The White House is Scrambling to Contain Fallout Over Minneapolis Killing

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Bulwark Takes

Episode Overview

Title: The White House Is Scrambling to Contain Fallout Over Minneapolis Killing
Date: January 26, 2026
Hosts: Sam Stein, Andrew (Bulwark Team)
Theme:
The episode dives into the Trump White House’s rapidly shifting response to the political and public fallout after the recent killing in Minneapolis by federal agents. Sam Stein and Andrew unpack the administration’s attempts to walk back aggressive rhetoric, personnel changes within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and mounting political pressure at state and national levels. The hosts bring a mix of seriousness and sardonic humor to their breakdown.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Urgency Behind the White House’s Personnel Shakeup

Timestamps: [02:04]–[05:25]

• Tom Homan Takes Over Minneapolis Operation:
  The administration announces that Tom Homan will lead federal operations in Minneapolis, replacing Greg Bavino.
  • Why Homan? He’s seen as comparatively more experienced and less extreme than Bavino and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s protégé Ori Lewandowski, despite his own controversial reputation.
  • Notable Quote:
    Andrew: "Homan has been sort of ostracized and frozen out of this whole thing by Noem and Lewandowski in recent months. So when it was announced that Homan was going to go in and take over the Minneapolis operation, a lot of people pricked up their ears for all these reasons..." [03:27]
• Significance of the Move:
  Both hosts agree the shift isn’t merely about Homan’s qualities, but rather a signal that Trump and his team recognize something urgently needs to change due to public pressure.
  • Sam: "It was that they felt like they had to make a change...the politics were bad, the optics were worse, that real bad shit was happening." [04:29]

2. Signaling a Political Pivot

Timestamps: [05:28]–[07:43]

• Bipartisan Credentials and Escalating Local-Admin Tension:
  The White House starts touting Homan’s past service under Obama, painting him as a calming, bipartisan figure—aiming to ease tensions with Minnesota’s state government, which has been vocally critical of DHS/ICE.
  • Andrew: "They’re kind of pitching him as a guy who’s going to go in there and maybe try to like, smooth things over a little bit at this moment of maximum hostility..." [05:39]
• Uncharacteristic Trump Statement:
  Trump issues a statement depicting a calm, cooperative phone call with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, promising to work together—an abrupt departure from his usual inflammatory style.
  • Sam: "He didn’t call him tampon, Tim. He didn’t say nasty things about the state of Minnesota and the fraud and Ilhan Omar and how rich he's gotten...this is a uncharacteristic post from Trump." [06:47]

3. Communication U-Turn in the White House

Timestamps: [07:43]–[12:20]

• Change in Rhetoric:
  Hosts note a dramatic switch in the messaging—where the administration previously used aggressive language (“this guy basically deserved to get shot...”), now spokespeople like Caroline Levitt express empathy and promise an investigation.
  • Andrew: "But you really cannot emphasize enough, like, unless you watched it all happen over the weekend into today, how much a switch has been flipped here..." [08:48]

Notable Press Briefing Exchange:

• Q (Media): “Does the President agree with them [Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem] calling [Alex] Preddy a terrorist?”

• A (Caroline Levitt):
  “I have not heard the President characterize Mr. Petty in that way. However, I have heard the President say he wants to let the facts and the investigation lead itself.” [09:50]

• A (Continued):
  “Nobody here at the White House, including the President...wants to see Americans hurt or killed...we mourn for the parents. As a mother, myself, of course, I cannot imagine the loss of life.” [10:17]

• Sam: “Totally normal. Totally normal. Response should have been the day one.” [10:48]

• Cynicism on Effectiveness:
  Andrew: "The question is like, how do they think it can even now be the day three [response]?...They already prejudiced the investigation. They already went out of their way to spoliate the crime scene..." [10:53]
  He argues this sudden pivot can't undo the prior damage, including inflammatory comments by officials and mishandling of the scene.

