Within hours of federal immigration agents shooting and killing Alex Pretti, Donald Trump’s political operation kicked into high gear. The White House’s Stephen Miller, for example, said the intensive-care unit nurse was a “domestic terrorist” and a “would-be assassin.” Gregory Bovino, who helps lead Border Patrol operations, told the public that Pretti intended to “massacre” law enforcement personnel.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem peddled a variety of absurd lies, including her bizarre insistence that the victim was “brandishing” a weapon.
The falsehoods weren’t just at odds with eyewitness accounts, they were also plainly contradicted by unambiguous video evidence that documented exactly what happened. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison told The Washington Post that the Republican administration’s claims were “flat-out insane.”
Four days later, we know what members of Team Trump did. We also know when and why they launched their smear campaign against a man who was killed by federal agents.
There’s far more uncertainty, however, about how they did it.
Noem and Bovino, for example, read eerily similar talking points to reporters over the weekend, in some cases using identical words and phrases. Who wrote that script? For now, there’s no clear answer to that question, though Axios reported that the schisms and finger-pointing are increasingly difficult to miss:
White House officials are blaming Customs and Border [Protection] for furnishing inaccurate information, while others are targeting Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and top Trump adviser, six sources with knowledge of the situation told Axios.
The Axios report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, went on to include a quote relayed from Noem, who said, “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen.”
That’s an extraordinary quote in its own right, in part because it suggests that the secretary who leads one of the nation’s largest Cabinet departments is taking direction from a White House aide, and in part because it’s a classic example of an official trying to redirect blame for an intensifying scandal.
As for the rest of the West Wing, a reporter asked the president on Tuesday whether he believed Pretti was acting like an “assassin.” Despite Miller’s rhetoric, Trump shook his head and replied, “No.”
A day earlier, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to put some distance between the president and Miller’s comments.
Or, put another way, four days after an ICU nurse was fatally shot by federal agents, and federal officials defamed the victim as part of an Orwellian gaslighting campaign, Team Trump is increasingly divided against itself.
In theory, a capable and competent president would intervene and get his operation on track. In practice, the United States does not currently have a capable and competent president, suggesting the administration’s breakdowns and divisions are likely to get worse.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
