It’s Thursday, January 29. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Why fear is now just part of the job for politicians. Patrick McGee on Elon Musk’s broken robotaxi promise. Colin Quinn on the funniest novel of all time. And more.
But first: Has Alex Pretti’s killing changed the politics of immigration?
Despite earlier signs of de-escalation, the standoff between Minneapolis officials and the White House continues today with no end in sight.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump warned that Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey is “playing with fire” if he continues to refuse to use local police to enforce immigration laws. That followed a meeting between Frey and border czar Tom Homan, Trump’s new point man in Minneapolis, who was sent there after the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti enraged a city already on the brink of full-fledged civil unrest.
Today, we zoom out to bring you four stories about how the turmoil in Minneapolis has shifted the politics of immigration—and what comes next.
We begin with a piece from Ruy Teixeira on how Trump overplayed his hand on immigration. The president has staged a masterclass in how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, argues Ruy. And now, the Democrats are poised to win a shutdown fight in Washington over ICE funding. Read Ruy on the fast-moving changes to the immigration landscape:
Up next: Mike Pence. Writing in The Free Press today, Trump’s estranged former vice president decries both the Democratic leaders of Minnesota and Trump’s own cabinet for creating such a combustible situation: “The situation in Minnesota is a warning,” he writes. “The American people are watching, and they are right to expect better.” Read his full op-ed:
Third: Madeleine Rowley looks at the numbers behind the noise to determine whether “Operation Metro Surge”—the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis launched by the administration last month—is actually achieving Trump’s goals.
And finally, we return to a report from on the ground in Minneapolis. Olivia Reingold and Austyn Jeffs talk to gun owners in Minneapolis about a question that has dominated the conversation in the wake of the killing of Alex Pretti: Should he have been carrying a gun to the protest that day? From gun ranges in the Twin Cities, they report on how Pretti’s death has scrambled views on the Second Amendment.
—The Editors
On Tuesday, a man charged Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar during a town hall and sprayed her with a foul-smelling substance. Though Omar is safe, the attack follows a three-year trend of rising attacks against members of Congress. Tanner Nau reports on the decline of decorum, and how we can turn down the temperature.
Imagine a world where Tesla owners can send their self-driving vehicles to collect cab fares while they’re at work. Elon Musk says it’s possible—and that a Tesla robotaxi network will be active in the U.S. “by the end of this year.” But Tesla has indefinitely postponed the business model amid regulatory problems, and Musk doesn’t appear to have a plan for what’s next. A robotaxi utopia sounds great, writes Patrick McGee. But for now, it may be just another tech pipe dream.
In the latest episode of Old School, legendary comic Colin Quinn dives into a classic that still makes him cry with laughter: John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. The novel follows the misadventures of an overweight, pretentious misanthrope still living with his mother in 1960s New Orleans. It’s a book that turns fart jokes into high art. Listen to Quinn’s conversation with Shilo Brooks wherever you get your podcasts.
The border patrol agents who arrested and allegedly shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis this weekend have been placed on administrative leave, the Department of Homeland Security told Fox News yesterday. A preliminary DHS report contradicted claims from federal officials that Pretti was “brandishing” a weapon before he was shot.
New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani said the city needs to “tax the richest New Yorkers and most profitable corporations” to close an unexpected $12 billion budget deficit, amid what he’s called a fiscal crisis “at the scale that’s actually greater than what we saw. . . during the Great Recession.” Mamdani blamed former mayor Eric Adams for leaving the deficit, accusing the previous administration of “gross fiscal mismanagement.”
Amazon said it plans to lay off around 16,000 white-collar workers in the second round of cuts intended to hit a 30,000 layoff target. The cuts, which amount to about 10 percent of the company’s corporate workforce, are aimed at “removing bureaucracy,” according to a blog post shared on Wednesday by senior executive Beth Galetti.
Southwest Airlines has officially retired its open seating boarding protocol, ending a nearly 50-year policy that set the airline apart from its competitors. The move is part of a broader effort to boost revenue.
President Trump said a “massive Armada” is headed toward Iran, warning Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that “time is running out” to make a deal on nuclear disarmament. Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said the regime’s military forces will respond “immediately and powerfully” to any aggression from the U.S.
Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad faced one of her would-be assassins in a New York court yesterday, as the trial over the Iranian government’s plot to kill her on U.S. soil continues. (Read her essay about how she survived the plot, “How the Country I Was Taught to Hate Saved My Life.”)
Gold prices hit a record high yesterday, triggering fears over inflation and the health of the dollar. “We are headed for [an] economic crisis. . . that will make the 2008 financial crisis look like a Sunday school picnic,” economist Peter Schiff told Fox Business on Tuesday afternoon.
The FBI searched an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia, over accusations of alleged voter fraud during the 2020 election. The county’s voter base is largely non-white and backed Joe Biden that year. Trump’s claims of fraud are buoying the investigation, one source familiar with the matter told CNN.
In case you missed it, catch a Tuesday morning CBS News segment with the Trump-voting pastor who helped reunite a deported mother with her young children. And read the full story, reported exclusively by Carrie McKean in The Free Press, “The Mother Deported Without Her Kids.”
"Refuse to. use local police to enforce immigration law", speaks volumes about respect for the rule of law. Sometimes the law is unjust or does not meet the public sense of fairness but democracy provides the means of changing the law. It is complicated and protracted but the process is there to be used. Any attempt to do an end run around that process the very rule of law that sustains our democracy.
Amos 3:3 “Can two walk together, except they be agreed.” For a politician, the former vice president fails to understand that the groups of which he speaks do not agree on the meaning of his words. The definitions of important words like “justice,” “love,” “liberty,” “freedom,” and “law and order” disagree so violently that agreement is impossible. Nothing will be achieved until the laws of the land are understood as the only language that matters,