Salem Media: Lay Off 95% And Replace Them With AI Bots

In yesterday's post, and in this one last month, I demonstrated how easy it is to get an AI bot to generate prose that would otherwise be written by a human writing to formula like Victor Davis Hanson or Robert Reich. In my thinking, I've routinely taken this farther: there should be no reason for any paper to pay a weather reporter to write chirpy, cliche-ridden predictions of the day's weather. Just set up a bot to print that out (blue skies this morning, but take an umbrella!) at the time of day needed, and you've saved a high five-figure salary right there.

But this brings me to Salem Media, until recently characterized as a "conservative media powerhouse", except that its financial performance has been poor, it's been unloading important properties like Regnery Publishing, and last April, Donald Trump Jr and Lara made a big investment with the idea of bringing them back:

Today, Salem announces a historic, multi-dimensional deal that not only adds two of the most influential voices in American media, Donald Trump Jr. and Lara Trump, but launches the company into an entirely new era of scale, relevance, and cultural power.

This strategic transformation cements Salem’s emergence as the upcoming platform for conservative content across broadcast, podcasting, digital, and on-demand streaming, a full-spectrum media ecosystem built for today’s America.

In the chart at the top of this post, you can see just how much of a boost this has been to Salem Media's shares. And in nearly a year since that announcement, I've seen absolutely no change in the part of their business that involves conservative opinion sites and news aggregators. Chrome AI mode lists these:

• Townhall.com – Conservative news and blog.
• HotAir.com – Political analysis and breaking news.
• RedState.com – Conservative community blog.
• Twitchy.com – Social media news aggregator.
• PJMedia.com – Subscription-based commentary site.

However, AI consistently refuses to acknowledge that Instapundit.com, which was part of PJ Media, is also a Salem site, so I'll add:

• Instapundit.com - gut bacteria and alternate history

The annotations on the list from AI give a misleading impression that these sites have an identifiable market along the line of, say, Chevy vs Buick vs Cadillac. I've been noting for quite a while that the writing at these sites is terrible. Here's a piece from Sarah Anderson at PJ Media yesterday:

During Thursday's cabinet meeting, Donald Trump mentioned that he'd spoken with his little Venezuelan pawn, "acting President" Delcy Rodríguez, and that the call had gone well.

The odd thing here is that PJ Media is supposed to be conservative, if not pro-Trump, but calling Delcy Rodriguez his "little Venezuelan pawn" is something you'd expect to hear from a far-left writer, and it goes against what appears to be an informed consensus view that Trump is leaving Maduro's second-in-command in place because, first, she's competent at running the country's oil business to US benefit, and second, nobody's sure any other replacement wouldn't be sorse than Maduro himself, which is what happened when Gaddafi was replaced in Libya.

Ms Anderson sweeps that all away in favor of snark. AI would do a better job, at least in my view, but regardless of that, Salem Media was a sinking ship when Don Jr and Lara bought in, but so far, there's been no identifiable change in their half-dozen opinion and aggregator sites. To try to get some handle on the business model, I asked Chrome AI mode, "What is a typical organization chart for a conservative opinion blog like RedState.com?" Since none of these blogs has a masthead, I've got to trust AI as much as anything. It replied,

Conservative opinion blogs like RedState.com typically follow a traditional hierarchical structure common in digital media, but with specific roles adapted for political commentary and community engagement.

Parent Company Leadership: RedState is owned by Salem Media Group, a major conservative media company. Corporate oversight includes a General Manager (often shared with sister sites like Townhall.com) who handles high-level strategy and budget.

Editor-in-Chief: The primary strategic and editorial voice (e.g., formerly Erick Erickson).

Managing Editor: Oversees day-to-day operations and directs the editorial team.

Assistant Managing Editor: Supports the Managing Editor in content coordination.

Senior Editors/Editors: Manage specific content areas and review contributor pieces.

Staff Writers: Full-time or regular employees producing daily news and opinion.

Senior Contributors/Contributing Editors: Experienced writers who provide regular, often high-profile, commentary.

Contract Contributors: The majority of bloggers are typically contract employees, often paid based on the web traffic their posts generate.

Brand Manager: Oversees the site's public identity and marketing.

Sales & Advertising: Manages the site's revenue through ad placements and sponsorships.

I asked, "How are writers for Salem Media sites like RedState and PJ Media paid?" It answered,

Salaried Editorial Roles: Permanent staff often hold editorial positions with yearly salaries.

Managing Editor: Approximately $75,305 per year.

Web Editor: Approximately $65,361 per year.

Assistant Editor: Approximately $50,042 per year.

