Trump’s a bully – but even he’s running scared of the ICE snatch squads

Behind the bluster lies a president with a sharp instinct for danger, retreating when humiliation looms – even as his enforcers charge blindly ahead, writes Jon Sopel

We all know the narrative of Donald Trump the bully: the man who throws his weight around, who intimidates, harangues and undermines anyone who stands in his way, who believes that might is right. Over the past year, we’ve seen it on display again and again. You can see it in his facial expressions: those tightly pursed lips, scowling eyes and nostrils, fists planted on the Resolute Desk, that can sniff the weakness in an opponent from 100 paces.

A less appreciated side of Donald Trump – and it’s the side of him that makes him a far more formidable and subtle politician than the cartoon caricature allows – is that he has a finely tuned sense of danger. Like African kudu antelopes whose ears swivel and start to twitch as an early-warning radar when they become aware there might be a predator in range, so Donald Trump has an acute sense of when political humiliation is awaiting him.

That marks him out from the fascistic clowns and goons he’s surrounded himself with in this administration. In Trump 1.0, there were those in the room who would dare to push back, to point out the pitfalls of a particular policy. This time round, the only words that Trump hears from his aides are “yes, sir”. And they seek to win extra Brownie points by going further and faster than they were ever asked.

We’ll return to the cast of misfits who’ve delivered the policy disaster that is Minneapolis in a minute, but it’s not just what’s been unfolding in the upper midwestern state that was once a byword for tedium and polite dullness.

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve had the president threatening to sink beneath the waterline the Western Defence Alliance, Nato, with his insistence that he was going to annex Greenland. He had to have it. By hook or by crook, with the clear threat that he would take this Danish sovereign territory by force if necessary. But then he came face to face with European solidarity (normally an oxymoron) and completely backed down from his threats. It looks as though he might get some sort of deal to bolster US forces on this arctic piece of rock – but that was always on offer.

On his way back from Davos, he then gave that interview, which managed to combine offensiveness with breathtaking ignorance about the role of Nato forces in Afghanistan. In it, he said they “stayed a little off the frontlines”. Leave aside the revolting chutzpah of a man who has never put on a uniform; it was just plain wrong. More than 450 Brits paid the ultimate price in Afghanistan. Many more came home with life-altering injuries.

As the backlash grew, Trump climbed down and posted on his social media platform about the bravery of Britain’s warriors who fought alongside American servicemen and women. He knew he was on the wrong side of this – and course corrected.

Posters of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both US citizens fatally shot by immigration agents, are seen during a candlelight vigil in Minneapolis (AFP/Getty)

Now, the one thing to understand about a Trump U-turn is that you are never going to hear the word “sorry”. Nor are you going to hear him say “I made a mistake”. Sure, it might look more gracious if he did, but that just ain’t gonna happen. Nevertheless, the fact of the matter is he does climb down and U-turn and fold. He understands the limits of what he can get away with.

Which brings us back to the events of Minneapolis. The Trump cast list is beyond parody. There’s the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) man who was in charge of the operation when Alex Pretti was shot multiple times as he lay on the ground, defenceless and offering no resistance. Boy, did they pick the wrong guy to build their “domestic terrorist” narrative. He was an intensive care nurse who worked in a hospital for military veterans and has no criminal record.

The man in charge of thugs terrorising the city’s citizens was pumped-up Greg Bovino, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the Sean Penn character in One Battle After Another, Steven J Lockjaw. Bovino works under the Department of Homeland Security head, Kristi Noem. I’m pretty sure she was in Barbie: The Movie – always seen with a new ICE-appropriate outfit – big cowgirl hats and pseudo fatigues.

Nurse Alex Pretti, who was shot dead by federal agents (US Department of Veterans Affair)

But the real “brains” behind the crackdown is Trump’s right-hand man, Stephen Miller. He is a provocateur who seemingly does want to start a war on Minneapolis’s streets to justify even more extreme measures that might help Trump come the midterm elections in November. A sort of Dr Strangelove de nos jours.

The three of them tried to spin a narrative that no one was buying: Pretti was about to carry out a massacre. He was armed (true, he had a pistol that he never tried to take from its holster on his thigh – but Minnesota is an “open carry” state, so it was entirely lawful) and had to be stopped. It was self-defence on the part of the ICE officers who felt their lives were in danger.

The reason that no one was buying this narrative was that Pretti and all the other protesters were armed with something far more dangerous than a 9mm handgun. They had smartphones that recorded – seemingly from every angle – the sequence of events that led to his untimely death.

Donald Trump listens as White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller speaks (AP)

The propagandists in the White House, who have sought to shape and define reality this past year, irrespective of the facts, have found themselves defeated and made to look preposterous with their flagrant untruths about this episode. Trump recognised the way this was spinning out of control and the wider danger it represents. They did not.

Trump’s other great skill is his visceral sense of where public opinion lies. His promise to crack down on illegal immigration was one of the principal reasons he won the last election. But the way he’s gone about it has offended so many people. The snatch squads, the masked faces, the brutality, the killing of American civilians exercising their right to protest have been jarring – because it just feels fundamentally un-American.

Trump is right to be nervous. His desire to be surrounded by “yes” men and women has served up a policy catastrophe for which he is likely to pay a heavy price. And his opponents now sense weakness.