Trump says Noem doing a ‘very good job’ and won’t step down
Asked whether Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem would step down, Trump replied that she would not.
“I think she’s done a very good job”,” he said of Noem, as calls mount for her resignation. “I think she’s doing a very good job. The border is totally secure.”
He continued: “You know, you forget we had a border that I inherited where millions of people were coming through. Now we have a border where no one is coming through. They come into our country only legally. So you have to remember those things. You know people forget. As soon as you accomplish something, it goes into history, and nobody ever wants to talk about it.”
Key events
Republican congressman Andrew Garbarino, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, announced that Todd Lyons, head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will testify at a public oversight hearing next month.
In a statement, Garbarino announced that Lyons, ICE’s acting director, will appear before the panel on 10 February alongside US Customs and Border Protection commissioner Rodney Scott and US Citizenship and Immigration Services director Joseph Edlow.
“The hearing will provide an opportunity to conduct oversight of each agency and ensure they are fulfilling their duty to protect the homeland as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) core mission,” he said.
The committee had invited Lyons, Scott and Edlow to testify before Pretti was shot and killed, but followed up with a formal request on Saturday.
Noem must be fired — or face impeachment proceedings, House Democratic leaders say
In a joint statement, House Democratic leaders are threatening to launch impeachment proceedings if Noem isn’t fired “immediately”.
The statement, co-signed by Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, Katherine Clark, the Democratic Whip and Pete Aguilar, the Democratic Caucus Chair, accused the Trump administration of using taxpayer dollars to “kill American citizens, brutalize communities and violently target law-abiding immigrant families”.
“Kristi Noem should be fired immediately, or we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives,” they said. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
The leaders’ impeachment threat represents something of a tactical shift for Democrats, who are endorsing more aggressive actions following Pretti’s killing. In the Senate, Democrats said they are prepared to vote down a federal spending bill that includes more than $60bn in funding for DHS, risking a partial government shutdown.
“Taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable for everyday Americans, not kill them in cold blood,” the House leaders wrote in a scating statement.
In the House, support for impeaching Noem has exploded since Pretti’s death. New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among the most recent signatories to congresswoman Robin Kelly’s articles of impeachment, which the Illinois Democrat filed after the fatal killing of Renee Good earlier this month.
What started as an effort mostly backed by progressive Democrats to the dismay of more centrists, has quickly gained traction in every corner of the party.
Kelly could force a vote on her articles of impeachment, according to House rules, though they are unlikely to win enough support in the Republican-controlled chamber.
So far no Republicans have signed onto the impeachment resolution, which accuses Noem of obstructing Congress, violating the public trust and self-dealing. DHS has called the effort “silly” and a distraction, arguing that Democrats should be more focused on fighting crime in their districts.
Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, Walz met with Homan in the city as the administration attempted to reset and work with officials there to de-escalate the conflict between residents of Twin Cities and federal agents.
“Governor Walz met with Tom Homan this morning and reiterated Minnesota’s priorities: impartial investigations into the Minneapolis shootings involving federal agents, a swift, significant reduction in the number of federal forces in Minnesota, and an end to the campaign of retribution against Minnesota,” the governor’s office said in a statement following the meeting on Tuesday.
It continued: “The Governor and Homan agreed on the need for an ongoing dialogue and will continue working toward those goals, which the President also agreed to yesterday. The Governor tasked the Minnesota Department of Public Safety as the primary liaison to Homan to ensure these goals are met.”
Homan was expected to meet with Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, later today.
Trump says Noem doing a ‘very good job’ and won’t step down
Asked whether Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem would step down, Trump replied that she would not.
“I think she’s done a very good job”,” he said of Noem, as calls mount for her resignation. “I think she’s doing a very good job. The border is totally secure.”
He continued: “You know, you forget we had a border that I inherited where millions of people were coming through. Now we have a border where no one is coming through. They come into our country only legally. So you have to remember those things. You know people forget. As soon as you accomplish something, it goes into history, and nobody ever wants to talk about it.”
