Bulwark Takes - Right-Wing Media Won’t Let Trump De-Escalate Minneapolis

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

Sam Stein and Will Sommer give their takes on the right wing media fallout from the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis after the White House quietly tried to distance themselves from Greg Bovino. Megyn Kelly was grossly indifferent and didn't "feel sorry" about Pretti's death while Tim Pool remains unapologetic and is pushing for the crackdowns to continue.

Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stein. Man, you guys here at the Bullock, and I'm here with Will Summer, and we are going to be talking about Minnesota, Trump's efforts at a recalibration and how it's playing with the MAGA Media crowd before we get into it. Subscribe to our feed. So I don't have to tell you at the end of this podcast to subscribe. You should just subscribe now. Even if it means leaving the podcast, go, go subscribe. All right, well, basically, last 24 hours has been very interesting. So you have clear indications from the White House that they want distance. from what happened with the Alex Pready murder, that they feel like Trump's got to at least moderate a little bit. And he's tried. He put Tom Homan in there. Tom Homan's talking to Governor Walls, Mayor Fry. But the MAGA media crowd is not having it. So what is your kind of 30,000 foot assessment of how this is playing? I mean, I think there's this reaction. I mean, you know, it's crazy they're getting upset over this like supposed moderation because it's like the

moderate option is Tom Homan and maybe not Greg Bovino. But they are. I mean, we saw on Monday night there was this kind of revolt in right-wing media, particularly among these kind of Twitter personalities who bounce around to different cities when there's a hotspot. And they were saying, you know, they're going to, you know, take Bovino's, you know, commander at large position, or they're going to punish Bovino for enforcing the law. And so we're seeing this backlash, I think, and this idea that there's kind of this clash between people who see deportations and like this mass deportation and really like this very cruel way in which it's carried out as kind of the keystone of the Trump agenda and the most important thing. And then other people who are saying,

well, geez, do we really want to sink everything else we want to get done over this? Well, isn't it more that they just think any sort of moderation or compromise or attempts to bow to political pressure is an inherent sign of weakness. And they control all. levers of government and they, you know, they should just do what they want. I mean, I think that's definitely part of it. I mean, that there's the sense that, you know, if Tim Walls and the mayor in Minneapolis get to declare victory or the sense that their ICE has rolled back that Trump is basically signaling, you know, that the administration is over, that the left, you know, as these people see it, that these leftist activists will have defeated

them. And so I think they really want, you know, at least to keep things at the level they were under Greg Bevino and maybe surge even more. Yeah, it's like a zero-sum game for them. If you were to acknowledge any misstep whatsoever, essentially you're handing a victory to the opposition. Some of the reactions have been like, I struggle to find the right adjective. Shockingly, bloodthirsty or indifferent or, you know, devoid of empathy. I'll play a couple.

Let's start with Meg and Kelly, who I shouldn't be surprised, I guess, by this. But truly like just saying, I don't give a shit that this person was killed. and justifying it in the most ridiculous fashion. Let's play the clip. I know I'm supposed to feel sorry for Alex Pretty, but I don't. I don't. Do you know why I wasn't shot by Border Patrol this weekend? Because I kept my ass inside and out of their operations.

It's very simple. If I felt strongly enough about something the government was doing that I would go out and protest, I would do it peacefully on the sidewalk without interfering via a whistle, via shouting, via my body, via any other way, I would make my objections known by standing there without interfering. Because interfering is where you go south. Look, to openly say you don't feel sorry that someone was shot to death, you got to have a little bit of, you know, an absence of something in your core for you to say something like that.

But that seems to be a particular strand of reaction. on the right, well? I mean, you know, Megan Kelly, I think this is an innovation in constitutional law that the First Amendment doesn't apply to shouting, you know, at that point, look, if you're shouting, you know, it's, it's safety's off, you know, it's, you know, they can kill you if they want. I mean, it's crazy. I mean, this is really, I think, kind of the vibe of the second Trump administration and this, the broader kind of like the new right that I think J.D. Vance really represents, which is, you know, because you might say, well, wouldn't you guys be upset if, you know, someone on the right had been, you know, legally carrying a gun, had been executed by the

government. And they would say, well, yeah, we'd be upset then because he'd be a Trump, he'd be one of our guys. But this is one of your guys. So we don't really care. And I mean, I think she's making that clear. The, it's just really like this kind of bloodthirsty, this attitude of like, we just want to crush our enemies and we don't care how it happens. And then there's also the sort of rationalization for ISIS action. It's like, of course they would shoot this person. He interfered with them. I don't know. In this case, Alex Prady was protecting a woman that they'd push and then got pepper sprayed. But he interfered in their operation. Of course he should be shot.