4. Reaction from the Political Right

Timestamps: [12:41]–[13:53]

• Greg Abbott’s Remarks:
  Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a major border hawk, tells the conservative Mark Davis Show that the White House is now “working on a game plan to recalibrate ICE”—citing concerns over political fallout and the need to “work from a different direction.”

  • Abbott: “I know that they're working on a game plan to...recalibrate and maybe work from a different direction to ensure that they get back to what they wanted...remove people...without causing all the kinds of problems and fighting in communities that they are experiencing right now.” [13:19]

• Sam’s Take:
  Sam underscores that if even Abbott is publicly acknowledging the crisis, the administration knows how politically dire the situation is.

5. The Limits of PR Damage Control

Timestamps: [13:53]–[14:21]

• Irreparability of the Situation:
  Sam sums up: "Once you go about doing what you’ve done, you can’t really undo it. It’s clear as day that they slandered a dead man’s reputation within...First they killed him. They didn't just slander. Yeah. Like they killed right after killed him, then slandered his reputation. All in the name of furthering this project that is terrorizing cities, ripping up communities and that people, frankly, are just over. They're just over it.” [14:19]

• Cynical Banter:
  Sam jokes Stephen Miller should quit in protest over being thrown under the bus, underscoring the chaos within the administration.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Tom Homan’s Appointment
  Andrew: "Tom Homan...in the sort of, just lay resistance imagination is a, is a guy they hate. Not for, not for no reason...But behind the scenes...he’s a lot of not insane people, somewhat more sane, somewhat more experienced and disciplined than the people who are currently running the show..." [03:11–03:27]

• On Trump’s Statement
  Sam: "It wasn’t so much that like they picked Tom Homan. It was that they felt like they had to make a change...the politics were bad, the optics were worse, that real bad shit was happening." [04:29]

• On Rhetorical Shift and PR Strategy
  Andrew: "[Caroline Levitt] refused to defend comments made by Stephen Miller." [09:16]
  Sam: "Response should have been the day one." [10:48]

• On Political Irreversibility
  Andrew: "They already prejudiced the investigation. They already went out of their way to spoliate the crime scene and, and to keep, you know, facts on the ground from being collected." [10:53]
  Sam: "You can’t pretend the whole thing never happened. There are people dead in the streets." [12:06]

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Important Timestamps

• [02:04]–[05:25]: Inside the Homan appointment and internal DHS conflicts
• [06:28]–[07:43]: Trump's unusually moderate public response and efforts to de-escalate
• [07:43]–[10:48]: Switch in White House media strategy, with Caroline Levitt’s press room remarks
• [12:41]–[13:53]: Texas Gov. Abbott signals a “recalibration” of ICE from the right flank
• [13:53]–[14:21]: Hosts acknowledge lasting damage and public exhaustion with administration tactics

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Episode Tone and Language

The hosts balance urgency and seriousness with their trademark sarcasm and incredulity. They are direct and often blunt about the political motivations at play, punctuating analysis with acerbic humor and pointed asides.

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This episode offers context and analysis for listeners seeking to understand not just the facts of the Minneapolis incident’s fallout, but also the chaotic, reactive, and frequently contradictory posture adopted by the White House under extreme public pressure.

Transcript

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[Andrew]

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[Andrew]

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[Sam Stein]

And for delivery everyone, it's me, Sam Stein, managing out of the Bulwark. Still unshaven after this weekend. I probably should have shaved because I look pathetic.

[Andrew]

You look great.

[Sam Stein]

Clean cut Christmas sweater wearing Washington commander's hap wearing Andrea of Morning Shots. What's up man? How you doing?

[Andrew]

I haven't, I haven't shaven either. You just can't tell on account of my my condition.

[Sam Stein]

Andrew is actually only 16 years old. We're here to talk about something serious. Which is the why does appears I'm putting air quotes around appears I will debate how serious this is to be walking back or trying to find an off ramp or whatever cliche you want to to use where they are in Minneapolis and Andrew are going to talk about how serious we think it is. So first indications came this morning, Andrew, when it was announced that Tom Homan, who is been sort of on the outs on the border patrol, was going to be deputized more or less to run the show in Minneapolis. We got this bleat from President Trump that said Homan's now the guy in charge, he's hanging over there a bit of a change. We had some internal discussions about how significant it is and you and I were actually in agreement that it was significant. Can you explain why?

