White House Insiders Detail Chaotic Response to Minneapolis Shooting
New revelations have emerged about the internal turmoil within the Trump administration following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last weekend. According to multiple sources familiar with the events, President Donald Trump rapidly recognised that the Department of Homeland Security's official narrative about the incident was failing to gain public acceptance, leading to a series of frantic adjustments and internal disagreements.
The Initial Response and Escalating Narrative
The incident unfolded just after 9 a.m. Central Time on Saturday when Customs and Border Protection agents confronted and shot 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti multiple times. Within minutes, CBP Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino alerted both the White House and Homeland Security about "shots fired in Minneapolis" through an official text chain.
Over the subsequent hour, President Trump consulted with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem while Minnesota Governor Tim Walz communicated with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. The governor reiterated his longstanding demand on social media platform X that federal forces be withdrawn from the state.
By 11.10 a.m. Eastern Time, DHS began briefing that Pretti had been armed, and at 12.31 p.m., the department issued its controversial statement accompanied by a photograph of the victim's legally-owned 9mm semi-automatic pistol. The statement claimed Pretti "wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement," had "violently resisted" agents, and forced them to fire "defensive shots" that proved fatal.
Administration Doubles Down Before Public Backlash
Between 1.22 p.m. and 1.43 p.m., Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller posted three tweets describing Pretti as "a domestic terrorist" who attempted "to assassinate federal law enforcement," a "would-be assassin," and simply "an assassin." This language closely mirrored Bovino's initial account of events.
President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary Noem, and Commander Bovino all maintained this position in their respective public statements and press conferences throughout the day. However, as eyewitness footage circulated across news outlets and social media platforms, public perception began diverging sharply from the official narrative.
Trump's Recognition and Internal Realignment
According to insiders who spoke with NBC News, President Trump paced through White House corridors while monitoring television coverage, quickly realising the administration's account was meeting widespread rejection. "He doesn't like chaos on his watch," one official revealed. A Republican lawmaker added: "He's the smartest guy I know, and he saw it wasn't playing well. The visuals were not playing well. He understands television... He saw it for himself."
By Sunday morning, the administration deployed multiple senior officials including Bovino, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to defend Operation Metro Surge across major news networks. Chief of Staff Wiles reportedly recognised the DHS messaging was backfiring and urged Trump to dispatch border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota to assume control of the situation.
The president spent much of the day fielding calls from anxious political allies and notably declined to defend Secretary Noem during a telephone interview with The Wall Street Journal, stating only: "We're looking, we're reviewing everything and will come out with a determination."
Policy Recalibration and Internal Tensions
By evening, conscious of both the substantial $170 billion funding behind the immigration policy and the need to avoid alienating swing voters during a midterm election year, Trump decided to implement changes. "The reality is, you can't stop what you're doing," a former White House official explained. "This is the whole point of ICE existing in these cities, and Minnesota is not going to be the last state that ICE goes to. Oregon was next. We were not done. We need to keep going."
On Monday, Trump announced Homan's deployment to Minnesota while returning Bovino to California. He held conciliatory calls with Governor Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, followed by a two-hour crisis meeting in the Oval Office with Noem and her top aide Corey Lewandowski. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Chief of Staff Wiles attended, though Deputy Chief of Staff Miller was notably absent. Leavitt had earlier declined to defend both Noem and Miller during a briefing with reporters.
Blame Game and Public Reassessment
A media "blame game" erupted after an Axios report published a quote from Secretary Noem stating: "Everything I've done, I've done at the direction of the president and Stephen." Miller responded with a statement to CNN suggesting CBP "may not have been following" established protocols from the earlier January 7 killing of Renee Good, adding that initial information about Pretti's death had originated entirely from Bovino's agency.
On Tuesday, Trump publicly addressed the killing for the first time, rejecting the assessment that Pretti was an assassin while declaring that "you can't have guns" at a protest. During a subsequent trip to Iowa, he told Fox News: "We're going to de-escalate a little bit," while denying this represented a "pullback" from Minnesota.
A Republican strategist summarised the situation to NBC: "The conservative base is p***ed," warning that the president risked "demoralizing" crucial voters needed in November through such erratic leadership. The episode reveals significant internal divisions and reactive decision-making within the administration following a controversial use of force that captured national attention.
