In today’s newsletter: White House insiders detail how the Trump administration scrambled to respond to a second fatal shooting in Minneapolis. Why a “snow drought” in some states is concerning scientists. And previewing Team USA ahead of the Winter Olympics.
Here’s what to know today.
Inside the White House's major pivot on Alex Pretti's shooting
President Donald Trump and his top allies rushed to portray Alex Pretti, the man fatally shot by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis, as a “gunman,” a “domestic terrorist” and a “would-be assassin.”
But as the president absorbed clips of the shooting and the news coverage around it, he grew increasingly disturbed by what he saw, according to one senior administration official. And his own aides have broken into ugly rounds of finger-pointing over the botched initial response. NBC News spoke to 15 people about the administration’s reaction to the shooting.
An initial DHS statement said Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” That came after nearly an hour of negotiations among officials over the exact wording. But even then, not all of the key players at the White House had signed off on it, and one only realized it was out after seeing it on Fox News.
As administration officials fanned out on the Sunday shows to blame Pretti, Trump fielded calls from allies who worried that the situation was spiraling out of control. By the evening, he signaled to aides he was ready to change his public posture and the leadership team.
“He doesn’t like chaos on his watch,” one official said.
The president’s pivot showcases a delicate balance between his substantive goal of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants and appealing to swing voters ahead of the midterms, while placating a MAGA base that doesn’t want to see any sign of retreat. Some allies say it’s inconceivable he would alter the underlying aim of the mission.
Read the full story here. And follow the latest on our liveblog here.
More Minnesota news:
- New videos show an altercation between Pretti and federal agents the week before his death. Pretti is seen kicking the taillight of a federal vehicle in the Jan. 13 video, which then shows an agent pushing him to the ground.
- The president’s leadership shakeup marked a triumph for border czar Tom Homan — and a comedown for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino.
- Rep. Ilhan Omar suggested that Trump’s “hateful rhetoric” toward her and the Somali community contributed to the attack on her at a town hall.
- Senators are exploring off-ramps, including a short-term funding bill for DHS, to prevent a shutdown while Democrats lay out reform ideas.
Western states face 'snow drought' as snowpack hits record lows
Despite last weekend’s winter storm that delivered snow and ice to much of the country, the season has not delivered out West, where several states, including Colorado and Utah, face a snowpack drought.
Given those conditions, scientists are growing concerned about the water supply and a risk of wildfires later in the year. Because the mountain snowpack in Western states runs off as water throughout spring and summer, the snow levels now influence how much water farmers will be able to use to irrigate crops, how risky the wildfire season will be, and how much electricity hydropower dams might generate.
While it’s not unusual to have some basins lower than historical averages, it’s rare to have nearly every region of the West facing snowfall deficits.
“We’re in uncharted territory right now, and we’re headed toward the lowest snowpack we’ve ever had on Feb. 1,” said Kevin Perry, a University of Utah atmospheric scientist.
Countdown to the Olympics
The United States will be sending its largest ever contingent of winter athletes to Italy for the Milan Cortina Olympics, with a whopping 232 people representing the stars and stripes when the Games begin next Friday.
Colorado wins gold for producing the most Olympians at 32. Unsurprisingly, many athletes hail from Northern states. Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan are combining to send 52 — nearly a quarter of the roster alone.
The youngest athlete on the roster is the appropriately named freeskier Abby Winterberger, who is 15. The oldest is 54-year-old curler Rick Ruohonen.
Some Team USA athletes, like hockey player Hilary Knight and bobsledder Kaillie Humphries, are Olympic veterans and looking to add to an already impressive medal collection. But others are working tirelessly to make it to the podium for the first time.
Skier Mac Forehand is preparing the perfect gravity defying trick to land gold. “Quad God” Ilia Malinin is hoping this is the year he adds the top honor to his impressive resume. And Amber Glenn is vying to become the first U.S. woman to medal in figure skating since 2006.
We’re following all their journeys here.
Read All About It
- Shirley Raines, a social media creator and nonprofit founder who dedicated her life to caring for people experiencing homelessness, has died. She was 58.
- Elon Musk said Tesla would begin phasing out its Model S and Model X electric vehicles this year and retool a California factory to produce humanoid robots instead.
- Police have launched a hate crime investigation after a car crashed into the New York City world headquarters of the Chabad Lubavitch movement.
- How much B6 is safe? Here’s what to know about the supplement found in energy drinks.
- The Trump administration still hasn’t released data from the 2025 homelessness census.
- As losses mount, Russia faces a heavy price for its limited gains during the war in Ukraine, according to death toll estimates.
Staff Pick: To avoid accusations of AI cheating, college students are turning to AI
On college campuses across the U.S., the introduction of generative artificial intelligence has sparked an arms race. Rapid adoption of AI by young people set off waves of anxiety that students could cheat their way through college, leading professors to run papers through online AI detectors to inspect if students used language models to write their work for them.
However, these AI detectors are also producing false positives, where a student’s original writing is flagged as AI-generated. Now, some students “dumb down” their work so they are not mistaken for using chatbots, even spying on themselves through authorship tools that track each step of their writing process. Others use AI “humanizers” to avoid being detected.
As a college student, I’ve experienced this AI arms race first hand, from avoiding em dashes in papers to running AI checkers on my own written work just in case. Reporter Tyler Kingkade spoke to 10 students and faculty caught in the middle of an escalating war of tools to unpack a wider pattern of artificial intelligence being pitted against itself.
— Rufina Chow, platforms intern
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Thanks for reading the Morning Rundown. Today’s newsletter was curated for you by Josh Feldman, Kayla Hayempour, Marissa Martinez and Rufina Chow.