[Andrew]

Yeah. So basically what we're getting out of, out of this, it's not just that that Homan is going in there. Every indication we're getting is that he is in. And Greg Bevino, the border patrol kind of villain, little guy who's been running the stuff there. Yeah, little guy, Nazi haircut, big leather coat, he is going to be out. He's no longer going to be running the day to day of this. It's a little strange because Tom Homan kind of in like the sort of just lay resistance imagination is a, is a guy they hate. Not for, not for no reason. Right. I mean this is the guy who got, you know, the $50,000 in the kava bag.

[Sam Stein]

Allegedly. Allegedly.

[Andrew]

Allegedly. Allegedly got that. This is a guy who's like constantly on tv, you know, doing the tough guy act on, on behalf of the administration's border policies. But behind the scenes as far as like the, the spectrum of, of like DHS decision makers is concerned, he is a lot of not insane people, somewhat more sane, somewhat more experienced and disciplined than the people who are currently running the show, Bavino and especially DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and her boy toy Ori Lewandowski. Oh, and the other thing is that Homan and Noem do not get along. Homan has been sort of ostracized and frozen out of this whole thing by Noem and Lewandowski in recent months. So when it was announced that Homan was going to go in and take over the Minneapolis operation, a lot of people pricked up their ears for all these reasons that it seems like Trump is and his people are realizing that whatever's going on there, it's not working out for us very well right now. We're going to make a something of a change here.

[Sam Stein]

That was my, that's so that it wasn't so much that like they picked Tom Homan. It was that they felt like they had to make a change. Right. Like also you have to, I guess it's worth understanding like this. This is such an insular operation that they don't really have many people to pick. Right. It's not like in past where you might say, oh man, this is really bad. We need to bring in someone from the outside to run it. Maybe find like a business leader or someone who's, you know, done Something sort of organizationally akin to running some sort of, you know, FEMA like, operation in a city or anything with leadership or organizational skills. Normally you might do something like that. Right. You deputize someone with better credentials. Not this widows. But the fact that they felt like the current leadership was not doing the job right that they had to bring in home in was a real signal to me that they felt like they needed to change, that they felt like the politics were bad, that the optics were worse, that real bad shit was happening.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Sam Stein]

Now, I don't know if that was going to make any difference, but.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I mean, like, kind of the funny thing that they're. They're sort of pitching him. They're. They're suddenly now like, playing up the fact that he was also a Border Patrol official under Barack Obama, you know, that he has like, these sort of like, bipartisan bonafides. They're kind of pitching him as a guy who's going to go in there and maybe try to like, smooth things over a little bit at this moment of like, maximum hostility between the state government of Minnesota, which, I mean, the stuff that they have been saying out of the state government has just been remarkable to see. Like, they are, they are not hiding at all how, how much they think that DHS and ICE and Border Patrol are, like, making things awful for the city. And it's not just the political leadership. It's like the police chief of Minneapolis and the head of the commissioner of the State Bureau of Prisons, you know, Bureau of Correct. And, and all of these people. And so, like, the hope is kind of that Homan will be able to kind of turn back the clock a little bit in some of this stuff. And by the way, this is not just tea leave stuff. Like, it's not just. They sent in Homan and we're all kind of like, let me get to teasing out what that probably means.