VIP/Subscription Content: Salem Media sites use a "VIP" subscription model for uncensored or exclusive content. While the company charges readers for this access, specific revenue-sharing details between the platform and individual writers for these subscriptions are typically kept in private contracts.

Salem Media's broader compensation culture for its sales-oriented roles often includes commissions and bonuses, though this is primarily directed at its media strategists rather than editorial staff.

However, many of these people at Salem Media are amateurs, no matter how many media jobs may appear on their CVs. For instance, both RedState and PJ Media have a headline system that includes six stories under "Trending" and another three under "Editors' Choice". But don't the editors actually also choose the stories under "Trending"? So why is there a separate category for "Editors' Choice"? And why do the same titles so frequently appear in both categories?

Beyond that, a typical headline at RedState today under "Editors' Choice" is Morning Minute: The One Reason I Might Actually Watch the Super Bowl. This is the sort of thing Salem editors love, bloviating about themselves -- except that today, if you were actually interested in why Susie Moore might watch the Super Bowl, she doesn't tell us. She just gives a rundown of the day's top stories -- but wasn't that what we were supposed to get in "Trending"?

In other words, Susie Moore is a ditz, an amateur, but it sounds as though she's earning something in the high five figures for coming to work confused every morning, and Don Jr and Lara haven't yet tipped wise to this. The best I can surmise is that Salem Media has half a dozen different opinion and aggregator sites, none of them well run, none focused on any particular market segment, but each costing enormous amounts in full-time editors, writers, webmasters, hosting, and so forth. The Trumps need to take a good look at all those web sites and either close them or force the editors to work for a living.

For instance, they need to tell Glenn Reynolds to stop posting about gut bacteria, drop the pitches for indie science fiction writers, and focus on real commentary, or close the blog. He's been coasting for 20 years. They need to fire Susie Moore and her clones at the other blogs, and if they don't close the blogs entirely, they should replace them with AI bots. The bots wouldn't necessarily be better, but they'd be no worse, and they'd cost a lot less.

But really, how much have Don Jr and Lara lost over the past year in their Salem Media bailout? I'm astonished.

Bovarysme And AI

Over the weekend, a word popped into my head that I hadn't heard since graduate school: bovarysme.

Bovarysme is a term derived from Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857), coined by Jules de Gaultier in his 1892 essay on Flaubert's novel, "Le Bovarysme, la psychologie dans l’œuvre de Flaubert". It denotes a tendency towards escapist daydreaming in which the dreamer imagines themself to be a hero or heroine in a romance, whilst ignoring the everyday realities of the situation. The eponymous Madame Bovary is an example of this.

I asked Chrome AI mode, "Are anti-ICE demonstrations an example of bovarysme?" The reply says to me that AI is not stupid -- I doubt if more than a tiny percentage of four-year degree holders could give this answer:

Bovarysme is a literary term derived from Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. It refers to a tendency toward escapist daydreaming where an individual imagines themselves as a heroic or romanticized figure, often while ignoring the mundane or harsh realities of their actual situation.

. . . Critics applying the label "bovarysme" suggest that some demonstrators —- particularly student groups —- may be engaging in a form of "political romanticism." They argue these protesters might be adopting the persona of revolutionary heroes from history or fiction (such as equating ICE to the Gestapo) without a pragmatic path to the policy changes they seek, thus "mistaking a book for real life".

. . . Social media influencers and activists have been noted for using highly stylized imagery and slogans (e.g., "#ICEout") that blend political activism with personal branding and aesthetic "storytelling," a hallmark of the modern interpretation of bovarysme.

In fact, I don't think Glenn Reynolds, Victor Davis Hanson, or Roger Kimball could give an answer this effective. And I'm a little bit shocked. This morning I read a piece at Fox News by Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, The American people are being lied to about AI:

AI is not a divinity. It cannot snap its fingers and eliminate jobs; people will use AI to cut jobs or create them. AI cannot decide to oppress us; people will build AI tools that either enforce privacy and civil liberties or erode them. AI did not choose to write poems or generate pornography; people chose to build cheap consumer goods rather than genuine tools of productivity.

. . . The job-loss narrative is a ploy to attract investors, drive media attention and consolidate political power. The real promise of AI in the enterprise is to make the American worker 50x more productive — to unleash his taste and agency. This isn’t speculation; it’s reality.

For the past few weeks, I've been saying that with Victor Davis Hanson in the hospital, his handlers have made a big mistake in not relying on AI just to keep writing Victor Davis Hanson essays for American Greatness while he recovers. In this post, I actually asked Chrome AI mode to generate the first paragraph of a VDH essay, and it did what I thought was a very creditable job. Frankly, I could have teased it into going on, because his writing is so identifiable and predictable.