Speaking briefly to reporters as he departed the White House for Iowa, Trump said he would be “watching over” the investigation into Pretti’s killing by federal agents.
“Well you know we’re doing a big investigation,” Trump said, as the blades of Marine One spin loudly behind him on the White House lawn. “I want to see the investigation. I’m going to be watching over it. I want a very honorable and honest investigation. I have to see it myself.”
In response to another question about the fatal encounter, which was difficult to hear, Trump said: “I’m looking at that whole situation. I love everybody. I love all of our people. I love [Pretti’s] family. And it’s a very sad situation.”
He said his border czar Tom Homan had just met with Walz in Minneapolis and would meet with the city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, later today. “All going very well,” Trump said. (He offered a similar assessment of the US economy, Russia and Syria.)
My colleague, Joseph Gedeon, is reporting that Minnesota’s top federal judge has summoned Todd Lyons, the acting head of ICE, to appear before him on Friday, warning he may be held in contempt for allegedly defying court orders.
Chief US district judge Patrick Schiltz demanded Lyons explain himself personally in a three-page order issued Monday evening, declaring that “the court’s patience is at an end”.
Schiltz, appointed by George W Bush, accused the Trump administration of deliberately delaying or ignoring judicial directives across Minnesota’s federal courts. His order stemmed from a case involving a man he had ordered released on 15 January who remained in custody as of Monday night.
Read the full story here
Celebrated composer Philip Glass withdraws the premiere of his new symphony from Kennedy Center, amid Trump’s efforts to remake the performing arts center in his name.
Glass’s symphony is based on Abraham Lincoln’s 1838 Lyceum Address, in which the future 16th president warned that the greatest threat to American democracy was not from foreign invasion, but from internal strife, mob rule and disregard for law.
“Symphony No 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the symphony,” Glass wrote in a letter shared on social media. “Therefore I feel an obligation to withdraw the Symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership.”
Glass is among several artists and performance companies to cancel after Trump named himself chairman of the center’s revamped board that is now packed with the president’s allies.
Last month, the board of trustees voted to add Trump’s name to the building, which was designated as a living memorial to John F Kennedy.
Alex Pretti suffered broken rib in confrontation with federal agents a week before he was fatally shot – CNN
CNN has learned that federal immigration officers have been collecting personal information about protesters in Minneapolis – and had documented details about Alex Pretti before he was fatally shot on Saturday.
It is unclear how Pretti first came to the attention of federal authorities. But sources told CNN that about a week before his death, Pretti “suffered a broken rib when a group of federal officers tackled him while he was protesting their attempt to detain other individuals”.
Per CNN’s report: “The earlier incident started when [Pretti] stopped his car after observing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents chasing what he described as a family on foot, and began shouting and blowing his whistle, according to a source who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution.
“Pretti later told the source that five agents tackled him, and one leaned on his back — an encounter that left him with a broken rib. The agents quickly released him at the scene.
“‘That day, he thought he was going to die,’ said the source.
“Pretti was later given medication consistent with treating a broken rib, according to records reviewed by CNN.”
DHS did not respond to CNN’s questions about Pretti’s previous encounter or more details about efforts to collect information on protesters.
A memo sent earlier this month to agents temporarily sent to Minneapolis instructed them to “capture all images, license plates, identifications, and general information on hotels, agitators, protestors, etc., so we can capture it all in one consolidated form,” according to correspondence reviewed by CNN.
Trump held two-hour meeting with Noem last night amid backlash over second fatal Minneapolis shooting
Donald Trump held a two-hour meeting with homeland security secretary Kristi Noem and her top aide Corey Lewandowski in the Oval Office on last night after Noem asked to meet, the New York Times reported yesterday.
Trump did not suggest that Noem and Lewandowski’s jobs were in jeopardy, the source told the Times. But it is the latest sign that the president is in full damage control mode amid national outrage over the second fatal shooting of a US citizen this month by federal agents. Indeed, the killing of Alex Pretti has become a full-blown bipartisan political crisis for Trump, with even some Republicans in Congress calling for investigations.