[Sam Stein]

Let me get to that. Because the next step, which was the bigger one, I am getting to it. You know, everyone always accuses me of interrupting, but I do need to make the trains run on time. Okay, I'm that guy. It's a bad historical reference. All right. The other thing that happened was Trump puts out this bleep today. Governor Tim Walls called me with the request to work together with respect to Minnesota. It was a very good call. And we actually seemed to be on a similar wavelength. Told Governor Walls that I would have Tom home and call him and that we are looking for our. Any and all criminals that they have in their possession. The Governor very respectfully understood that there's a lot of unnecessary commas in this bleep and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota and so am I, blah, blah, blah, blah. Look, I mean, he didn't call him tampon, Tim. He didn't, he didn't say nasty things about the state of Minnesota and the fraud and Ilhan Omar and how rich he's gotten and, you know, all this stuff, this is a uncharacteristic post from Trump. And the fact that Walls called him and that they had a, what he called a, you know, respectful conversation, that in itself was the biggest sign to me that Trump is, in fact trying to de escalate here.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I mean, he didn't. He hasn't stopped the Ilhan Omar.

[Sam Stein]

Oh, maybe I missed it.

[Andrew]

He mentioned it. He's still going after Ilhan Omar. But, yeah, no, there's been a deluge of this stuff. There's been a lot of anonymous reporting out of the administration that they are just like, sort of like, whoa, we really mishandled this stuff over the weekend with, you know, the Stephen Miller quotes about, you know, Alex Preddy being a domestic terrorist who was, who was, you know, trying to assassinate law enforcement, stuff like that. And then in the White House press briefing just, just a little bit ago, Carolyn Levitt came out. This is like the sixth press briefing or something like that that some agent of the done since, since this shooting. Right. And for the most part, they have been, you know, totally guns blazing. You know, Bavino has talked about it. Cash Patel's gotten up and talked about it. Kristi Noem has talked about it. They've all been doing this same shtick of like, you know, this guy basically deserved to get shot for one reason or another. Carolyn Levitt now on the other side of whatever pivot has apparently happened. Totally different story. She stuck very much to. This was a tragedy on Saturday. We're going to investigate it. We're going to get to the bottom of it fully. You know, President Trump feels for the parents. I feel for the parents. You know, I can't imagine, she says, like, as a mother, I can't imagine what that's like. She also is constantly throwing in the, and by the way, where you also feel for the families of people killed by illegal immigrants or whatever, obviously they're going to continue to do their, their shtick in that way. But, but you really cannot emphasize enough, like, unless you watched it all happen over the weekend into today. Like how much a switch has been flipped here in terms of the way they communicate. I mean, she, she, she refused to to defend comments made by Stephen Miller.

[Sam Stein]

And made well, let's get to that. You know, let's play it, let's just play it, because Stephen Miller was out there on the Twitters saying that Alex Preddy was an assassin and a terrorist and that, you know, then Bovino was saying, you know, he was, you know, thirsty for murder and stuff like that. Total bullshit, lies. I mean, begging you to just disbelieve your own eyes. Carolyn Levitz asked about it, and here's what she says.

[Caroline Levitt]

MARY thanks, Caroline.

[Grow Therapy Announcer]

To follow on Gabe's question, Secretary Noem said Alex Preddy committed an act of Stephen Miller labeled Preddy a domestic terrorist.

[Andrew]

Does the President agree with them?

[Caroline Levitt]

Ms. Look, as I've said, I have not heard the President characterize Mr. Petty in that way. However, I have heard the President say he wants to let the facts and the investigation lead itself.

[Andrew]

Was he alarmed to hear his top.

[Grow Therapy Announcer]

Officials referring to him in that way, rushing to that judgment? Danny, go ahead.

[Commercial Announcer]

Thanks, Caroline. On Stephen Miller's comments, will Stephen Miller be apologizing to the family of Alex Pretty for calling him an assassin who tried to murder federal agents despite the fact that, as you say, this is still under investigation?

[Caroline Levitt]

Ms. Look, again, this incident remains under investigation and nobody here at the White House, including the President of the United States, wants to see Americans hurt or killed and losing their lives in American streets. And we mourn for the parents. As a mother, myself, of course, I cannot imagine the loss of life, especially losing one's child. And that same empathy from the President goes for the parents of angel families, parents of victims of illegal alien crime.

[Sam Stein]

Totally normal. Totally normal. Totally normal. Response should have been the day one.