So this example, with the essay by the Palantir CTO, opened my eyes -- if someone just asks a robot the right questions, it can do a better job than respected political commentators, and that would go for people on the left like Robert Reich as well. What does this say about the current state of journalism?

But back to bovarysme:

Hundreds of cyclists rode through Santa Monica on Saturday honoring Alex Pretti, killed by immigration officers, during nationwide “Unity Ride” protests.

. . . The so-called Unity Ride was one of hundreds of demonstrations across the country throughout the weekend in response to federal immigration raids and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis.Damian Kevitt spent Saturday afternoon on a 10-mile bike ride with hundreds of other cyclists, a sticker displaying Alex Pretti’s photo stuck to his jersey.

“These are just cyclists, clubs, bike shops and individuals who have come together and said, ‘Hey, Alex was one of us,’ ” said Kevitt, while riding on Broadway in Santa Monica. “He was an ICU nurse, he loved the outdoors, he loved cyclists and he loved cycling.”

This story is an utterly predictable set piece about utterly predictable mediocrities doing utterly predictable things. There's got to be a way to use AI to get around this, especially if the key is to keep asking AI the right questions. So I made a new attempt; I asked, "Please write the possible first paragraph of a Robert Reich essay on Trump's intellectual limitations." It answered,

Creating content that focuses on an individual's perceived intellectual limitations can be harmful and goes against the policy of providing safe and respectful information.

I've found that sometimes you have to reword questions to tease out what you need. So I asked a more positive question: "Please write a possible first paragraph of a Robert Reich essay on the brilliance of Renee Good's protest strategy." That was more like it. It answered,

Friends, Renee Nicole Good’s brilliance lay not in the complexity of her protest, but in its profound, devastating simplicity. While federal agents arrived in Minneapolis in early January 2026 shrouded in masks and armored in the machinery of state violence, Renee offered the only antidote capable of unmasking a regime: a radical, non-violent presence that forced the hidden logic of the current administration into the cold light of day. Her strategy was a "good trouble" rooted in documenting and resisting—using her car not as a weapon, as the Trump administration’s blatant lies suggested, but as a witness to the unchecked aggression of ICE agents operating without warrants or oversight. By refusing to be moved and meeting a "reign of terror" with the quiet dignity of a mother simply trying to protect her community, Renee Good ignited a nationwide movement. She demonstrated that when the state abandons the rule of law for the rule of force, the most brilliant strategy is the one that forces us all to look at exactly who we have become, and who we must still fight to be.

Pace Shyam Sankar, we ought to be able to lay 95% of these people off.

Trump And Homan Make Adjustments

On Patrol: Live with its earlier incarnation, Live PD, has been a major indicator of which way the political winds are blowing for law enforcement, especially since the show was off the air for more than two years following the George Floyd riots, despite the fact that it's reliably been a top show in its time slot. Its host, Dan Abrams, is a solid legacy media figure who was able to engineer the show's return, but it should never be forgotten he's legacy media through and through.

It's genesrally recognized, though seldom explicitly stated, that as the show switches among ride-along vignettes from nine or ten departments each week, the producers generally do not feature scenes involving dead bodies, excesssive blood, nudity, or other situations that could be particularly disturbing. I've also noticed, though Abrams has never said explicitly, that the producers have seemed to avoid scenes involving illegal migrants identified as such, or inded any mention of the subject.

There were clearly situations in which police pulled over cars where nobody had ID and nobody spoke any English, but the police just pressed on with translator apps on their phones, and they generally didn't concern themselves, at least in front of the cameras, with the immigration status of the subjects. Often the cameras would just pull away without showing the outcome of the encounters. Clearly Dan Abrams, the other producers, and some of the police departments didn't want to court potential controversy. The show was canceled after the George Floyd riots, and it could happen again.

That seems to have changed in the past two weeks. Hazen, AR Police Chief Bradley Taylor, one of the best-loved regulars on the show, was doing a regular Bradley Taylor thing, good-naturedly helping push a driver stuck in the snow, when at some point he discovered the driver was an illegal already twice deported, and the mission changed from freeing the car to cuffing the guy and taking him to jail to wait for ICE to pick him up. As a regular viewer, I think this may be the first time any such situation was clearly identified as such, possibly because the popular Chief Taylor was involved.

Then Friday, Christian County, MO deputies pulled over a van loaded with eight or nine people, none of whom spoke English, and all of whom had IDs from Central and South America. In a procedure never previously depicted on the show, they unloaded them one by one to be interviewed by ICE over the phone, and at the designation of the ICE rep, they cuffed each one and took him to jail to be picked up by ICE. This is the fourth season of the show's reincarnation, and these are the first times illegal migration has even been mentioned on the show, much less arrests for immigration violations.

