OPINION:
If politics is the art of the possible, then the Trump administration has mastered the art of the improbable backtrack.
In the parlance of our time, it’s TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out. The thunderous threats of military action against Iran dissolved into a quiet “wait and see” after Tehran promised to behave. The blustering announcement of tariffs on European allies over Greenland, canceled abruptly with vague murmurings of a “framework” agreement.
It is a pattern as predictable as the tides: maximalist roar, followed by a quiet, shuffling retreat when reality — or the stock market — bites back.
But this weekend in Minneapolis, the retreat wasn’t just a shuffle; it was a full-blown sprint. And for once, the reality biting back wasn’t an economic indicator or a diplomatic cable. It was a video recording of a man named Alex Pretti being shot to death in the street.
The events surrounding Mr. Pretti’s death have exposed the Orwellian machinery of the current administration’s propaganda arm like never before. When Mr. Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse and lawful gun owner, was shot by federal agents Saturday, the administration didn’t just spin the fairy tale; it invented a new universe.
Almost immediately, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stepped up to the microphone — not to offer condolences but to assassinate a dead man’s character. She claimed Mr. Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” intent on inflicting “maximum damage” and killing law enforcement.
Stephen Miller, the architect of the deportation agenda, called him a “would-be assassin.” Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander who has been strutting around Minneapolis in a coat that makes him look like he’s cosplaying a Nazi, declared that Mr. Pretti planned a “massacre.”
These weren’t hedged guesses. They were absolute, categorical lies delivered with the confidence of people who believe they own the truth. But then the videos came out.
They didn’t show a massacre in the making. They showed a man trying to help a woman who had been shoved and pepper-sprayed. They showed him being tackled by a mob of camouflaged and masked agents. They showed him being disarmed. And then, they showed him being shot in the back. As The Wall Street Journal — hardly a bastion of liberal hysteria — noted, “The Trump administration spin on this simply isn’t believable.”
This disconnect between the official narrative and the visual evidence was so jarring that long-standing partisan dams began to break. It wasn’t just Democrats crying foul. It was Texas Gov. Greg Abbott calling for a “recalibration.” It was Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska reminding us that “lawfully carrying a firearm does not justify federal agents killing an American.”
And suddenly, the White House realized that the “domestic terrorist” line wasn’t playing. The retreat began.
First, Mr. Bovino, bearing a striking resemblance to Sean Penn in “One Battle After Another,” was stripped of his title and sent packing back to California, his social media megaphone confiscated like an unruly teenager’s smartphone. Then came the frantic distancing.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, tasked with the unenviable job of cleaning up the mess, claimed she hadn’t heard the president use the “domestic terrorist” language — a convenient amnesia given that Mr. Trump’s top advisers were shouting it from the rooftops.
Then came the piece de resistance: Mr. Trump’s sudden warmth toward Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Just a day after his staff called Mr. Walz a “lunatic” and accused him of inciting violence, Mr. Trump was tweeting about a “very good call” and being on a “similar wavelength.” It was rhetorical whiplash of the highest order.
This isn’t just about bad public relations. It’s about the terrifying ease with which the government tried to overwrite reality. As one anonymous Homeland Security Department official told CBS, “When we gaslight and contradict what the public can plainly see with their own eyes, we lose all credibility.”
The administration is now frantically trying to scrub the “terrorist” label from the record, insisting on an investigation it previously deemed unnecessary. It’s trying to pivot, to pretend that Mr. Miller and Ms. Noem didn’t slander a citizen moments after his death. But the internet is forever, and the videos aren’t going away.
For years, Mr. Trump has worn the moniker “Teflon Don” because nothing seems to stick. But the backtracking we are seeing now is a clear admission of defeat. It is a tacit acknowledgment that, for the first time in a long time, the lie didn’t work. The spin didn’t hold.
Watch for the Teflon coating to chip away quickly now.
• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter @josephcurl.
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