President Donald Trump tripped up during a gaggle with reporters in Iowa admitting that the administration botched its deadly immigration crackdown in Minneapolis before catching himself and quickly trying to smooth it over by incredibly comparing the change in the ICE operation leadership after the deaths of two American citizens to farmers who often have to “shake up their team” if they can’t harvest the crops fast enough.
It was a rare stumble for Trump, who has insisted that the two Minnesota residents killed this month, 39-year-old mother of three Renee Good and 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti, who worked at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis, were “domestic terrorists.” Trump and administration officials backed off badmouthing Pretti after a growing backlash and amid demonstrations attended by thousands of protesters over the weekend.
Two days after Pretti’s killing, the administration announced Monday, Jan. 26, that Trump was replacing the leader of Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, U.S. Customs and Border Protection commander at large Greg Bovino, with White House border czar Tom Homan.
During a trip to Urbandale, Iowa, on Tuesday, Jan. 27, for a rally to drum up support for increasingly unpopular Republicans ahead of the upcoming 2026 mid-term elections and to try to bolster his slumping poll numbers, Trump took questions from reporters at a stop at Machine Shed restaurant.
“Mr. President, why did you decide to shake up your leadership team in Minnesota?” a reporter asked.
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“I do that all the time,” an adamant Trump insisted before seeming to admit Bovino dropped the ball in leading the brutal immigration crackdown in Minneapolis underway for weeks now.
“Everybody here, these are a lot of owners of farms and places,” he said, referring to the patrons at the restaurant, “and you shake up your team if they can’t do the crops fast enough.”
Oops. That sure sounds like Trump throwing Bovino under the bus, but then the president quickly tried to clean it up.
“Look, we have an incredible team. We did something that nobody said was possible. We didn’t go back to Congress and ask for legislation. We closed the border,” Trump crowed before veering off topic to falsely brag about bringing in “trillions of dollars.”
“No other country in the world has done what we’ve done over the last year, and I think it’s the most successful first-term president. There’s never been a year like this in history,” he boasted.
Social media wasn’t buying Trump’s version of why Bovino, an unknown Border Patrol chief in charge of a small area in California along the U.S.-Mexico border before Trump elevated him to head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, was replaced.
“So he’s suggesting Bovino didn’t murder people fast enough. Homan will kill more?” this Threads user wondered.
Good and Pretti were both brutally killed two weeks apart by federal agents aggressively patrolling for migrants in the Twin Cities.
“His brain is mush,” another Threads user declared. Bergergirl 75 agreed, “He has no f-cking clue. Worse than normal.”
Trump has sent thousands of ICE agents into Minneapolis in a cruel and brutal crackdown that not only left two innocent Americans dead but has resulted in the arrests of hundreds of people without criminal records.
Trump had promised and campaigned on arresting and deporting “criminal” illegal immigrants who are “murderers and rapists,” but over the past year, and even just in the past few weeks in Minneapolis, nonviolent migrants and even children have been rounded up by the Trump administration and sent to detention centers.