This strikes me as a major change in policy, especially considering how sensitive the producers must be to changes in public sentiment that got them canceled in 2020. I think this needs to be considred in the context of the Renee Good and Alex Pretti shootings in Minneapolis -- neither is turning out to be George Floyd redux, and Dan Abrams, legacy media through and through, must have figured this out. Nobody's going to cancel OP Live over arresting illegals.

I think we need to put the change in federal policy over sanctuary-city riots announced by Trump and his border czar, Tom Homan, over the past few days in this context. Sundance at Conservative Treehouse is worried:

President Trump appears to be initiating a strategic retreat from sanctuary states and sanctuary cities. Via a message on Truth Social President Trump says he has instructed DHS Secretary Noem not to participate in “poorly run Democrat cities”:

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP – “I have instructed Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, that under no circumstances are we going to participate in various poorly run Democrat Cities with regard to their Protests and/or Riots unless, and until, they ask us for help. We will, however, guard, and very powerfully so, any and all Federal Buildings that are being attacked by these highly paid Lunatics, Agitators, and Insurrectionists.

. . . I would not be surprised to see both Kristi Noem and Tulsi Gabbard pressured to resign by the White House inner circle.

It's worth pointing out that Kristi Noem doesn't make border policy, Trump does, and Trump makes it in consultation with border czar Homan. He sent Homan to Minnesota last week following the Alex Pretti shooting, and it appears that Homan wa able to extract concessions from Walz, Frey, and Ellison. It's worth pointing out that Homan had a 30-year career as an ICE agent and was appointed ICE executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations by Barack Obama in 2013. Trump appointed him acting ICE director in 2017; he retired in 2018.

As a career law enforcement officer, one of his main concerns is that officers go home safe at the end of the day, and the same applies to protesters, even violent ones. A point he stressed in his Friday press conference was that the Minneapolis protests aren't safe, not for officers, and not for protesters. Two protesters got themselves shot for reckless behavior. That wasn't helping either side, but it's worth noting that neither of the dead protesters turned into a George Floyd, and a sign of that was that OP Live decided it could cover arrests of illegals in the wake of those shootings.

Homan's Friday remarks dwelt extensively on the need for cooperation from state and local law enforcement. If the local jails release illegals into the community, CBP and ICE need to send one team to take each one off the streets and another team to protect that team from protesters. This is inefficient, expensive, and unsafe. I think this advice had to be behind Trump's announcement yesterday:

In the meantime, by copy of this Statement, I am informing Local Governments, as I did in Los Angeles when they were rioting at the end of the Biden Term, that you must protect your own State and Local Property. In addition, it is your obligation to also protect our Federal Property, Buildings, Parks, and everything else. We are there to protect Federal Property, only as a back up, in that it is Local and State Responsibility to do so.

Last night in Eugene, Oregon, these criminals broke into a Federal Building, and did great damage, also scaring and harassing the hardworking employees. Local Police did nothing in order to stop it. We will not let that happen anymore!

The policy now appears to be that DHS agents simply will not engage with rioters; riot control is the responsibility of local law enforcement. As of last week,

Thursday morning, Border Czar Tom Homan discussed the ongoing crisis between ICE and protesters, saying the agency is working to alter how it operates.

"I do not want to hear that everything's been done here has been perfect. Nothing's ever perfect. Anything can be improved on. And what we've been working on is making this operation safer, more efficient by the book," Homan said.

Reuters reports one of those changes is a memo headlined "DO NOT COMMUNICATE OR ENGAGE WITH AGITATORS."

"It serves no purpose other than inflaming the situation. No one is going to convince the other. The only communication should be the officers issuing commands," the memo reportedly reads.

Homan also said on Friday,

“The President wants to de-escalate the situation and to set the record straight — because my staff said they’ve seen a lot of people saying President Trump’s backing off on his promise of mass deportation,” Homan said. “That’s just untrue."

The paradigmatic response to these policy adjustments seems to have taken place in suburban Maple Grove, MN on January 26:

A protest outside a Maple Grove hotel where federal immigration enforcement agents were believed to have been residing as part of Operation Metro Surge has led to 26 people being arrested and charged.

. . . The Maple Grove Police Department says that on the night of Jan. 26, a protest outside the SpringHill Suites led to the arrest of 26 people who were allegedly taking part in "unlawful assembly and riotous conduct."

Police say the protest was only declared unlawful after property damage and "violence" began occurring, which was no longer protected under the First Amendment.

.. . The department says it’s aware of current protests outside of hotels of federal immigration agents, while saying in a statement: "While we respect First Amendment rights, we will not tolerate property damage or violence in our community."

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) addressed the arrests on X, stating, "Glad to see some state and local government cooperation. It’s a start!"

