Beltway Insider: Trump Softens Tone, Not Position, Minnesotans Continue Protests, Alex Pretti, NRA, DC Crash
- Details
- Category: Haute This Issue
- Published on Saturday, 31 January 2026 16:40
- Written by Janet Walker
President Trump has softened his tone on immigration after the shooting of ICU Nurse Alex Pretti but has refused to temper his ICE efforts in Minneapolis, whose citizens are becoming a bellwether for protests around the country.
The President's job approval rating, according to the American Research Group News featured in The New York Times for the period ending January 24, 2026, of those polled who approve of his effectiveness as President increased by one percentage point to 35% and those who disapprove of his effectiveness as president increase one percentage point to 63%. A slight 3% of the population polled have no opinion. Ratings are calculated weekly.
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Trump Softens Tone on Immigration
President Trump has appeared to soften his tone after the death of Alex Pretti, 37, an ICU nurse executed on the streets of Minneapolis after a brief altercation with agents, and is removing Senior Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino, and replacing him with Minnesota border czar Tom Homan.
Bovino, the most senior officer in charge of the ICE Operation, is directly responsible for the civilian casualty under his command. The deaths of Renee Good, 37, a mother of three, shot three times in her vehicle, and Alex Pretti, 37, shot ten times, after he was subdued, beaten, and not resisting.
While the deaths of Good and Pretti, have gained global attention, to date 32 citizens have died as a direct result of ICE. Many died in detention centers, but others, like Good and Pretti, and Keith Porter, 43, a Los Angeles man, who was shot and killed on New Year's Eve, by an off-duty ICE officer after firing his weapon in to celebrate the new year.
Even as Minnesota governor Tim Walz, who has labeled the tactics of ICE as a "campaigned of Organized brutality," has been unable to stop federal officials from trampling over the state's autonomy and allowing states to run themselves as they see fit. Only in hot button issues, will republicans defer to the autonomy of states rights, in such instances of Abortion or Cannabis, when this government, as no other presidency has exhibited this type of strongarm tactics, wants to avoid confrontation with voters, they refer to states rights to run themselves as they see fit.
"The state and the cities argued in a lawsuit filed on Jan. 12 that the decision to send some 3,000 immigration agents to Democratic-led Minnesota over the objections of local officials amounted to a violation of state sovereignty under the 10th Amendment. They also described the deployment as an illegal attempt to coerce them into cooperating with civil immigration enforcement. The Trump administration dismissed that legal theory and defended their actions as a lawful campaign to crack down on illegal immigration," The New York Times reported.
The Judge, the Honorable Kate Menendez, denied the petitioners request. The judge stated the state failed to meet the burden for preliminary injunction. Menendez was appointed by former President Joseph R. Biden. Lawyers for the state have indicated they will continue to fight the insurgence of ICE Agents into their community, and repel Operation Metro Surge, that began in Minneapolis in 2025.
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Spawns National Walkouts/Closures
The determination of Minnesotans, who are daily protesting in subfreezing weather, has spawned citizens across the United States to join in ICE OUT protests, and are asking that participants, walk out, close business, and include efforts to break the economy by not shopping and especially not shopping at big box stores, like Walmart and Costco.
The efforts in cities effected by ICE has been surprising, as efforts to continue targeting extreme cold weather communities in the belief that the weather will act as a deterrent to citizen interaction, protest, and more importantly documentation of the events as they unfold.
Alex Pretti Shooting Creates Wedge in Trump Support
President Trump is losing his base. During the 2024 election, he was a friend to White America, the Proud Boy, and other confederate flag waving believers who profess that a more diverse America is a weaker America. Now, after Alex Pretti was executed on the streets on Minneapolis, without cause, even white American has grown wearing of supporting his extreme dictates.
Granted Alex Pretti's murder was not the only concerning encroachment into the base that caused the foundation to crack, but that slaughter drove a wedge into the base, who now are taking to social media, and in chatrooms, podcasts, X, and other platforms, are espousing a new political position, and this one doesn't include Trump or his cronies.
Alex Pretti, unlike Renee Good, although both American citizens, white, and killed in cold blood by the itching trigger fingers of ICE Agents told either implied or directly to make a statement, was exercising his second amendment rights to carry a weapon.
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, protects the individual right to keep and bear arms. It reads: "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
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The National Rifle Association, (NRA), who unequivocally supports the Second Amendment, and has donated millions of dollars to Republican candidates to further espouse their position on the right to bear arms, and the right to carry a legal concealed weapon, and to support those efforts when Democrats present bills that place restrictions on any portion of the second amendment.
And now, Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, helping a woman who had been violently shoved to the ground by an overzealous ICE agent, was executed mob style, on the street for exercising his second amendment rights to bear arms.
Again, by fanatical agents, whose behavior has been criticized by law enforcement officials, who explain in a detailed examination, that the action violate modern policing, and that is not simply due to the ten shots fired into the back of the victim as he lie dying in the street, but for the take-down, and chaotic efforts to secure the subject.
"The Washington Post spoke with eight experts — all of whom have served in law enforcement or studied officer behavior — who pointed to a sequence of actions by federal immigration officers Saturday morning that go against training guidelines designed to de-escalate potentially volatile situations. [. . .] But they were unanimous in saying that the situation probably could have been avoided by employing basic policing tactics that prioritize public safety and communication," The Washington Post reported.
