This is an adapted excerpt from the Jan. 26 episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander who has led Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, is out of his post in Minneapolis and will return to his previous job as sector chief in El Centro, California, a senior administration official told MS NOW.
Two officials briefed on the matter also told MS NOW that there will be a reduction of Homeland Security Department officers in Minnesota.
We do not know if this is the end of what the administration has called Operation Metro Surge, the sustained, large-scale paramilitary attack on the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, but we know it’s the end of something.
We don’t yet know whose heads will roll — that, we shall see — but we do know this: The administration appears to be in retreat.
Bovino’s sudden demotion is the clearest sign yet that the Trump administration is reconsidering its most aggressive tactics after the Saturday killing of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by Border Patrol officers under Bovino’s command.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin responded to reports of Bovino’s departure, writing on social media that he had “NOT been relieved of his duties,” which may be true, but it doesn’t exactly answer the questions about his future.
On Monday, The Atlantic’s Nick Miroff further reported that “Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her close adviser Corey Lewandowski, who were Bovino’s biggest backers at DHS, are also at risk of losing their jobs.”
So we don’t yet know whose heads will roll — that, we shall see — but we do know this: The administration appears to be in retreat.
On Monday, Trump held conciliatory phone calls with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. Both of those elected officials have been demonized by the president and his administration. Once Trump started criticizing both men, his Justice Department naturally put them both under federal investigation.
Even so, the personal threats against Minnesota’s elected leaders seemed to have the opposite of the intended effect, causing them to dig in and fight harder, and increasing their political support both in their state and around the country.
The federal government’s threats to the people of Minneapolis, federal agents’ increasingly unhinged and explosive violence toward the people of that city, and their killing of people who were protesting as well as observing and filming federal agents there, also seem to have had the opposite of the intended effect.
Those factors have caused the people of Minneapolis to recommit to being in the streets, to come out in larger numbers, with more resolve and more emotion.
It’s also sent support for them soaring all around the country. From Davenport, Iowa, to Green Bay, Wisconsin, to Twin Falls, Idaho, to Traverse City, Michigan, to New York City — protests in support of the people of Minneapolis could be seen in cities big and small, blue and red.
At every protest I’ve ever been to, at every protest I’ve ever covered, somebody at some point starts up the chant “This is what democracy looks like.” We’ve all heard that so much that it has become kind of protest wallpaper. It feels like a generic sentiment, but it’s literally true.
The unromantic, strong, simple truth of the matter is that in our country right now, every democratic muscle that we have is flexing, and, it turns out, that is way stronger than Trump.
In the wake of Pretti’s death and the massive protests that have followed, Republicans in the Minnesota state legislature have called for de-escalation and a pause in Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.
On Monday, Chris Madel, a leading Republican candidate for governor in the state, dropped out of that race, saying he cannot support his national party’s “stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so.”
It’s not just in Minnesota. Republicans in Congress have called the events in Minneapolis “incredibly disturbing” and called for a thorough investigation.
Republican governors are also speaking out. One called the operation, at best, “a complete failure of coordination of acceptable public safety and law enforcement practices, training, and leadership,” and at worst, “a deliberate federal intimidation and incitement of American citizens that’s resulting in the murder of Americans.”
Even Democratic senators who have sided with Republicans in the past and voted to fund the Trump administration have come out and said they will not vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which is a vote that has to happen this week.
Over in the House, the handful of Democrats who voted last week to fund DHS have started to apologize for it.
In a statement, Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York said he “failed to view the DHS funding vote as a referendum on the illegal and immoral conduct of ICE in Minneapolis.”
“I hear the anger from many of my constituents, and I take responsibility for that. I have long been critical of ICE’s unlawful behavior and I must do a better job demonstrating that,” he wrote.
In our democracy, which was designed to be decentralized, divided and responsive to the people, when the people push in a concerted way, the levers of power move.
Even the sinkhole of sniveling cowardice that has been America’s business so-called leaders have started, ever so tentatively, to express a mild discomfort. On Sunday, chief executives of Target, Best Buy, General Mills, Cargill, Land O’ Lakes, Hormel, U.S. Bancorp, the Mayo Clinic and other large Minnesota-based companies issued a public letter calling for an “immediate de-escalation” in the state.
Yes, too little, and yes, too late — but way more than they were willing to do before.
We even saw the old graybeards of U.S. politics rouse from their retirement pastimes and diversions. Former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton each issued pretty stirring statements condemning Trump’s attack on Minneapolis and praising the strong, peaceful protests of the people who responded.
We are conditioned to be bored and underwhelmed by Congress, by candidates, by brand-name politicians and even by state elected leaders. We are conditioned to expect the actions of anyone in politics who is not the president to be not very powerful.
But when the people push in a concerted way, the levers of power move in our democracy, which was designed to be decentralized, divided and responsive to the people. There is a political response, a small-d democratic response.
Yes, that response includes the president’s poll numbers sinking further into the bedrock (including on immigration, which he really wanted to be his signature issue), but the other forces of political gravity start to work as well — in Congress, in state government, in party politics, in business.
Protest — principled, peaceful, relentless protest — works. The American people are using democratic means to save a democracy, which is the only way to win in the long term.
Allison Detzel contributed.