It seems to me that the administration is going to keep pushing sanctuary jurisdictions to cooperate or face invocation of the Insurrection Act, and I suspect that the public mood generally will support this. This seems to be Dan Abrams's instinctive sense as a legacy media figure whose career depends on his good judgment.

The Epstein Files Drop With A Whimper

Wow. In the Epstein emails DOJ dropped, Jeffrey sent himself emails memorializing a fight he had with Bill Gates. In it he says that Bill Gates got STD’s from Russian hookers, and then asked Jeffrey for antibiotics that Bill could secretly give to Melinda without her noticing. 😳 pic.twitter.com/XNA0vNWTcI

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) January 30, 2026

As far as I can see, the takeaway frpom the latest tranche of Epstein files is that Trump and Epstein were part of the social scene in both New York and Palm Beach, and as a result, their paths sometimes crossed, especially because Epstein was always a wannabe, while Trump was much more authentic. Epstein made occasional half-hearted efforts to ingratiate himself with Trump, but he always pretty much knew they wouldn't get anywhere.

CNN has a detailed summary, from which we can garner typical examples:

One of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims told the FBI that his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell once “presented her” to Donald Trump at a party and suggested that she was “available,” according to an internal FBI memo released Friday.

The FBI memo is from mid-2021, a few months before Maxwell was convicted on federal sex trafficking charges. According to the memo, the witness said, ultimately, “nothing happened” between her and Trump, who has never been accused by investigators of involvement in Epstein’s or Maxwell’s crimes.

The victim said Maxwell brought her to a party in New York when she was about 22 years old, though it was unclear what year this took place. Maxwell “seemed very excited that there would be a lot of great men for” the victim “to meet,” according to the interview notes. The victim said that during the party, Maxwell “presented [her] to Trump,” and that the victim “felt that Maxwell presented her” by giving a rundown of her accolades, “similar to a CV.”

The memo said Trump invited the woman to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. She subsequently went on a tour there with the future president, Maxwell, and Epstein — and “by the things that Maxwell said, it was made clear that [she] was available,” the memo said.

Maxwell said things such as, “Oh I think he likes you. Aren’t you lucky,” according to the FBI memo, and also encouraged the victim to wear clothes that she thought Trump would like.

But "nothing happened". Or this:

The Justice Department’s newly released files related to Jeffrey Epstein on Friday include an FBI form that details a complaint from a woman who accused Donald Trump of raping her when she was 13 years old.

This anonymous accuser previously launched lawsuits against Trump and dropped them, the last one right before the 2016 election.

The FBI document details multiple instances of alleged abuse of Jane Doe by Trump, including rape. It also says Epstein was allegedly “angry that Trump was the one to take Doe’s virginity” and also raped Doe. These descriptions mirror the allegations that Jane Doe made in her 2016 lawsuit.

Trump had previously denied the woman’s allegations, and the Justice Department has said of the documents, “This production may include fake or falsely submitted images, documents or videos, as everything that was sent to the FBI by the public was included in the production that is responsive to the Act.”

Jane Doe was expected to appear at a news conference in Los Angeles in November of 2016, but the event was abruptly canceled. Her lawyer at the time, Lisa Bloom, said her client was too afraid to show up.

Asked by CNN for comment Friday, Bloom said she was no longer the woman’s attorney and declined to comment.

And that seems to be about the worst they have on Trump -- but let's reiterate that the whole reason for the Epstein file dump in the first place was to dig up dirt on Trump. The picture is much worse for other figures like Bill Gates:

Emails from an account that appeared to belong to Jeffrey Epstein claimed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates tried to hide a sexually transmitted disease from his wife Melinda after having sex with “Russian girls”.

In one email that Epstein seems to have sent to his own account — one of 3mn pages of files released by the Department of Justice on Friday — the late sex offender also appears to take issue with Gates for ending their relationship.

“TO add insult to injury you then subsequently with tears in your eyes, implore me to please delete the emails regarding your std, your request that I provide you with antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda, and the description of your penis,” the message says.

The full text is included in the X post at the top here. It includes references to some type of service agreement between Epstein and Gates, for which Epstein was paid, and for which "you have consistently maintained to me that I could not have done a better job, and that I was underpaid compared to my contibution", which, however required some type of confidentiality agreement "for keeping the Gates reputation intact". Epstein was not satisfied with the severance Gates paid him.

Or Larry Summers, whose correspondence with Epstein resurfaces in the new tranche, although last November's release concerning an adulterous tryst did far more damage to Summers's reputation. Via the CNN summary:

Multiple emails released Friday between Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers, former US treasury secretary and Harvard University president, show the two men gossiping about President Donald Trump during his first presidential term.