I mean, it's absurd. But then you see like Greg Kelly, for instance, who brandishes the, let's just play the video of Greg Kelly, sort of trying to rationalize why an ice agent might just decide, you know what, that could be a gun. I'm going to shoot that person. I want to show you something. Does that look like a gun? I think it does a little bit. It's a phone. It's black like most phones.

That's crazy stuff. I just keep in mind. This guy is the son of an expert. police commissioner. Yeah, that's a very, it starts me as a very kind of like New York debate. It's like, you know, what was the suspect holding or something like that. Hey, could have been a phone. No, no, exactly. I mean, it's crazy. And I mean, there is a lot of this, you know, I've been seeing from, you know, people, I believe Alibati was saying, who's a conservative commentator, well, you know, look, he was impeding traffic, you know, which I don't even think was really true.

But this idea that, you know, I feel like these people are not really, like, thinking through the steps here. Because I think with, like, a lot of things we're seeing in this administration, it's assumed that they'll just kind of always be in power or that Democrats would never turn this on them. And so it's this idea, well, look, I mean, you know, if you're in the way, if you're in the way, if you're, if you're, you're. you're obstructing our policy, even by shouting or whistling, you know, we can, you know, the government can feel free to shoot you. I don't think everyone is doing this. I don't want to overstate it, right? Like, there's been some people on the right who have honestly grappled with this and said,

I've looked at it five different ways, you know, I think Eric Erickson, but I don't want to butcher it. I think Erickson was like, I've looked at this a million ways. I didn't want to take pretty side. But I feel like this was unjustified. Like, there's people who are grappling with it, even in their way. to sort of try to bend over backwards for the administration. But you are seeing a lot of people just try to figure out a way to circle the wagons. And also get mad that Trump would, you know, for instance, push aside Bovino, right?

Like, they get mad at that. And it creates this kind of echo chamber, I think, that you've written about this a little bit. We've talked about it this. But it doesn't do Trump a good service here, right? Like, if he has 35% of the vote, but also like a huge chunk of, of the commentary, the loudest voice is instinctively saying, just keep plowing forward, sir. It gives them a comfort that I don't think serves him well politically. Yeah, I mean, I think this is the crux of it.

I think right-wing media right now, we're seeing them sort of out of step with the administration and what Trump appears to at least momentarily want to do, which is moderate, pull back, maybe rein in, Christy Noem, Corey Lewandowski at DHS, and put kind of get Greg Bevino out of there because he's really become the face of this disaster, put Tom Homan in. Meanwhile, these guys, as you're saying, in for decades, right way media has said essentially like the idea of compromise at all, even legislative compromise is bad. Like you should get the maximum of what you can possibly get at every opportunity. You know, this can seem far afield, but things like a shutdown fight or the debt ceiling. Just don't compromise ever.

And so for someone like Megan Kelly or Greg Kelly, there's really no reason. I mean, for them, they're not looking at midterms or they're not looking at, you know, all these other things that that they could face for back. class year because their audiences want this. I mean, they wanted the deportations and now they want to see them carried out, even though at this point, like the deportation seems so almost like separate from the policy objective in Minneapolis, which just seems to be sort of generally terrorizing a liberal city. Yeah, exactly. But there are occasionally these cases where you can see sort of one of the right wing media figures kind of grapple with both the audience capture element, which you're talking about, but also the public perception element.

where they know that they're getting criticized for instinctively supporting whatever Trump does. So let's play the Tim Poole one because this one really sort of got at the tensions where he's having an internal monologue, but he's saying it out loud. When these people come out and go, Tim's a bootlicker for defending us. I'm like, no, no, you misunderstand. It's my boots. It's mine. I voted for them.

I'm wearing the boot. I'm stomping on the ground. I ain't licking anybody. I'm clapping for these people that I said, please go out and enforce the law. And anybody else who's cheering for it, who voted for it, too, we're all wearing the boots. You're the one crying. He's not licking anybody. That's good to know.

We got to rethink this. I mean, I think it's really striking with Tim Poole because he, in his case, he's such a, you know, he got big during Occupy Wall Street. He's the punk guy. He dresses like a skater. He literally has, like, he puts out punk music that are like, you know, enemy of the system type stuff. And then for him to be saying, I mean, he comes off there really like kind of like the Pipsqueak who teams up with the bully. And he's like, get him big guy. You know, I mean, it's really crazy.

And, Timble in a way, like, I mean, this is a guy who's constantly saying, oh, my gosh, there's going to be a civil war. Like, whatever, you know, there's like a liberal court victory or something like that, he goes, oh, this country can't stand it. And then he's out there, you know, when his side is in power and has the upper hand, he's like, just, just wipe them out, you know. I mean, the other sort of the takeaway here, I mean, he's saying, oh, this is my boot, whatever.

