How Trump decided to shift his strategy in Minnesota: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, we have an in-depth, behind-the-scenes report on how President Donald Trump changed his approach following the weekend shooting in Minneapolis. Plus, Andrea Mitchell digs into Trump’s escalating threats against Iran.

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— Adam Wollner

Inside the White House in the chaotic hours after Alex Pretti’s shooting

By Jonathan Allen, Gabe Gutierrez, Garrett Haake, Katherine Doyle and Monica Alba

After Donald Trump and his top aides rushed to portray Alex Pretti as a “gunman,” “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin” in the hours after Border Patrol agents shot and killed him Saturday, the president shuttled back and forth between the Oval Office and his adjacent private dining room, where he watched news coverage of the incident and fielded calls from concerned aides, lawmakers and other allies, according to two senior administration officials.

Trump already had posted an image of Pretti’s legally permitted Sig Sauer P320, along with a message referring to Pretti as a “gunman” whose firearm was “loaded (with two additional full magazines!), and ready to go.”

But as he absorbed clips of the fatal confrontation and the news reports surrounding it, Trump grew increasingly disturbed by what he saw, according to one of the senior administration officials.

“He doesn’t like chaos on his watch,” the official said.

If Trump wasn’t ready to change the tactics, he was starting to understand that he needed to change the optics. By Sunday night, Trump decided to hit the reset button while preserving the mass-deportation operation he promised to execute during his 2024 presidential campaign.

On Monday, Trump executed a bureaucratic face-lift by removing confrontational Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino from the scene in Minneapolis, subbing in border czar Tom Homan — widely viewed as more placative — and effectively sidelining Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Trump also spoke by phone with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Democrats he has harshly criticized in the past, about turning down the temperature.

While those moves may assuage establishment Republicans in Congress — and political independents distressed by the violence in Minnesota — they do not come without a cost for Trump among the MAGA base voters who did not want to see any sign of retreat from the hard-core immigration crackdown, said a Republican strategist with ties to the White House.

“The conservative base is pissed” about what it sees as signs of weakness in his new approach in Minnesota, the strategist said, arguing that Trump is “demoralizing” voters he needs to turn out for Republicans in this year’s midterm elections. At the same time, Trump’s aides have broken into ugly rounds of finger-pointing over the botched initial response to the shooting, blaming one another in private conversations with reporters.

This account of how Trump came to the conclusion that he needed to switch the script — dominated by the shooting deaths of two American citizens, the fast-declining popularity of his deportation tactics and calls for the ouster of prominent administration officials — was told to NBC News by 15 sources, many of whom were granted anonymity to speak candidly.

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More Minnesota fallout:

• Two federal officers fired their guns during Pretti’s fatal shooting, according to an initial review by the Department of Homeland Security obtained by NBC News. Both agents were placed on administrative leave, according to DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.
• The inquiries the Trump administration launched after immigration officers killed Pretti and Renee Good are a departure from the government’s long-standing practices around investigations into high-profile killings by law enforcement, according to local prosecutors and former federal officials.
• Two Republican senators — Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — called for Noem to resign.
• A man who confronted Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., at a Minneapolis town hall and tried to spray her with a substance was arrested and placed in police custody. Omar’s office believes she was sprayed with apple cider vinegar. The attack came as a U.S. Capitol Police report found that threats related to Congress rose for a third consecutive year in 2025 and spiked to its highest level in years.
• Trump’s top federal law enforcement officials have stayed mum about the attack against Omar, even though federal law covers assaults on members of Congress. As for Trump himself, he said, “She probably had herself sprayed.”
• The “No Kings” nationwide demonstration that has come to symbolize the resistance to the Trump administration is returning March 28, this time with a flagship event in the Twin Cities.

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran ratchet up again

President Donald Trump is ramping up his threats against Iran, warning today that a “massive armada” is closing in — a larger fleet than the U.S. naval force he sent to the Caribbean before the U.S. military action in Venezuela — and that time is running out for Iran to negotiate a nuclear deal.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi countered that his country’s armed forces are ready “with their fingers on the trigger” for an immediate and powerful response. Iran also suggested an off-ramp, saying it “stands ready for dialogue” but will defend itself. With the U.S. aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln now in the region, is another U.S. strike against Iran imminent?

Significantly, U.S. Arab partners in the Persian Gulf have been lobbying Trump against such an attack. Saudi Arabia has now joined the United Arab Emirates in ruling out using its territory or airspace for military action against Iran, fearing retaliation from even a weakened Tehran’s missiles and drones.

The Saudi leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also spoke with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian yesterday, a possible back channel to the White House. That would explain Trump’s saying Iran has been messaging that it wants to negotiate. Still, Araghchi said he has not spoken to Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, recently or requested talks.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today for the first time since last spring, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. is prepared to defend against any Iranian attack on the 30,000 to 40,000 U.S. troops based in the Middle East — or to strike pre-emptively to prevent such an attack. Rubio also said the Iranian regime is weaker than at any other time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

A source familiar with the latest intelligence given Trump told NBC News that while the protests in Iran have died down momentarily, the economic problems that sparked the widespread uprising have not abated.

At the same time, there is no obvious opposition prepared to take over. Rubio told senators, “I don’t think anyone can give you a simple answer as to what happens next in Iran if the supreme leader and the regime were to fall, other than the hope there would be somebody within their systems to work towards a similar transition” to the one in Venezuela.

And a footnote on the roots of America’s conflict with Iran’s Islamic regime: On this day in 1980, a daring CIA operative named Tony Mendez led a rescue of six Americans hiding in Canada’s embassy in Tehran who had evaded capture when 52 of their colleagues were taken captive by Iranian revolutionaries.

Mendez disguised the American diplomats as a Canadian film crew on location to shoot a movie in the desert. The operation was dramatized decades later in the Oscar-winning film “Argo” by Ben Affleck. The State Department celebrated the Canadian ambassador to Iran for his bravery in hiding the Americans, and Mendez won commendations from the CIA for his heroism.

That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner.

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