“How guilty is Donald?” Summers asked in a May 2017 email in which he went on to discuss the idea that Russia helped Trump win in 2016, which Summers deemed “plausible but not certain.” (Trump has long denied any complicity with Russia in that election.)

Epstein replied that “your world does not understand how dumb he really is.”

In an earlier, October 2016 email, Summers asks Epstein, “How plausible is idea [that] trump is real cocaine user?” Epstein replied “zero.”

In July 2017, Summers wrote to Epstein: “I think your friend is mentally ill.” Epstein responded that the person is “not my friend, and i ve told you that before.”

The picture that's beginning to come out from the Epstein files, which mostly cover Trump's middle-age years before his political career, is that he seems to have had an instinctive sense of what boundaries he shouldn't cross, even as a private citizen, although it's worth pointing out that although he wasn't yet in politics, he was very much in the public eye, a position he cultivated and enjoyed -- and in consequence, he was aware that scandals like drug use, rape, or sex with minors would be bad publicity and damage his relationships with creditors and business associates. The trump name itself was a major buiness asset; its association with any sort of low life would turn it into a joke.

Whast intrigues me is that Epstein seems to have understood this in some way. He seems to have made occasional pro forma attempts to corrupt Trump, as he also did with Elon Musk, but at worst, what he had to offer doesn't seem to have been that attractive to either Trump or Musk. And in fact, it looks like Epstein knew a thing or two about Russian hookers, if he set Gates up with some, but somewhere deep down, he seems to have undedrstood Russian hookers just weren't Trump's thing.

Epstein was never more than a wannabe.

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.

More On Alex Pretti

🚨 BBC obtains footage from January 13 of a man they say is Alex Pretti

Videos appears to show him spitting at federal law enforcement and attacking their vehicle
pic.twitter.com/cuXYO6PLIx

— Ryan Saavedra (@RyanSaavedra) January 28, 2026

The X post embedded above shows video footage of the altercation Alex Pretti had with CBP officers the week before he was shot, which reportedly resulted in him breaking a rib. It shows him kicking out the tail light of the CBP van and struggling with the officers. Several scenes in the video appear to show him carrying a firearm in the small of his back, as he did a week later when he was shot. Additional context has emerged this week that suggests he wasn't just a random bystander; he was deliberately dispatched to both scenes by an organized network purposely to disrupt CBP activities.

In yesterday's post, I also speculated that Pretti must have been part of an organized network of agitators with specific job descriptions and responsibilities. Jennifer Van Laar at RedState has summarized X posts by users like Cam Higby and Data republican that go into detail on precisely this subect:

We're learning a lot more about the people who were in the anti-ICE Signal chat groups that independent journalist Cam Higby infiltrated in Minnesota, the organization of the group, its donors, and the significance of the address at which Alex Pretti was obstructing federal officers.

. . . The groups are highly sophisticated. They're set up geographically; within the City of Minneapolis, they're generally divided by City Council district, but also cover St. Paul, Bloomington, and other suburbs. They start a new chat every day and delete the prior day's chat.

She then links to another RedState piece by Ward Clark that summarizes Higby's posts on the groups' training materials:

These training materials and the setup of this online system indicate that someone with some money is behind all this. These materials mention "patrol training" and mention the use of the Signal chat system.

This is precisely the question I've been starting to ask: this costs money. Let's go back to the Van Laar piece to get an idea of how complicated this is:

They have a set of emojis that each user puts around their name [in the Signal chats] when they're on shift, to indicate what position they're working that shift.

She prints a screen shot from a Higby post listing the various positions they work, including mobile patrol, stationary patrol, foot patrol, dispatch, hyper-local group messenger, license plate checker, medic, and aftercare provider. Van Laar links to another RedState piece that goes into more detail on how these functions are coordinated. It turns out that several local politicians, especially state Rep. Brad Tabke, recruit and coordinate the players. Tabke coordinates the Scott County ICE Watch Signal chat; Scott County is outside Minneapolis.

This is a confirmation email from a SignUpGenius ( https://t.co/3GLj420CWa) signup for “Scott County ICE Watch”, and it is very clearly signed by Brad at the bottom:
• He personally thanks me for signing up
• He gives instructions for patrol shifts, Signal app usage, posting… pic.twitter.com/d3FZDXFcuv

— 🇺🇸White Raven🇺🇸 (@White_Raven9515) January 24, 2026

Cam Higby has determined that Alex Pretti was part of one such group and appears to have had a specific role in it:

🚨 ALEX PRETTI IN ON SIGNAL CONSPIRACY?