[Andrew]

RESPONSE well, and yes, like obviously it should have been the day one. RESPONSE the question is like, how, how do they think it can even now be? THE day three RESPONSE Right? I mean, like, like this, all this stuff about, like, we're going to let it play out, we're going to let the investigation play out. The investigation can't really play out yet. They've already prejudiced the investigation. They already went out of their way to, to spoliate the crime scene and, and to keep, you know, facts on the ground from being collected. And so like the idea that, that now they can sort of retreat to this posture of why can't we all just be adults about this? Why can't we all just be reasonable? You know, all we really want is you Know, to be able to work with local law enforcement about, you know, ice, Isaac detainers and things like that, and to have them help us out while we're. While we're going after the worst of the worst. I mean, like, you can imagine a world in which they led with this, not, not even just on Saturday, but that they led with this weeks ago before they launched this insane sort of like, militarized occupation of the city of Minneapolis, where they were like, look, there's a lot of fraud around here. We're going to surge operations around here, but we're going to keep cool. We're going to do, you know, we're just going to be normal sort of like immigration enforcement officers about all this. But that's not what they wanted. That's not what Kristi Noem and Donald Trump and Stephen Miller wanted. They wanted this, this sort of, like, shock and awe campaign. And it is only now that it has gone so bad and they realize that it's gone so bad that they are trying to be like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Back up. Can we just, like, pretend this whole thing never happened? But you can't. You can't pretend the whole thing never happened. There are people dead in the streets.

[Sam Stein]

I mean, the only thing that Steve Miller can do at this point is he can quit. He's got to quit and protest. I mean, just. He should leave the White House. Really. How can you work for. How can you work for Donald Trump when he's throwing you under the bus like that? I think Stephen Miller's got to go.

[Andrew]

I don't think he's going to quit. I think he's going to.

[Sam Stein]

I'm joking.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Commercial Announcer]

Jesus Christ.

[Sam Stein]

All right. The way we know that it's bad for the White House came later in the day when Greg Abbott, Texas Governor Hawk as can be on the Border, went on the Mark Davis Show. And if you don't know Mark Davis, Google him.

[Andrew]

You're in for a treat.

[Sam Stein]

It's you can I. You can follow. You can look at some of the tweets, but be prepared. Don't let your children be near the computer screen. He said that the White House is, quote, working on a game plan to recalibrate ICE and that he believes that, you know, the White House is on and understands the need and the concerns that Davis noted about ISIS popularity ratings going down.

[Greg Abbott]

I know that they're working on a game plan to make sure that they are going to now, let's say, recalibrate and maybe work from a different direction. To ensure that they get back to what they wanted to do to begin with. And that is to remove people from the country who are here illegally, who were allowed in by Joe Biden, especially those who pose the most danger and go about their job in a more structured way to make sure that they are going to be able to remove these people without causing all the kinds of problems and fighting in communities that they are experiencing right now.

[Sam Stein]

So if you have people like Greg Abbott saying that, then you understand the severity of the problem that you have in your hands from a political perspective. But I'm with you, Andrew. You know, it's like they may be looking for an off ramp or whatever. They know they might have a problem on their hands and they have to tone down the rhetoric. But once you go about doing what you've done, you can't really undo it. It's, it's clear as day that they slandered a dead man's reputation within.

[Andrew]

First they killed him. They didn't just slander. Yeah.

[Sam Stein]

Like they killed right after killed him, then slandered his reputation. All in the name of furthering this project that is terrorizing cities, ripping up communities and that people, frankly, are just over. They're just over it. So, yeah, we'll see what happens with the, with the walk back that they try to do. Andrew, thank you, buddy. I really appreciate it. For those who have watched us, thank you for doing that too. We've been following the story from start. We're going to follow it to finish. If you have any thoughts, ideas, comments, just drop them in the comments feed. Subscribe to the Bulwark subscribe to Bulwark takes this podcast feed because we appreciate your support. We'll talk to you soon. Take care.

[Andrew]

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[Sam Stein]

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