In recent days, the president’s softer tone toward Minnesota and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation is making him look weak, Blaze Media host Steve Deace said on American Family Radio Wednesday.
After two ICE-related civilian deaths, news reports are indicating a scaled-back federal stance in Minnesota even as Trump praises two political enemies, Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
Tom Homan, the president’s all-business point man who locked down the border left open by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, has been sent to work similar magic in the Star of the North.
Trump, meanwhile has taken to Truth Social, his social media platform, to lavish praise on Walsh and Frey, who have bitterly opposed the president during the ICE operation which has now resulted two deaths by the gunfire of agents.
Whether the deaths of Renee Good, who ignored the commands of ICE agents to get out of her vehicle before driving hard into another agent, or Jeffrey Pretti, who carried a handgun, albeit a licensed one, and ignored commands of agents before a scuffle, can be justified by Homeland Security makes no difference to angry, determined protesters.
The protesters, by the way, are an organized and well-funded group bent on chaos, a former Special Forces warrant officer says.
“What’s unfolding in Minneapolis right now isn’t ‘protest.’ It’s low-level insurgency infrastructure, built by people who’ve clearly studied the playbook,” Eric Schwalm wrote on X over the weekend.
Schwalm was reacting to an eye-opening report from Cam Higby, an independent journalist. After watching them communicate on Signal, Higby broke the news this week that national far-left groups are planning, communicating, sharing intel, and giving orders to thousands of ICE-fighting activists in Minneapolis.
“This isn’t spontaneous outrage. This is C2 (command and control) with redundancy, OPSEC (operational security) hygiene, and task organization that would make a SF team sergeant nod in recognition. Replace ‘ICE agents’ with ‘occupying coalition forces,’ and the structure maps almost 1:1 to early-stage urban cells we hunted in the mid-2000s,” said Schwalm, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It’s that sophisticated level of resistance to whom Trump appears to be backing down, Deace told show host Jenna Ellis.
“The president's worldview is art of the deal. There are moments where that has been to his tremendous benefit as a politician, and therefore our benefit as his constituents and as Americans,” Deace said.
“Now he’s up against forces where there’s no deal to be made. At that point, you have to recognize the level of conviction you’re up against. The only ‘D’ word here that applies is defeat. Someone will be defeated. It’s a zero-sum game. There will not be a half measure, a half victory,” he said.
That makes the climate in Minnesota much different than the foreign theater, where Arab leaders want access to the West.
It’s in the foreign theater that Trump is respected for taking action, Deace said.
Indeed, Trump ordered air strikes against the Assad regime in Syria in 2017 after the regime used point gas against the rebel-held city of Idlib. More than 100 people were killed.
More recently, Trump ordered strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities last summer and sent elite Delta Force troops to nab Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
The U.S. justified the Maduro operation citing longstanding accusations of Maduro’s involvement in drug trafficking and the disputed legitimacy of his 2024 reelection.
“He's made examples. So therefore, there are precedents set that everybody knows, like the carrier, the Lincoln, that's heading to Iran as we speak. Everybody knows that in the foreign theater, he will act if you push him too far,” Deace said.
But examples at home...
“There isn’t one," Deace warned. "Tim Walz should have been arrested for fraud already. Instead, he’s getting audiences with the president and essentially getting elevated as a legitimate statesman."
Trump has granted roughly 1,500 pardons for individuals who had been convicted of crimes in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 events at the U.S. Capitol, CBS News has reported. But those who ordered the arrests have not been held accountable, Deace said.
“Everybody's gotten away with it. Nobody's been punished for anything,” he said.
That’s the domestic backdrop that Trump carries as he reverses course in Minnesota.
“There's no reason to fear him on the domestic side. You can make deals once you've made an example, but we've made no examples,” Deace said.
It’s quite possible that Trump is making moves to give Homan better bargaining position in Minnesota, Deace allowed.
If that's true then Homan’s job, already tough, appears tougher in the wake of comments from Frey on Tuesday. Frey took to X after a Tuesday meeting with Homan to say he “made it clear that Minneapolis does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws.”
The liberal mayor wasn’t playing nice on social media the way Trump did when he said earlier this week. “I just had a very good telephone conversation with Mayor Jacob Frey, of Minneapolis. Lots of progress is being made!”
Betrayed by Frey's response to Homan, Trump responded Wednesday that Frey is “playing with fire.”
“Without any scalp, our enemies domestically don’t fear (Trump) at all,” Deace said.
Regardless of how Minnesota plays out from here, the Trump fearlessness must return in the face of opposition that seeks to thwart his every move.
It’s not enough to say the administration is on the side of law and order, of America. Those fighting the ICE operation in Minneapolis – and similar opponents in other cities – aren’t motivated the same way.
“They do not want to share this country. They will not share this country. They want to conquer this country,” Deace said.
“These blue city-states, they're essentially the new Confederacy. They are attempting to implement Jim Crow from the inside out and create no-go zones for the opposite belief system. It's just over a different slate of issues. But it's the same sort of philosophy,” he said.