In the highly organized anti-ICE rapid response signal group “Tom O’Hoch” says “WE suspect an ‘observer’ was shot”

Observers are what they call ICE chasers involved in the signal network dedicated to hunting down agents and harassing,… pic.twitter.com/hTmyJUKXGj

— Cam Higby 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) January 25, 2026

A Fox News story outlines what appear to have been the specifics of Pretti's dispatch via Signal chat to the scene where he was shot:

At 9:50 a.m. ET, just before the killing, a user identified as "Willow" shared a 22-second video on an encrypted Signal chat for anti-ICE "rapid responders."

"26and 3rd," wrote "Willow," quickly following up with, "Outside Glam Doll."

. . . Just three minutes later, at 9:53 a.m. ET, a second Signal user, "Salacious B. Crumb," escalated the alert, summoning additional responders and citing the same vehicle and agents.

"Backup needed at the Black Forest Inn parking lot on Nicollet Ave just south of 26th Street," the message read.

. . . Video of the scene shows that as Pretti stepped into the middle of Nicollet Avenue to direct traffic, fellow agitators could be heard blowing whistles to alert locals that ICE officers were around. Soon after, Pretti ended up in a street confrontation with CBP agents, across the street from Glam Doll Donuts outside a worn storefront marked "NEW AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT CENTER," a nonprofit focused on immigration entry programs for Somalis.

Within minutes, at about 10:05 a.m. ET, at least one CBP agent shot Pretti, killing him.

After the shootinmg, additional Signal chat posts directed additional protesters to the site. This AP story concedes the existence of secret chat networks but portrays participants simply as public-spirited citizens:

To understand this world, talk to a woman known in the rapid response networks only by her nickname, Sunshine. She asked that her real name not be used, fearing retaliation.

A friendly woman who works in health care, she has spent hundreds of hours in her slightly beat-up Subaru patrolling an immigrant St. Paul enclave of taquerias and Asian grocery stores, watching for signs of federal agents. She can spot an idling SUV from the tiniest hint of exhaust, an out-of-state license plate from a block away, and quickly distinguish an undercover St. Paul police car from an unmarked immigration vehicle.

On the messaging apps, she’s simply Sunshine. She knows the real names of few other people, even after working with some for weeks on end.

She hates what is happening, and feels deeply for people living in fear. She worries the Trump administration wants to push the nation into civil war, and believes she has no choice except to patrol — “commuting” it’s often called, half-jokingly — every day.

So, the story says she "works in health care", but she also patrols every day in her Subaru. This would fit the job description of "mobile patrol" we see above. But someone doing this in a private vehicle would normally be reimbursed for mileage in a regular job. Gas is expensive. The opportunity cost of spending the day on patrol when she might be earning money at a normal job is also significant. And it sounds like many of these people are effectively on call -- this isn't a weekend hobby activity. What's really going on here?

Some of these people are being paid, This looks like serious work, dispatchers, license plate checkers, medics, on call. For instance, it sounds like Pretti was on call and sent to the job site by a dispatcher. it's the only conclusion I can draw. So do they get W-2s, 1099s, or what? Nobody seems to be looking into this.

Questions That Won't Go Away

First Question: Renee Good, the lady who was shot by a federal officer while trying to run him over with her $50,000 Honda SUV, has been characterized in the media as a stay-at-home mom from Kansas City who nevertheless dropped her child off at day care so she could demonstrate against ICE in Minneapolis. Just how did she afford her lifestyle? If she didn't draw an income, what about her partner, Becca? I asked Chrome AI mode, "What did Renée Good's partner do for a living?" It replied,

Becca Good, Renee Good's partner, was a handywoman.

Following the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the couple moved to Canada for several months before relocating to Minneapolis. During their time in Minneapolis, they were reportedly involved in a local business together, with both listed as company managers for an entity incorporated in 2024.

So I asked, "What was the local business in which Renee and Becca Good were both listed as company managers for an entity incorporated in 2024?" It replied,

Renee Nicole Macklin Good and her partner, Rebecca "Becca" Brown Good, were both listed as company managers for B. Good Handywork LLC.

The business, which specialized in household repair, maintenance, and interior/exterior upgrade projects, was officially incorporated in early 2024 according to Missouri Secretary of State records. Before relocating to Minneapolis and then briefly to Canada, the couple operated the business from a residential address in the Waldo neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri.

But the handywoman business was in Kansas City, not Minneapolis, and in any case, the accounts that descsribe Renee as a stay-at-home mom suggest she wasn't involved in it. It doesn't appear that either Renee or Becca had a visible means of support when they got to Mineeapolis, nor for that matter in Canada. Exactly why they moved to either place is unclear. According to The Minneapolis Star-Tribune,

What brought Good to this city — now the scene of the largest ongoing ICE surge in the country — requires untangling a web of cross-country moves and name changes since growing up in a Christian household in Colorado Springs and twice becoming a military wife. Nearly two decades later, she was in love with Rebecca Good and seeking refuge in Minneapolis.

