From a recalibration in Minnesota to an Epstein files release: Inside the Trump administration’s chaotic week

By Adam Cancryn, CNN

(CNN) — For a brief moment following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, President Donald Trump appeared to recalibrate.

Faced with mounting outrage over the second killing of a US citizen in an encounter with federal agents, Trump swiftly moved the head of his Minnesota immigration crackdown out of the state. He placed conciliatory calls to Democratic state leaders he’d previously mocked. And he pressed ahead with a series of economy-centric events.

It was a display of discipline encouraged by top aides and advisers, who were eager to change the subject. Trump even declined to take questions at a cabinet meeting and an Oval Office event — avoiding any chance that his freewheeling style could spark a new controversy.

Then in the wee hours of Friday morning, Trump took to Truth Social.

“Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down,” the president posted at 1:26 am ET, referring to new video of a clash between Pretti and federal agents several days before his killing. “It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control.”

The remarks, which threatened to reignite tensions in Minneapolis, came ahead of Trump’s announcement later that morning of his pick for Federal Reserve chair — a long-anticipated selection that Trump seemed eager to promote. But even that was soon overshadowed by the Justice Department’s arrest of journalist Don Lemon and then the release of millions more files related to Jeffrey Epstein. They included unverified tips about Trump, who has consistently denied wrongdoing.

That chaotic 12-hour span summed up an extraordinary week of whiplash within the Trump administration, as officials raced to stamp out one raging political fire just as two more cropped up elsewhere across the federal government.

It also underscored the deepening challenge facing Trump and Republicans in a midterm year meant to home in on the administration’s core accomplishments — only for that plan to be repeatedly derailed by the latest controversy, often driven by Trump himself.

“We go from a winning message to a losing message in an hour,” one Republican advising GOP campaigns said of the onslaught of news driven by the West Wing. “There’s a lot of balls in the air.”

In a statement, White House spokesman Kush Desai dismissed the focus on what he called “one contrived scandal after another.”

“Over the past year, the Trump administration has delivered one major victory after another, from swiftly securing the border to cooling inflation to signing new drug pricing deals,” he said, adding that Trump’s election gave him a “mandate to enforce our immigration law and end Joe Biden’s economic disaster.”

Yet the last several days represented the latest example of the difficulty facing the administration in driving its preferred narrative. Trump kicked off a January that aides had long telegraphed would mark a sharp pivot to domestic priorities by instead launching a surprise raid on Venezuela. He then spent several days locked in a war of words with European allies over his desire to own Greenland — an affair that overshadowed new domestic housing policy proposals the administration had spent weeks teasing.

Pretti’s killing and the subsequent rush by top Trump officials to label the ICU nurse a “terrorist” and an “assassin” threatens to be the most damaging of those episodes, advisers said. In their view, it cost the administration credibility with Americans and key support on an immigration issue that had long been considered the president’s central strength.

Inside the White House, Trump grew increasingly alarmed and frustrated as he watched coverage of the shooting and fielded calls from concerned allies, a person familiar with the matter said. And as the backlash intensified among Republicans — with some lawmakers issuing rare public rebukes over the situation — he opted for a shift in strategy.

The move was a welcome development among Trump allies and some in the administration who worried that immigration crackdown had grown too harsh, people familiar with the matter said, and that the images of tear gas-filled confrontations on suburban streets and stories of children being detained were rapidly eroding public support.

While many Americans support enforcing stricter immigration limits, said one person close to the administration, “people don’t necessarily like to see it.”

In the days since, two people familiar with the matter said, senior officials workshopped new messaging for Trump aimed at emphasizing the broader benefits of his immigration agenda without specifically touching on the circumstances that led to Pretti’s killing. They also encouraged the president to refocus on promoting other key elements of his domestic agenda.

“You read much about Minnesota where, unbeknownst to the public, we have brought down crime very substantially,” Trump said during a Tuesday speech in Iowa, one of several occasions throughout the week where he sought to connect his immigration crackdown to the declines in crime that garner more widespread voter support.

The next day, Trump headlined a conference on his Trump accounts initiative, which puts $1,000 into individual accounts for children born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028. He appeared alongside rapper Nicki Minaj to promote an economic policy officials believe has broad appeal but that’s nevertheless struggled to gain traction with the electorate so far.

It was the tighter, more focused Trump that advisers had hoped to see for months. The only problem, some advisers joked darkly, is that few Americans were likely paying attention when it happened.

In addition to the extended furor in Minnesota, the FBI had just searched an election office in Georgia over alleged fraud tied to Trump’s 2020 election loss. A US aircraft carrier in the Middle East sparked renewed speculation over whether the president would order more strikes against Iran.

“You can see how difficult it is to punch through the news cycle when there are so many other things that are priorities in this administration,” said Ron Bonjean, a longtime GOP strategist. “It’s a time and pressure campaign to get their messaging out, and they have to keep talking about affordability and the economy and not lose sight about what voters are really going to care about at the end of the day.”

A White House official brushed off the concern, noting that all presidents must juggle a range of issues at once. Trump, who in his second term has been emboldened to pursue all his goals at breakneck speed, is only supercharging that dynamic, the official said.

Advisers plotting out Trump’s next several months, meanwhile, have sought fresh ways to keep him engaged on the domestic issues that they believe will decide the midterms — and determine whether the president spends his last two years executing his agenda or buried under Democratic investigations.

They’ve pushed for Trump to do more meet-and-greets like his stop this week at a local Iowa restaurant ahead of his speech, arguing it’s key to humanizing the president after a first year confined largely to the White House. Those would likely be coupled with the speeches around the country that he’s planning to do as often as once a week as a way of getting his message out without relying as heavily on national media coverage.

And as the weather warms up, some advisers have discussed a return to the signature mega-rallies that Trump held throughout his campaigns and first term, in hopes of further juicing enthusiasm ahead of an election that will rely heavily on turning out Trump voters.

Still, despite the optimism in Trump’s orbit, there’s broad awareness that time is already starting to run short. The president can ill-afford more weeks like this one that put him on defense and risk further weighing down approval ratings that the administration is already struggling to boost.

“Stuff happens, and we’ve got a lot of time between now and the midterms,” one Trump adviser said. “It’s about communications and success. But we’ve got to have the sustained success.”

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