The Feverish View From Stephen Miller’s Office

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The Feverish View From Stephen Miller’s Office

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The intense backlash against ongoing immigration raids in Minnesota and the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents has led to some backpedaling and a change in tone from the White House. The much-vaunted mitigation even included a rare moment of moderation and a mea culpa from one of President Trump’s most notoriously radical aides, Stephen Miller. However, as Miller walked back his claims about Pretti being a “domestic terrorist,” on social media he and his team continued to promote a paranoid narrative that people protesting ICE are violent and even reminiscent of armed insurgents in the Middle East.

“Working in the most adverse conditions imaginable, hunted, hounded, followed, monitored and viciously attacked by organized violent leftists every hour of every day, our heroic ICE officers selflessly defend our sovereignty and the lives of our people. True courage and dedication,” Miller wrote in an X article on Tuesday.

The overheated comment came just as Miller was calling reporters to try to clarify the Trump administration’s initial comments on Pretti’s death.

In the hours after Pretti was shot multiple times on Jan. 24 in Minneapolis, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement saying he was present at the scene of an immigration raid aimed at “massacring law enforcement.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem also described Pretti as a domestic terrorist, a label she also applied to Renée Good, another activist who was killed by federal agents earlier this month. Both Pretti and Good were among the Minneapolis community members who arrived at the scene of the immigration raids. This type of rapid response is at the heart of the growing national movement opposing ICE.

Although rapid responders aim to disrupt immigration enforcement operations, they have been largely non-violent. ICE, by contrast, has killed dozens of people in the last year. Pretti was a licensed firearm owner and carrying a pistol when he was killed, but video analysis of the incident shows it was not drawn and officers removed it from his person before shooting him.

There are many signs that Americans are not buying into the Trump administration’s rhetoric on ICE. Recent polls have shown that a majority of Americans believe ICE is too aggressive, that it makes communities “less safe” and that its operations should be scaled back. More broadly, polls indicate that overall approval of Trump’s immigration policies is underwater, with a majority of people convinced that too many people are being deported and many do not fit the administration’s assertion that operations are focused on violent criminals. There are good reasons for public skepticism. While the Trump administration has always insisted that it targets “the worst of the worst,” data has shown that the majority of people detained and deported do not have criminal records. Trump appears to be well aware of all the backlash, and in a speech earlier this month he openly worried about having “bad PR people.”

That context helps explain why the response to Pretti’s death devolved into what Politico later described as “finger-pointing” on Jan. 27, with Noem attributing the initial comments to Miller, who contacted reporters suggesting that Pretti’s characterization as a terrorist was based on inaccurate Border Patrol information. This back-and-forth — along with a dramatic shakeup of officials leading the charge in Minneapolis — is indicative of growing political pressure and opposition to ICE. Yet while Miller dutifully participates in appeasing the public and authorities, he and his team also continue to entertain wild fantasies depicting the protesters as a terrifying guerrilla insurgency.

In other posts on X in the days following Pretti’s death, Miller accused Democrats of trying to incite attacks on ICE and fomenting “armed resistance.” Kara Frederick, who White House salary records identify as a special assistant to the president and senior policy adviser to Miller, also reposted a lengthy message from a man identifying himself as a special forces veteran that compared rapid responders to Middle Eastern insurgents because they track ICE vehicles, have encrypted group chats and receive “mutual aid from friendly locals.”

“When your own citizens build and operate this level of parallel intelligence and rapid response network against federal agents… you are no longer dealing with civil disobedience. You are dealing with distributed resistance that has learned the lessons of successful insurrections,” the man wrote.

On Instagram, Frederick also shared an article comparing criticism of ICE to a “psych operation.”

The White House did not immediately respond to TPM’s questions about how overheated and dramatic messages from Miller and his team comparing the protests to activism fit with the administration’s alleged shift in tone. Along with all the messaging portraying the protesters as part of a violent campaign, Miller has also continually advanced a highly hyperbolic Great Replace view of the overall immigration situation.

“The Democratic Party aspires, strives and fights for nothing other than a fully open border with the Third World,” he wrote Wednesday evening.

The administration’s public posture may be changing, but these posts are a window into Miller’s mind. It’s a scary, feverish place.

-Hunter Walker

Democrats want to know why Tulsi Gabbard was present during the FBI raid

Multiple reports have now confirmed that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was present during the FBI’s raid on an election office near Atlanta in Fulton County, Georgia, on Wednesday.

“Director Gabbard plays a central role in election security and protecting the integrity of our elections from interference, including operations targeting voting systems, databases and election infrastructure,” a senior Trump administration official told NBC News. “She has taken and will continue to take action consistent with President Trump’s directive to secure our elections and work with our interagency partners to do so.”

In an article on X on Thursday, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) questioned Gabbard’s presence during the raid.

“Why did Tulsi Gabbard participate in a raid on an election office? We must step up our efforts to protect our elections from interference by this administration,” he wrote.

At a press briefing Thursday, David Becker, a former DOJ attorney and executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, said, “there is no reason for the director of national intelligence to be at any voting site.”

“She has neither the authority nor the jurisdiction to evaluate anything in this polling place,” he added. “Having someone from another agency, especially an intelligence agency, is quite strange and unusual.”

—Khaya Himmelman

Georgia senator in the dark over Fulton County election raid

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) told TPM on Thursday that he has not learned anything further about Wednesday’s FBI raid on the Fulton County elections office.

Agents seized “all physical ballots from the 2020 general election in Fulton County,” “tabulation tapes from every voting machine used in Fulton County,” and “all voter rolls from the 2020 general election in Fulton County,” according to the warrant.

Ossoff did not appear optimistic that more information about the raid — which appears born out of President Trump’s conspiracy theory-inspired grievance following his 2020 election defeat — would become available.

“This is not an administration known for transparency,” he joked as the Senate elevator doors closed.

-Kate Riga

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