Also present at the Oval Office meeting were several of Trump’s top aides, including Susie Wiles, his chief of staff, Karoline Leavitt, his press secretary, and Steven Cheung, his communications director.
The meeting came after Trump announced he was sending his “border czar” Tom Homan to oversee the operation in Minneapolis (along with reports of Greg Bovino being moved out of the city), and struck a more conciliatory tone in public remarks.
‘We are not a nation that guns down our citizens in the street’: Biden says Minneapolis violence ‘betrays our most basic values’
Former president Joe Biden has condemned the “senseless” killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti as betraying “our most basic values as Americans”, and praised the people of Minnesota for “speaking out against injustice when they see it”.
“What has unfolded in Minneapolis this past month betrays our most basic values as Americans,” Biden said in a post on X. “We are not a nation that guns down our citizens in the street. We are not a nation that allows our citizens to be brutalized for exercising their constitutional rights. We are not a nation that tramples the 4th Amendment and tolerates our neighbors being terrorized.”
Biden said Minnesotans protesting the federal government’s immigration crackdown have “reminded us what it is to be American, and they have suffered enough at the hands of this Administration”.
“The people of Minnesota have stood strong — helping community members in unimaginable circumstances, speaking out against injustice when they see it, and holding our government accountable to the people,” he wrote.
Biden did not mention Donald Trump by name, but alluded to the president, before calling for a “full, fair, and transparent investigation” into the killings.
Violence and terror have no place in the United States of America, especially when it’s our own government targeting American citizens.
No single person can destroy what America stands for and believes in, not even a President, if we — all of America — stand up and speak out. We know who we are. It’s time to show the world. More importantly, it’s time to show ourselves.
Now, justice requires full, fair, and transparent investigations into the deaths of the two Americans who lost their lives in the city they called home.
‘A militia that kills’: uproar in Italy over ICE security role at Winter Olympics
Angela Giuffrida in Rome and Jakub Krupa
A unit of US immigration and customs enforcement agents (ICE) will have a security role in the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Italy, sparking uproar and petitions against the deployment.
Sources at the US embassy in Rome confirmed a statement from ICE, the agency embroiled in a brutal immigration crackdown in the US, saying that federal agents would support diplomatic security details during the Milan-Cortina games but would not run any enforcement operations.
The statement said: “At the Olympics, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is supporting the US Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service and host nation to vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organisations. All security operations remain under Italian authority.”
Speculation over ICE’s involvement in the games fuelled outrage in Italy over ICE’s immigration operations, especially after the fatal shootings this month of the US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
Milan’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, told RTL radio that the agents would not be welcome in the city “because they don’t guarantee they’re aligned with our democratic security management methods”.
This is a militia that kills. It’s clear that they are not welcome in Milan, there’s no doubt about it. Can’t we just say no to Trump for once?
We can take care of their security ourselves. We don’t need ICE.
Two small opposition parties – the Green and Left Alliance (AVS) and Azione – have started petitions calling on the Italian government and the Olympics organising committee to prevent the ICE agents’ entry and involvement in the security operations. AVS said:
ICE is the militia that shoots people on the streets of Minneapolis and takes children away from their families.
Read the full report here:
Rand Paul calls for officers involved in Pretti shooting to be put on administrative leave ‘immediately’
Republican senator Rand Paul, who chairs the Senate homeland security committee, has said that the officers involved in the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti should “immediately” be placed on administrative leave “until an independent investigation is concluded”.
Paul, of Kentucky, wrote on X:
Local police routinely, put officers involved in deadly shootings on administrative leave until an independent investigation is concluded. That should happen immediately. I can’t recall ever hearing a police chief immediately describing the victim as a ‘domestic terrorist’ or a ‘would-be assassin’.
For calm to be restored, an independent investigation is the least that should be done.
Yesterday, he summoned three top immigration enforcement officials – Rodney Scott, the commissioner of CBP; Joseph Edlow, director of USCIS; and Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE – to testify before his panel on 12 February.