I mean, the implication there is, you know, this is also me shooting these people essentially. That, you know, I approve of that as well. Well, the first part is what stood out to me was when he's like, they're saying Tim's a bootlicker. It's like clearly he's internalizing some of the criticism of him. Yeah. I mean, he's also like, look, as someone who's followed Tim Poole's career very closely, I mean, he's someone who I think is very sensitive. And, you know, he lives out in this compound. I mean, he's very, I think, into his image.

And, you know, there is this clear clash between, between, I think, what he presents and how eager he is to cheer this on. Again, just to reiterate why this matter, so what we call in the business and the nut graph of it all, like, yes, it's important that these people have incredible voices, incredible reach, what they say is going to influence a lot of opinion, but they're also reflecting a lot of opinion out there. But to get back to our original point, it creates this cocoon that can be blinding for the administration, where they feel like, oh, okay, we don't actually have to apologize, or we don't have to step back, or we have enough support out there that we can just keep doing what we're doing in Minneapolis. And that can filter all the way into the White House press room itself.

I mean, there's been presidents who have begrudgingly confided that it's important to have an independent media precisely because they will present you and push you in ways that you're not comfortable with. They won't just be yes men and yes women. And you don't have to live in your own, you know, maybe. up universe. That's not this administration. And as example A, I'm going to give you the Gateway Pundance White House reporter asking the first question of Carolyn Levitt on Monday's press briefing. Keep in mind, this is the first time the administration, the White House press secretary, got a question about what happened over the weekend. It is the prime real estate for a reporter to press

the White House on one of the most gut-runching storylines in recent memory. And that's, And this is what the reporter asks. First, with respect, with respect to the shooting in Minneapolis, we're seeing massive outrage from mainstream media in the left. But I'm just wondering, where was that outrage when Ashley Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, was executed by Capitol Police Officer Michael Byrd, who she posed no threat to in the U.S. Capitol. All right.

I, you know, I didn't expect much from Gateway. But, like, that blew me away. Just totally irresponsible. Like, have some fucking. self-respect, if you're going to go there, just try, just try it a little bit. And don't be a dormant. But who is this guy anyway? I don't even know who this guy is. I think it's, is it Jordan Conratson, I think that's right. There's sort of this universe of like, the Gateway Pundit himself is a guy named Jim Hofden in St. Louis. And he has sort of a universe of cronies who kind of pop in

and out of the Pentagon offering in the White House asking, you know, very, very sycophantic questions to the administration. I mean, it is crazy. I mean, it is. It is. It's crazy. There is this effort, I think, to constantly say, you know, oh, well, I mean, the January 6 being the big example of, you know, well, Ashley Babett was shot. How unfair was that? You know, I mean, they still want, I believe Gateway Fund has been a big advocate for January six reparations for those who were convicted and tried there.

So, I mean, it's a whole different world. And I think it's one that the administration is really happy to have represented in the briefing room. Yeah, but it's so nutty. And it just ruined, I mean, you have a real opportunity and a real responsibility. And you're using it for that. that's just bullshit. The one other thing I would add here is like there is a real like aspect of like sort of a social media grassroots effort to pressure, I think the administration to keep up the heat of Minneapolis.

I mean, I think Nick Sortor, who we haven't mentioned yet, is a big part of that. This is a guy who's kind of part of this traveling circus. He was big at the ICE protests and he got kind of roughed up. And then then he went to Minneapolis and sort of followed in the wake of Nick Shirley and the fraud stuff. And so he was really tweeting, he was one of the first to tweet on Monday night. Oh, like they're coming for Bovino. We got to defend Bovino at all costs. And I think, I mean, he seems to have some legitimate border patrol sourcing.

And so he's able to sort of apply that pressure, whereas in the past, you know, this might come out through a background, background briefing to the New York Times. They say Bovino's out. And he can kind of rile up the MAGA base. I mean, you know, I think whereas the administration broadly is feeling like a little like, oh, gosh, what have we done in Minneapolis? We got to back off a little. This doesn't look good. Nick Sortor, as of today, was posting video. there's a protest outside a hotel where ICE Border Patrol was supposedly staying.

The people inside, I don't know if they're government agents or not, were mooning the protesters. So, I mean, that is the kind of stuff that they're still like really riled up about it. They're really into it. You know, and this underscores why this stuff matters. We're not just monitoring, you know, weirdos and randos on the internet. These are incredibly influential people. They have huge audiences, and they have a lot of sway over how people in the administration think and act. I mean, this administration is very much committed to,

feeding that online community that they've fostered and built. So it matters. And that's why we employ will. Otherwise, I really wouldn't want him here. All right. Well, thanks so much. Well, thanks so much, man. I appreciate everyone should really honestly subscribe to his newsletter, False Flag. It's awesome. Subscribe to Bullwark Takes where you get great stuff like this, and we will talk to you later.