell.

“I know you are very busy flying all over the world. How was Palm Beach? I cannot wait to go down,” Melania continued in her email. “Give me a call when you are back in NY.

“Have a great time! Love, Melania,” she concluded.

The email address on the note was initially redacted by the Justice Department, though why the agency protected Melania’s communications but outed the identities of dozens of Epstein’s victims is unclear.

However, unidentified sources told left-leaning news commentator Aaron Parnas that the email was issued by a “MelaniaKMelania” email, which was later found tied to a record of Donald Trump’s contact information under the banner of the Trump Organization.

Several prominent Trump associates, including officials within the administration, have been tied into the Epstein files in a significant way—including the president himself.

Donald Trump was mentioned more than 38,000 times in the latest batch of Epstein files, according to a review of the DOJ’s recent document dump. All in all, Trump was flagged in more than 5,300 files in the document cache.

Earlier this week, Congress gained access to the unredacted files, sparking shouting matches during Attorney General Pam Bondi’s hearing Wednesday about the Justice Department’s suspicious decision to protect the identities of Epstein’s associates (and the alleged perpetrators of sexual abuse) while harming the victims by releasing their names and contact information in full, as well as failing to censor nude images of them that Epstein collected.

Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan announced Thursday that the Trump administration is ending its ICE crackdown in Minneapolis.

“As a result of our efforts here Minnesota is now less of a sanctuary state for criminals,” Homan said at a press conference. “I have proposed, and President Trump has concurred, that this surge operation conclude.”

The surge began on December 1, and quickly alienated the residents in and around Minneapolis due to violent tactics and the targeting of protesters. Two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were shot and killed by federal agents last month.

“In the next week, we’re going to deploy the officers here on detail back” to their home states, Homan said, adding that “a significant drawdown of personnel is already underway.”

This is a developing story.

Just days after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was exposed for his complete lie about cutting off contact with sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, yet another Trump official was discovered to be in the Epstein files.

In 2016, Dr. Mehmet Oz, now the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, invited Epstein over for a Valentine’s party—eight years after Epstein was registered as a sex offender.

In an email from Mehmet and Lisa Oz to Epstein, the subject line reads, “Mehmet and Liza Oz’s Valentine’s Day Celebration.” The message contains a digital invite.

This is just the latest example of the deep ties that Epstein had with the wealthy elites in the Trump administration (and previous administrations, as well). And regardless of what people like Lutnick say, it is apparent that they could not have cared less about Epstein’s sex offender status, as it really was no impediment to his full return and acceptance into these circles.

“An easier question at this point is who in the Trump administration WAS NOT friends with Epstein?” Democratic Representative Malcolm Kenyatta quipped.

Anyone with such direct ties to Epstein after his 2008 sex offender conviction has some questions to answer. In a just world, they’d have already resigned.

Donald Trump got a rare rebuke from the House Wednesday night as six Republicans joined all but one Democrat to vote against his tariffs on Canada.

Representatives Don Bacon of Nebraska, Dan Newhouse of Washington, Kevin Kiley of California, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Jeff Hurd of Colorado all decided that these tariffs needed to go. Democratic Representative Jared Golden of Maine went against his party to vote in favor of keeping the tariff against Canada in place.

The six Republicans defied a threat from Trump on Truth Social just before the vote that voting against him would lead them to “seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries!”

“TARIFFS have given us Great National Security because the mere mention of the word has Countries agreeing to our strongest wishes. TARIFFS have given us Economic and National Security, and no Republican should be responsible for destroying this privilege,” Trump wrote.

Now the bill goes to the Senate, which has already voted against tariffs on Canada twice with four Republicans lending their support. That’s not enough to get the two-thirds majority necessary to override a veto from Trump, but it’ll send a symbolic message to the president.

Trump’s tariffs have hurt the economy, driving up the cost of many goods and worsening relations with Canada.

With the midterm elections coming up, voters will be thinking about affordability and their own job security. Likewise, many Republican members of Congress are also worried about whether they can win reelection. Fitzpatrick and Hurd, for example, are in battleground districts, and Bacon and Newhouse are choosing retirement over running again. While this is just one vote, Trump and the GOP should be nervous.

In a humiliating defeat for Donald Trump’s administration, all federalized National Guard troops have been pulled out of American cities that never wanted them there after failing to accomplish what the president asked them to do.

Hundreds of service members deployed as part of Trump’s federal takeover of American cities—including the 500 to Chicago, 200 to Portland, Oregon, and 100 troops remaining in Los Angeles—were quietly dispatched home by the end of January, U.S. Northern Command told The Washington Post Wednesday.

There are still National Guard service members deployed in American cities, but only ones working under a nonfederal status. More than 2,500 National Guard troops remain in Washington, D.C., where they will continue their essential work as groundskeepers for the capital city until the end of the year. There is an ongoing presence in Memphis and New Orleans, but those deployments are being overseen by the governors of Tennessee and Louisiana, respectively.

The decision to remove the troops was not publicly acknowledged, as the Trump administration has tried desperately to proclaim that they’re “winning” big-time.

Trump’s embarrassing pull-out game comes after fierce opposition from state leaders and a staggering series of legal defeats.

In November, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s deployment in Washington had “exceeded the bounds” of the Pentagon’s authority, and a federal judge in Portland ruled that Trump “did not have a lawful basis to federalize the National Guard.” In December, a federal judge ordered him to remove National Guard troops from California, rejecting the federal government’s inane assertion that protests against federal immigration agents amounted to rebellion, and the Supreme Court refused to allow the Trump administration to deploy more troops to Chicago

Randy Manner, a retired two-star general in the U.S. Army and former acting vice chief of the National Guard, told the Post that the rules governing National Guard troops meant that they were “100 percent ineffective in doing what [Trump] wanted them to do.”

