Trump Is Still Winning

From Tom Homan's presss conference this morning at 12:00 in the video embedded above:

One thing we all agreed on was that US Customs and Border Protrection is a legitimate law enforcement agency and has a duty to support the laws enactged by Congress and keep this community safe. Like I've said many times for the last several years, even before this administration, jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities are sanctuaries for criminals. Sanctury cities are sanctuaries for criminals. . . . To be clear, we did not agree with Minnmesota state and local officials that they would be involved in federal immigration enforcement. I didn't ask them to be immigration officers. I'm asking them to be cops working with cops to take criminal sliens off the street. What we did agree upon was not to release public safety risks back into the cummunity when they could be lawfully transferred to ICE.

. . . I'm also pleased to announce that I had a very good meeting with Attorney General Ellison, and he has clarified for me that county jails may notify us of the release dates of criminal public safety risks, so ICE can take custody of them upon their release from the jail.

Homan implies that this goes to one part of the definition of "sanctuary city", in which sanctuary cities refuse to honor ICE detainers -- non-binding requests to hold individuals for up to 48 hours past their scheduled release to allow federal agents to take custody -- unless there is a judicial warrant or the person has committed a serious crime. It sounds as though Homan has got from Minnesota a good part of what he'd wanted all along, simply the ability to arrest criminal illegals as they're released from jails and prisons.

I'm assuming there was some sort of good cop-bad cop or carrot-and-stick approach in Homan's meetings with Gov Walz, Mayor Frey, and Attorney General Ellison, and that's reflected in Trump's reaction to Frey's apparent backtrack on the agreements with Homan:

President Donald Trump asserted that Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey "is PLAYING WITH FIRE," issuing the warning in a Truth Social post on Wednesday morning.

"Surprisingly, Mayor Jacob Frey just stated that, ‘Minneapolis does not, and will not, enforce Federal Immigration Laws.’ This is after having had a very good conversation with him," the president said in the post.

"Could somebody in his inner sanctum please explain that this statement is a very serious violation of the Law, and that he is PLAYING WITH FIRE!" Trump warned.

Strictly speaking, Frey is right; Homan's point is that he isn't asking local police to be immigration cops, but he's asking them to cooperate like law enforcement agencies usually do. Trump's statement suggests that Homan's message must have included some implied threat to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 if there was insufficient cooperation. Meanwhile, in what must surely be the context of these other developments,

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz says his time as a political candidate is over.

“I will never run for an elected office again. Never again,” Walz, the Democratic Party’s 2024 vice presidential nominee, said in an interview with MS NOW.

Facing stinging criticism from President Donald Trump, other Republicans, and even some Democrats over a massive fraud scandal rocking Minnesota, Walz earlier this month announced that he was dropping his 2026 bid for an unprecedented third term as governor of the blue-leaning state.

But at the time, he didn’t rule out any future runs for elected office.

Since Walz’s announcement, the state has become the epicenter in the heated battle over Trump’s unprecedented crackdown on illegal immigration, following the fatal shootings by federal agents of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis who instigated federal agents during deportation operations.

I can only take this as an acknowledgement of defeat. But there's more!

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested by federal authorities Thursday night in connection with a protest at a Minnesota church service earlier this month.

Lemon, 59, and three others — Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort and Jamael Lydell Lundy — were arrested “in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X on Friday.

The ex-CNN anchor's attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy Awards.

Lowell left a white-shoe law firm, Winston & Strawn, last year, amid the collapse of his defense of Hunter Biden, which left the firm, but not Lowell, on the hook for Biden's unpaid legal bills. This calls into question Lowell's judgment in taking Biden on as a client, and it actually calls Lemon's judgment into question as well, first in disrupting a church service, which he never needed to to, and second, in hiring an expensive, high-profile attorney with a bad record in the Biden case.

He's be much better off getting a less expensive local attorney -- he'd have to hire a local co-counsel with Lowell anyhow -- who can get him off on a token no-contest plea -- and get on with what's left of his career. He can get the same result for a lot less money, and the drama isn't going to help him. But finally:

The U.S. Senate struck a deal to fund the government on Thursday, averting a partial government shutdown as the mid-term elections loom large.

. . . President Trump celebrated the deal in Truth Social post on Thursday night.

“I am working hard with Congress to ensure that we are able to fully fund the Government, without delay. Republicans and Democrats in Congress have come together to get the vast majority of the Government funded until September, while at the same time providing an extension to the Department of Homeland Security (including the very important Coast Guard, which we are expanding and rebuilding like never before),” he wrote.

It continues to be a major error to underestimate Trump.