White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to shut down mounting questions about Donald Trump’s unraveling immigration crackdown in Minnesota by dragging Barack Obama into the mess. Instead, she poured gasoline on a fire.
Facing reporters as Minneapolis reeled from protests, political backlash, and the fatal shooting of ICU nurse Alex Pretti by federal agents, Leavitt leaned on a familiar Trump tactic as political cover.
Trump’s decision to send hardline border czar Tom Homan to town drew blowback from critics who saw Leavitt’s rhetoric as a racial dog whistle—and a sign of a White House scrambling to change the subject.
The exchange came when a reporter pressed Leavitt on whether Homan had been sent in to defuse tensions on the ground.
“Well, Mr. Holman is the point person for cooperating with state and local authorities in corresponding with them again to achieve this level of cooperation to subdue the chaos on the streets of Minneapolis,” Leavitt said, praising his law enforcement background.
Then seemingly out of nowhere, she raised a copy of a web article ready to use as a prop and invoked one of Trump’s racist tropes against Obama, ephasizing his middle name, Hussein,
“In fact, this is a Washington Post headline from nine years ago, 2016: ‘Meet the man the White House has honored for deporting illegal immigrants.’ And I would remind everyone in this room that it was former President Barack Hussein Obama who awarded a medal to Mr. Homan. So he’s obviously very qualified. He has the full trust and faith of the president.”
The deliberate use of “Hussein” set off immediate outrage online, where critics accused Leavitt of following Trump’s long-standing playbook of weaponizing Obama’s middle name to stoke xenophobic resentment.
“I don’t know what I hate more about Leavitt in this! Her attitude or that she said Obama’s full name in such a racist manner!” one critic wrote.
Another called out the tactic for what it was: “The use of his middle name has always been a racist dog whistle. People should start calling her by her full name, Karoline Cuntflaps Leavitt.”
Another said bluntly, “She is a racist Nazi piece of shit.”
Trump has a long record of invoking Obama’s full name — a habit dating back to the birther conspiracy, when Trump falsely claimed that Obama was not a U.S. citizen.
The emphasis on Obama’s middle name has persisted well beyond that era, functioning as a deliberate cue meant to stoke suspicion, particularly among white voters receptive to xenophobic and Islamophobic tropes. By echoing that language from the White House podium, Leavitt signaled alignment with the president’s instincts at a moment when his immigration agenda is collapsing under public pressure.
Anger extended to what the White House was trying to distract from.
Homan’s sudden deployment to Minnesota came after days of chaos surrounding Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations that have already resulted in two civilian deaths—including Renee Nicole Good on January 7—which have triggered nationwide protests.
Republicans have grown uneasy as images of militarized ICE agents dominated the news cycle, dragging Trump’s approval rating down to a net negative 18 percent, according to The Economist.
Behind the scenes, Trump’s decision appeared reactive rather than strategic.
On Monday morning, Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade repeatedly floated the idea of sending Homan to Minnesota to “take control” of the situation. By mid-morning, Trump followed through. CNN’s Brian Stelter noted the timing, saying, “Maybe Trump was watching, maybe he wasn’t,” before pointing out that the announcement came just 20 minutes after Kilmeade’s on-air push.
@kaiba.setio @Fox News ♬ original sound – SETIO
“The bottom line is, these images are not the ones that are going to help you keep the majorities,” Kilmeade warned Trump on air.
Homan’s arrival was widely viewed as a Hail Mary—a last-ditch effort to stabilize an immigration operation that has become politically radioactive, even among Republicans. Administration officials later told NBC News the president is “concerned” about whether the Minnesota operation can continue after Pretti’s killing.
Homan met with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, with Walz’s office saying the sides “agreed on the need for an ongoing dialogue.” But the optics of reshuffling leadership did little to calm critics who say the underlying policy remains unchanged.
“Obama did NOT have a private, lawless and violent group of thugs terrorising American communities! So be quiet soulless ghoul!” said one reaction fired at Leavitt.
Another commenter zeroed in on Leavitt’s delivery: “F—kin learn how to say his name correctly! Your an embarrassment and you shouldn’t say his name is what he did was using the laws of this land correctly and letting the courts decide the outcomes.”
Leavitt’s attempt to link Trump’s actions to Obama’s record relies on a thin but deliberate truth.
Homan did rise through ICE under Obama and was appointed in 2013 as executive associate director of Enforcement and Removal Operations. In 2015, Obama awarded him the Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Service, recognizing his role in overseeing deportations during a period of record migration. Immigration advocates at the time labeled Obama the “Deporter-in-Chief.”
But former Obama officials have noted that Homan’s posture then was markedly different. While he floated the idea of separating families in 2014, it was rejected by then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson as “heartless and impractical.” The policy only became reality under Trump, when Homan reemerged as the public face of a far more aggressive and punitive system.
Critics say Leavitt’s remarks weren’t about context or history—they were about deflection.
“The weaponisation of Obamas middle name to feed their racist bases fear is sickening,” one response said.
