WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is facing a growing revolt from his MAGA loyalists over what they deem a ‘betrayal’ of border guards after he vowed to ‘de-escalate’ tensions in Minnesota.
The US leader – who addressed supporters in Iowa for more than an hour on Tuesday evening – finds himself torn between two rival camps, with bombshell new polls finding the majority of Americans blame him for recent bloodshed at the hands of ICE officials.
The coming days have the potential to define Trump’s second term in office amid a frenzied response to the shooting of Alex Pretti by border guards in Minneapolis on Saturday.
Multiple bystander videos showed an agent shooting and killing the intensive care nurse, 37, after a roughly 30-second scuffle.
The clips appeared to contradict statements by the Department for Homeland Security (DHS), which said the shots were fired ‘defensively’ against Mr Pretti as he ‘approached’ them with a gun.
It came just weeks after the January 7 killing of 37-year-old Renee Good, who was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer less than a mile away.
Yet, when handed an hour-long opportunity to address the topic in front of a crowd of his most enthusiastic supporters on Tuesday, the president decided to make no mention of the recent bloodshed in Minneapolis.
He, instead, focused on the economy, tariffs, wages and inflation as perceived achievements of his administration in an event designed to kickstart the long run-in to the November mid-term elections.
Trump only briefly touched on immigration during a section of his speech where he panned Joe Biden’s policies on the subject.
The President’s silence on the story consuming the States is likely to frustrate an electorate already baying for answers on the recent shootings.
It emerged on Tuesday that Trump’s team is taking the brunt of the blame for the rising chaos and increasingly deadly clashes in Minneapolis.
While the White House has deflected responsibility to Democrats in Minnesota for not cooperating with federal immigration enforcement, Americans say it is the administration’s fault that a second shooting of an American citizen has occurred within a month.
One third of the 1 027 registered voters surveyed in a new Daily Mail poll pin the blame on Trump for the violence in Minnesota.
Another 20 per cent say the missions of ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are specifically at fault, according to the poll conducted by JL Partners.
Taken together, 53 per cent lay the blame at the feet of the Trump administration, compared with 35 per cent who point the finger at Democrats.
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