“The administration finally realized the amount of resistance that was coming up, in terms of legal and public condemnation, was more than anyone anticipated,” he told the Post.

The measles situation in the United States is so bad that the disease is spreading south of the border.

Answering a question from a reporter Wednesday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum revealed that the sudden resurgence of measles in Mexico had originated from the U.S.

“It came mainly from the United States, that’s why it shows up in Chihuahua,” Sheinbaum said. “And in Chihuahua there are communities that don’t get vaccinated at all for any vaccine.

“So it specifically began there, where contagion is highest—among people who have not been vaccinated,” she continued.

Measles was declared eradicated from the U.S. in 2000 thanks to its corresponding vaccine. But 2025 challenged the viral extermination with a whopping 2,144 confirmed cases across 45 jurisdictions—the highest count since 1991.

And 2026 is already on course to beat that figure. In just the last month and a half, officials have confirmed more than 800 measles cases in 23 states, according to data from the Center for Outbreak Response Innovation. So far, the outbreak in South Carolina has proven the worst, with at least 605 confirmed cases in the state. Texas, which suffered the bulk of the viral load last year, already has two confirmed cases.

The rising digits could put the U.S. at risk of losing its elimination status, reported U.S. News and World Report.

“A significant percentage of the population is vaccinated against measles,” Sheinbaum said in a statement following the press conference.

She then recommended—on the advice of her secretary of health—that young children, from 6 months to 12 years of age, receive appropriate doses of the measles vaccine for their age group.

“In Jalisco, Colima, Chiapas, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Tabasco, and Mexico City, people aged 13 to 49 who have not been vaccinated should attend,” Sheinbaum added.

Sheinbaum’s report contradicts what Donald Trump has been preaching to his supporters since he was on the campaign trail. In 2024, while Trump accused South American countries of sending all of its “criminals” and “terrorists” into the U.S., Trump also suggested that the Latinos entering the country were bringing with them “very contagious disease.” Yet, according to the Mexican leader, the exact opposite is true.

Measles does not have a cure. The highly contagious disease can spur a blotchy rash, pink eye, a high fever, white spots inside the mouth, full body aches, pneumonia, and severe dehydration, and can result in hospitalization or even death.

Fortunately, however, it is highly preventable thanks to a vaccine that was developed by a couple of American scientists in 1963. In 1971, researchers created yet another vaccine capable of preventing measles as well as two other contagious illnesses—mumps and rubella—thanks to miraculous developments in modern medicine. The joint shot was named the MMR vaccine, an acronym for “measles, mumps, and rubella.”

America’s diminishing herd immunity is due to a growing movement of anti-vax parents—currently championed at the federal level by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—who refuse to provide their children with the same public health advantages that they received in their youth, mostly in fear of thoroughly debunked conspiracy theories that, at one point, linked autism to the jab.

The researcher who sparked the myth that vaccines cause autism did so with a fraudulent paper. As a result, he lost his medical license and eventually rescinded his opinion. Since then, dozens of studies, including one that surveyed more than 660,000 children over the course of 11 years, have proven there’s no correlation between autism and vaccines.

During the deadly measles outbreak in Texas last year, Kennedy advised that state residents take extra vitamins rather than receive the vaccine, and justified a local religious community’s decision not to receive the vaccine by claiming that the measles vaccine contains “aborted fetus debris” as well as “DNA particles.” Fact check: It does not.

Even Kennedy’s own officials have denied his health conspiracies, potentially at cost to their employment.

But the 71-year-old has a lot to gain from pushing disinformation about the jab: the more doubt and division Kennedy sows, the more money he’ll make. Ahead of his appointment, Kennedy disclosed that he made roughly $10 million in 2024 from speaking fees and dividends from his anti-vaccine lawsuits. He’s also made cash from merchandising handled by his nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense, which bungled anti-vax messaging in Samoa so badly that it started a 2019 outbreak that resulted in the deaths of at least 83 people, the majority of whom were children under the age of 5.

As a reminder: Since their invention, vaccines have proven to be one of the greatest accomplishments of modern medicine. The medical shots are so effective at preventing illness that they have effectively eradicated some of the worst diseases from our collective culture, from rabies to polio and smallpox—a fact that has possibly fooled some into believing that the viruses and their complications aren’t a significant threat to the average, health-conscious individual.

Gallup will no longer track presidential approval rating after nearly nine decades of doing so, stating that the move “reflects an evolution in how Gallup focuses its public research and thought leadership,” according to The Hill.

“This change is part of a broader, ongoing effort to align all of Gallup’s public work with its mission,” a spokesperson for Gallup said. “We look forward to continuing to offer independent research that adheres to the highest standards of social science.... This is a strategic shift solely based on Gallup’s research goals and priorities.”

This decision comes as President Trump has recently experienced some of the lowest approval ratings for a president in decades. While Trump has made no public threat to Gallup, he has threatened other pollsters multiple times in the recent past. In December 2024, he sued the Des Moines Register, its parent company Gannett, and pollster Anne Seltzer for her poll findings that Kamala Harris would win Iowa (she didn’t). And in January, he verbally attacked The New York Times after a poll that found independent voters have turned against Trump.

The president’s current approval rating sits at a meager 38 percent.