US border patrol commander Greg Bovino said on Sunday that the agents that were involved in the scene of Alex Pretti’s killing were still working “not in Minneapolis, but in other locations, that’s for their safety”.
‘Americans have died’: Fetterman calls for Trump to fire Noem
Democratic senator John Fetterman has called on Donald Trump to immediately fire Kristi Noem after the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Fetterman, of Pennsylvania, said in a statement:
President Trump: I make a direct appeal to immediately fire Secretary Noem. Americans have died. She is betraying DHS’s core mission and trashing your border security legacy. DO NOT make the mistake President Biden made for not firing a grossly incompetent DHS Secretary.
Unlike others in his party, Fetterman has broadly defended some aspects of Trump’s border policy and was one of seven Democrats who voted to confirm Noem as DHS secretary last year. He has also said he would not risk a partial government shutdown at the end of this week by voting to block DHS funding.
But he has joined other Democrats in criticizing federal actions in Minneapolis. In a statement yesterday, he called for a halt to so-called “Operation Metro Surge”. “Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti should still be alive. My family grieves for theirs,” he said.
The operation in Minneapolis should stand down and immediately end. It has become an ungovernable and dangerous urban theatre for civilians and law enforcement that is incompatible with the American spirit.
Other Democrats have called for Noem’s impeachment or resignation after she branded Pretti a “domestic terrorist” without evidence. While the White House insisted yesterday that Noem still has Trump’s “utmost confidence and trust”, press secretary Karoline Leavitt distanced the president from Noem’s rhetoric. “I have not heard the president characterize Mr. Pretti in that way,” she said, adding that Trump wanted the investigation “to play out”.
Kyle Rittenhouse has urged gun owners to “carry everywhere” in the wake of criticism from the Trump administration over Alex Pretti having a gun on his person when he was fatally shot by federal immigration officials in Minnesota on Saturday.
“Carry everywhere,” Rittenhouse wrote on X. “It is your right.” Per my colleague Ramon Vargas, this comes of course after Rittenhouse shot two people to death during 2020 protests in Wisconsin ignited by the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, where federal agents fatally shot Renee Good and Pretti this month. He was later tried on but acquitted of various felonies, including first-degree intentional homcide, having argued that he acted in justifiable self-defense.
On Sunday we reported that the National Rifle Association (NRA) had joined other gun lobbying and advocacy groups that are typically aligned with Donald Trump in calling for the Republican president’s administration to conduct a “full investigation” into the killing of Pretti. The 37-year-old ICU nurse was legally permitted to carry a gun and is a citizen of the US, where there is a constitutional right to bear arms.
More on that here:
‘If you give us the criminals, it all goes away,’ Trump tells Minnesota leaders
In an interview on on WABC radio’s “Sid & Friends in the Morning”, Donald Trump has said that his calls with Minnesota governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey were “very good” and “very respectful.”
Asked about the possibility of a compromise with Minnesota officials, Trump replied: “I think so.” He added:
What we need is their criminals. You know, they have criminals. And all I said, ‘Just give us your criminals. And if you give us the criminals, it all goes away.’ They’re there to pick up murderers.
Walz said in a statement yesterday that in his phone call with the president he reminded him that “the Minnesota Department of Corrections already honors federal detainers by notifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement when a person committed to its custody isn’t a U.S. citizen.”
The governor implored Trump on Sunday to withdraw federal agents from his state, saying: “President Trump, you can end this today. Pull these folks back; do humane, focused, effective immigration control – you’ve got the support of all of us to do that. Please show some decency. Pull these folks out.”
Police have told CNN that approximately 26 people were arrested last night after dozens of protesters gathered at a hotel in Minneapolis where border patrol commander Greg Bovino was believed to be staying.
Bovino has become the public face of the Trump administration’s crackdown in Minnesota, and calls for him to be kicked out of the city have grown after federal agents killed intensive care nurse Alex Pretti on Saturday. Bovino – who is expected to depart Minneapolis today – has been condemned for claiming baselessly that Pretti had been planning to “massacre law enforcement officers”.