With more than a dozen videotapes of the execution, law enforcement experts explain key points, including "egregiously deviating from police norms, failing to ignore taunts from the crowd, and reacting to them with aggressive action, failing to use less lethal tactics, including the white car to force Pretti, face down to handcuff him, instead, what the world witnesses is a group of allegedly trained federal agents, failing to communicate with the suspect and with each other, swarming around, and themselves escalating the situation from minor to deadly.
Once Pretti's weapon, which was holstered, was recovered by the agent, his single shout of "Gun," did nothing more that provoke the agents, believing the suspect had somehow manifested a second weapon, and had transformed into a large, muscular, man, and was preparing to jump up and in a single blow subdue each of them.
According to the tapes, at the moment the gun was discovered, the Agent who murdered Pretti, and denied him his Second Amendment Freedoms, unholstered his own weapons in without provocation proceeded to pump ten rounds into Pretti's back as he remained on the street.
Once Pretti became entangled with ICE Agents after helping a woman to her feet, he never returned to an upright position. He was locked down, in a fetal position, and executed in the same position.
While the tapes focus on the Pretti, the woman he assisted also tried to assist him, and was again pushed down, and if the two hadn't back away quickly could have easily been murdered on the street of Minneapolis by ICE agent determined to send a message.
Now that Trump has crystallized his point to all Americans, those permitted to carry a concealed weapon, run the risk of being executed for it.
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Liam Conejo Ramos and Father Ordered Released
Five year old Liam Conejo Ramos, the five year old preschooler, detained in Minnesota wearing his bright blue winter hat, and carrying a Spiderman backpack, who has captured the attention of a Trump wearing nation, has been ordered released by U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, no later than Tuesday.
Liam, along with his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, who ICE Agents detained in the driveway of their home, were taken into custody and transferred to the Family Detention Center in Dilly, Texas. His innocent image and the methods of ICE Agents, which followed the murder of Renee Good, provided enough fuel to spark nationwide protests.
Although it remains unclear if they are permitted to return to Minnesota or will be forced to self-deport.
"Ultimately, Petitioners may, because of the arcane United States immigration system, return to their home country, involuntarily or by self-deportation," Biery wrote. "But that result should occur through a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place," reported The Washington Post.
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Coronavirus Total
At the order of the President of the United States, the U.S. no longer recognizes the value of The World Health Organization. The CDC has recommended every person from age six months, including senior citizens should receive at least one shot of an updated COVID-19 vaccine, annually. The death toll from Covid-19 has dramatically decreased, as has transmission of the virus. Even as confirmed new cases continue each week, fewer are dying from each new variants.
For the seven days ending January 24, 2026, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases reported by the World Health Organization increased by 12,884 to 779,060,919. The total worldwide death toll increased by 519 to 7,109,103 deaths. The United States has stopped providing Covid data to the World Health Organization. (Data updated January 11, 2026, from the World Health Organization).
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DC Crash Preventable NTSB Admits
The January 2025 crash of American Eagle Flight 5342 and a Blackhawk Helicopter running training missions over the Potomac was absolutely preventable, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy, said, this week, during a meeting
Homendy said, "Investigators found in their nearly year-long review of the tragedy that it was "100 percent preventable." Air traffic controllers were routinely overwhelmed and probably desensitized to the number of near misses at the airport, investigators concluded, while pilots were left to manage visual separation from other aircraft on their own, without being told how narrow their flight paths were," reported The Washington Post.
Details of the crash, which until recently has not been discussed, indicated the Black Hawk, was flying beneath the American Airlines jet, and with only 75 vertical feet separating the two, the Black hawk clipped the wing on the jet, causing the both to crash into the Potomac.
The American Eagle flight, carrying 64 passengers and crew, were on their final decent returning from Wichita, with approximately 3000 feet before touchdown, when the military helicopter who had been given instruction to deviate from its current path, collided with the jet.
Among the passengers on the jet were 28 U.S. Figure Skating athletes, coaches, and family members returning from a national development camp held in conjunction with the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas. This included eleven skaters, all between the ages of 11 and 16, as well as thirteen accompanying parents and four coaches
Three crewmember on the Blackhawk also died in the crash.
Hearing that the FAA refused to heed warnings, or that the skies above Regan International were extremely congested, and the possibility of misread sightings, by the Blackhawk pilot, who had not been adequately trained by the U.S. Army, to operate night mission in congested spaces, or that the Air Traffic Controllers, who are notoriously overworked and underpaid had, repeatedly, for years, attempted to explain the need for more Air traffic controllers only to be rebuffed, is little comfort for the families of those lost on January 29, 2025.
For more information on President Donald Trump: Whitehouse.gov.
Sources: Various © Articles covered by Copyright protection.
Janet Walker is the publisher, founder, and sole owner of Haute-Lifestyle.com. A graduate of New York University, she has been covering international news through the Beltway Insider, a weekly review of the nation's top stories, for more than a decade. A general beat writer/reporter and entertainment/film critic, she is also an accomplished news/investigative news/crime reporter and submitted for Pulitzer Prize consideration "Cops Conspire to Deep Six Sex Assaults" in the Breaking News Category and was persuaded to withdraw the submission. Ms. Walker has completed five award-winning screenplays "The Six Sides of Truth," "The Assassins of Fifth Avenue," "The Wednesday Killer," "The Manhattan Project," and the sci-fi thriller "Project 13: The Last Day." She has also published "Unholy Alliances: A True Crime Story," a non-fiction narrative, "Days, Times, Seasons, and Events: A Collection of Poetry & Prose," and "Songs of Freedom: A Collection of Biblical Teachings," which can be purchased here. She is a member of the Authors Guild, the Los Angeles Press Club, the National Writers Union, and a member of the International Federation of Journalists.
