Do you know how crazy you have to be for Donald Trump to say what amounts to “hey, maybe you’re too much of a bloodthirsty Nazi?” So it is with Gregory Bovino, the pint-sized answer to the question “what would Adolf Eichmann do if he was MAGA?” Bovino is in charge of Border Patrol. Border Patrol and ICE have descended into Minneapolis in the past month, leaving violence, chaos and murder in their wake. They have truly left blood in the streets. The psychos who murdered Alex Pretti on Saturday were actually Border Patrol agents, under the command of Herr Bovino. Now Trump and his fascists are actually trying to tie this whole Minneapolis fiasco around Bovino’s neck and send him packing.
The first reports, via WSJ and CNN, had Trump ordering Bovino and his Border Patrol agents to simply leave Minneapolis and return to their “respective sectors” while Trump put “border czar” Tom Homan in place in Minneapolis. Reportedly, Trump and his Nazi minions thought Bovino and his people’s actions over the weekend were too much even for them, especially as Bovino’s team tried and failed to smear Alex Pretti as a domestic terrorist who was threatening federal agents. After CNN’s reporting, the Atlantic painted an even starker picture of Bovino’s future.
Gregory Bovino has been removed from his role as Border Patrol “commander at large” and will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon, according to a DHS official and two people with knowledge of the change.
Bovino’s sudden demotion is the clearest sign yet that the Trump administration is reconsidering its most aggressive tactics after the killing Saturday of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents under Bovino’s command.
Earlier today, President Trump appeared to signal in a series of social-media posts a tactical shift in the administration’s mass-deportation campaign. Trump wrote that he spoke with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz—whom the White House has blamed for inciting violence—and the two men are now on “a similar wavelength.” Tom Homan, the former ICE chief whom Trump has designated “border czar,” will head to Minnesota to assume command of the federal mobilization there, Trump said.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her close adviser Corey Lewandowski, who were Bovino’s biggest backers at DHS, are also at risk of losing their jobs, two of the people told me.
For the past seven months, Bovino has been the public face of a traveling immigration crackdown on cities governed by Democrats. Noem and other Trump officials gave Bovino the “commander” title and sent him and his masked border agents to Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans, and then Minneapolis. Bovino became a MAGA social-media star as he traveled the country with his own film crew and used social media to hit back at Democratic politicians and random critics online. Veteran ICE and CBP officials grew more and more uneasy as Bovino worked outside his agency’s chain of command and appeared to relish his role as a political actor.
The thing to remember is that Bovino and Noem were doing exactly what this administration wanted them to do, and when the blowback on the Trump people became too much, Bovino is now being blamed for all of it. Noem too by the sound of it. I don’t really think Tom Homan will be any better, because the fundamental problem still exists: Trump using armed federal agents and the military to terrorize Democratic-heavy cities and states.
Photos courtesy of Getty.