In Minneapolis, the mad winter continues. On Tuesday night, Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar was addressing a gathering at her monthly town hall in the city. Central to her message was that Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem should be removed from her role. She was echoing the torrent of criticism directed at Noem in the days since the killing of Alex Pretti from both Democratic and an increasing number of Republican political voices.
“Kristi Noem must resign or face impeachment,” Omar said. Seconds later, a man emerged from the seated gathering and used a syringe to spray Omar with a colourless liquid that was described as having a strong smell. He was quickly wrestled to the ground by security and removed. All of this was filmed. Omar was, naturally, shaken, but she continued to speak.
“I feel okay. I feel that it is important for people whether they are in elected office or not to not be intimidated,” Omar said afterwards.
“As I said. I have survived war and I definitely won’t let something like this intimidate me.”
The attack on Omar appeared to have caused her no physical harm. But it was another act of violence and another example of the sense of siege that has taken hold of political and civic life in Minneapolis since local protester Pretti was shot by – it emerged on Tuesday night – two officers from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). Where will it end?
On Sunday in Minneapolis, the soon-to-be-vanished Ice “commander-in-chief” Greg Bovino had stood in front of the television cameras and delivered a weird homily on the consequences of “choices” that achieved the unusual feat of being at once sinister and daft. In time, it may become a minor but imperishable reference point to the darkness that has fallen over the United States in late January of its 250th year.
Bovino appeared, in that moment, almost excited by the notoriety he acquired during his short time in Minneapolis. His delivery was one of camp, performative deliberation. He was completely unaware that in Washington, Donald Trump’s instincts were at work. Whether or not Bovino remains a part of the immigration enforcement is one issue. But like many of those watching Bovino’s jaw-dropping, varnished strangeness, Trump, or someone close by, understood the urgent need to whip him from the public consciousness – and television cameras – with the brutal efficiency with which Bovino himself has gloried in lifting civilian targets. It was announced that Tom Homan, the experienced “border tsar”, would go to the Twin Cities.
By Sunday night, Trump appeared to realise what his senior cabinet officials either could not – or were too fearful to voice. Like every American and as an avid media consumer, Trump had, surely, by then seen the killing of Alex Pretti from every angle.
In the hours and days after the shooting to death of Renée Good by an Ice agent on January 7th, Homeland Security secretary Noem led the administration in condemning the dead woman, asserting that she had attempted to “ram” the agent with her car, despite multiple camera footage conflicting that interpretation.
The manner of Good’s death was shocking. But the brutal casualness with which Pretti’s life was taken last Saturday morning – with up to 10 bullets fired even as he lay on the street – could not be explained away and was not open to character assassination. Nonetheless, Noem saw fit to label him a “domestic terrorist” within hours of his death.
In forming his cabinet, Trump decided to appoint Noem as secretary of Homeland Security despite – or possibly because of – her revelation, in her memoir, that she had personally shot and killed Cricket, the family hunting dog, after deeming it “untrainable”.
Now, Trump was forced to defend Noem as he prepared to give a rallying speech in Iowa advertising the strength of the economy.
“I think she is doing a very good job,” he said with no great conviction.
Protesters gather outside as US president Donald Trump visits a restaurant in Urbandale, Iowa. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images
“The border is totally secure – you forget we had a border I inherited that had millions of people coming through. You know, people forget, as soon as you accomplish something, it goes into history and nobody wants to talk about it. We had a border that caused all of this problem. Biden, and the Democrats, caused this problem.”
Not for the first time in recent weeks, Trump lamented the ingratitude of the public towards the transformation that has taken place in the southern border. Moreover, he seems frustrated at how that conspicuous success has somehow flipped into the spiralling unease and suspicion with which Ice is regarded. On Tuesday afternoon, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries reflected a newfound aggression within the opposition party by calling for Noem’s resignation.
“We have seen her slander not just one but two American citizens, patriotic Americans who were killed without justification on the streets of Minneapolis in the last few weeks. She is deeply unqualified and in the event that she is not terminated, we are prepared to initiate impeachment proceedings against her in the House of Representatives.”
The Republican climbdown, as signalled by president Trump, from judgment and condemnation in the wake of Pretti’s death has been remarkable. Just days ago, vice-president JD Vance (whose visit to Minneapolis last Thursday to soothe tensions didn’t exactly go to plan) once again referred to the “engineered chaos” in the city as “the consequence of far-left agitators, working with local authorities”.
Stephen Miller, the perma-furious deputy chief of staff, retorted to Connecticut senator Chris Murphy, via social media: “An assassin tried to murder federal agents and this is your response.”
Trump has since attempted to put a continent between himself and that perspective. He committed to an “an honest and honourable” investigation into the killing of Pretti and made nice with Minnesota governor Tim Walz, one of the chief targets of his vitriol for the past year.
“It couldn’t have been a nicer conversation. In fact, I said to my people it’s hard to believe that’s the same guy I see on television, or I watch in the debate not doing so well. Because we had a reasonable conversation, a very good conversation. If you believe the conversation, he’d like to get this thing over with.”
Had recent events in Minneapolis not been so awful, the hurried attempts among the Maga Republicans to fall into step with this new tune might have seemed comical.
“I mean, he doesn’t hold a grudge,” marvelled Fox host Will Cain, trying to decipher Trump’s sudden bromance with Walz.
“He’s certainly vicious when you’re on the wrong side of him.”
Trump’s words of equanimity may have been voiced through gritted teeth. But the crisis in Minneapolis hints at deeper problems for the administration. Because Pretti was legally carrying a firearm on Saturday, the issues of whether he was killed while exercising his first and second amendment rights will be the subject of ongoing debate. There is also the fact that he seemed to be going to the aid of another citizen when he was dragged to the ground and, seconds later, shot dead.
“And then they come over to try to perform some type of medical aid by ripping his clothes open with scissors and then manoeuvring his body around like a rag doll,” Stella Carlson, the witness who filmed the crucial video of Pretti’s killing, told CNN last night.
President Donald Trump speaks to guests as he visits the Machine Shed restaurant on January 27th, 2026, in Urbandale, Iowa. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images
The president’s sudden switch in tone has been so swift that it has caught the Maga movement off guard and underlined just how desperate officials such as Noem are to be seen to be on-message. Even Miller was forced to concede on Tuesday that Ice agents “may have breached protocol” during the barbaric taking of Pretti’s life.
Elsewhere, other cracks are surfacing. On Friday, fresh from the glittering success of his visit to Minneapolis, Vance spoke at a Right to Life rally in Washington, DC. “Why is the GOP pushing more abortion messaging in a midterm election year?” Trump loyalist Laura Loomer demanded to know on X.
“Trump gets it. The GOP will blow the midterms.”
Her post elicited a prickly response from Vance that the president had encouraged him to accept the invitation to speak, adding that “it’s interesting that some ‘conservative influencers’ spend all of their time attacking the administration and sowing division.”
It is interesting. And interesting too that there is no obvious successor to the uncanny bewitching spell Trump has cast over leading Republicans and its wider Maga base in setting the prevailing message and tone – and keeping dissenting voices in check.
The deeper he goes into his second term, the more apparent the limitations of his imitators and would-be dauphin become.
Which is why on Tuesday evening Trump was back out before the cameras, speaking to the people in wintry Iowa, selling his message on the economy, on immigration, on recent triumphs on foreign shores, back reassuring his voters.
But the discontent is growing and Minneapolis remains the centre point of the resistance for the brutal immigration enforcement tactics of Trump’s administration.
Choices, as Bovino said on Sunday night.
And Trump knew then what his must be.