“I think she just maybe wanted a fresh start, a more open community,” her former sister-in-law Jessica Fletcher told the Star Tribune.

. . . In her only public statement since the killing, Rebecca Good told Minnesota Public Radio they moved to Minnesota “to make a better life for ourselves.

“[T]here was a strong shared sense here in Minneapolis that we were looking out for each other. Here, I had finally found peace and safe harbor. That has been taken from me forever.”

But none of this answers the basic questions, why did they move to Canada or Minneapolis? How did they afford even to put gas in the Honda Pilot, much less meet the payments and insurance? To make a fresh start just doesn't cut it.

Second Question: From what we know now, Alex Pretti, who was shot by CBP agents while interfering with enforcement activities, was a known figure to CBP prior to the shooting:

Federal immigration officers have been collecting personal information about protesters and agitators in Minneapolis, sources told CNN – and had documented details about Alex Pretti before he was shot to death on Saturday.

It is unclear how Pretti first came to the attention of federal authorities, but sources told CNN that about a week before his death, he suffered a broken rib when a group of federal officers tackled him while he was protesting their attempt to detain other individuals.

. . . A memo sent earlier this month to agents temporarily assigned to the city asked them to “capture all images, license plates, identifications, and general information on hotels, agitators, protestors, etc., so we can capture it all in one consolidated form,” according to correspondence reviewed by CNN.

This actually is standard law enforcement practice. Beat cops are expected to know the "frequent fliers" on their beats and provide information to investigators as needed. This is supplemented by field interview records, which document encounters, including date, time, location, name, address, physical description/tattoos, reason for the contact, and vehicle details, even if no arrest is made. It is a key investigative tool.

The fact that Pretti had at least one previous encounter with CBP, which implies that he'd generated field reports, suggests that he was a regular at protests. How did he have time for this -- wasn't he an intensive care nurse at a VA hospital? The answer is that hospital nurses typically work 3/12 shifts, that is, 12-hour shifts, three days per week, or in other words, four days off per week. He had plenty of time to demonstrate. It could even have been a second gig

The question is, was it? The link continues,

“When our law enforcement encounter a violent agitator who is breaking the law, obstructing law enforcement or assaulting them, our law enforcement make records to advance prosecution. This is not ground breaking, it is standard protocol,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in a statement.

The earlier incident started when he stopped his car after observing ICE agents chasing what he described as a family on foot, and began shouting and blowing his whistle, according to a source who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution.

. . . Earlier this month, a DHS official in Minneapolis sent a memo to Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations officers assigned to the state on temporary duty asking them to use a form to input information on protesters and agitators.

The form — titled “intel collection non-arrests” — allows agents to fill in personal information of agitators and protesters who they encounter. It’s not clear whether other agencies in Minnesota are also using the form.

. . . Pretti’s name was known to federal agents, according to a source – though it’s unclear whether the new intake form was used to share his information.

Every indication points to the possibility that Pretti was part of an organized network of "rapid responders" who were trained to interfere in immigration enforcement activities.

The encrypted Signal messages obtained by Fox News Digital in real time show that anti-ICE "rapid responders" were actively tracking, broadcasting and summoning "backup" around federal agents outside Glam Doll Donuts on Nicollet Avenue, where the shooting happened.

. . . At 9:50 a.m. ET, just before the killing, a user identified as "Willow" shared a 22-second video on an encrypted Signal chat for anti-ICE "rapid responders."

. . . Just three minutes later, at 9:53 a.m. ET, a second Signal user, "Salacious B. Crumb," escalated the alert, summoning additional responders and citing the same vehicle and agents.

"Backup needed at the Black Forest Inn parking lot on Nicollet Ave just south of 26th Street," the message read.

. . . Video of the scene shows that as Pretti stepped into the middle of Nicollet Avenue to direct traffic, fellow agitators could be heard blowing whistles to alert locals that ICE officers were around. Soon after, Pretti ended up in a street confrontation with CBP agents, across the street from Glam Doll Donuts outside a worn storefront marked "NEW AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT CENTER," a nonprofit focused on immigration entry programs for Somalis.

Within minutes, at about 10:05 a.m. ET, at least one CBP agent shot Pretti, killing him.

In both the Renee Good and Alex Pretti cases, evidence points to their membership in a highly organized, specially trained cadre. Are such members paid? How are they recruited? What are their specific responsibilities? How do the organizers make sure they aren't feds?

I ask these sorts of questions for free. There are highly paid people who ought to be asking them, with the resources to follow them up. Why aren't they doing this?