John Zogby: F

Trump is on the ropes and is once again forced to back down from another take-no-prisoners action. This time, it’s Minneapolis, where two top immigration officials were removed from the city and replaced with border czar Tom Homan. 

Homan is no shrinking violet but he at least had civil conversations with the city’s mayor and the state’s governor, promising to investigate a deadly shooting and withdrawing some Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from the city. 

Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, is looking more and more like a sacrificial lamb, another problem for Trump. Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff, who by the way knows everything, finally admitted, sort of, that maybe mistakes were made. 

The president is now talking tough again on Iran. Which is more frightening: unleashing another attack on Iran or backing down? Is shutting up ever under consideration? 

His tariff policies have driven the U.S. trade deficit higher than a year ago and the president’s approval rating is significantly lower than a year ago. Several major polls show him in the 30s. 

Looks like it’s time for folks at the White House to chill and maybe unwind by catching a new documentary at a local theater. Plenty of seats are available, I understand.

Jed Babbin: C plus

This was not a very good week for Trump and his team. It seems like another version of Groundhog Day with Congress refusing to fund ICE — which could have led to another government shutdown — calls for “de-escalation” in Minneapolis, and Trump calling for the Iranians to come to the table for another nuclear deal. (The first version was about Medicaid for illegal immigrants and this one is about Trump’s policy on deporting illegal immigrants, especially those who committed crimes here. Do you see a trend? The Dems will do anything they can to frustrate the deportation of undocumented immigrants.)

The media is totally consumed with the shooting death of Alex Pretti at the hands of Border Patrol. It does appear to be an unjustified shooting. But the riots in Minneapolis are far beyond that with both Gov. Tampon Tim Walz (D-MN) and Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey trying to rouse the crowds rather than calling for calm. 

The defections of seven Republican senators on funding for ICE and the Department of Homeland Security funding seem to have cowed Trump into a compromise on the Minneapolis effort to deport a lot of the undocumented immigrants. If Trump does this, he’ll end up retreating on all of it. There may still be a partial government shutdown but only affecting ICE and DHS … neither of which Trump can compromise on.

Meanwhile, DHS has claimed that in the first year of Trump’s second term, about three million illegal immigrants have been deported or self-deported. This is what Trump was elected to do and he can’t spare DHS or ICE in order to continue this effort. 

And we can’t forget Iran or Ukraine. Trump’s positioning of another aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, near Iran is another threat Iran can’t ignore. Or can it? Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Arab nations have been pressuring Trump to not attack Iran. Is there a diplomatic off-ramp to a war? Trump has to know he cannot trust Iran in any respect. They’ll lie, cheat, and steal just as they always have. So what’s the point of negotiating?

We are a bit more than three weeks away from the fourth anniversary of the Russian war on Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that U.S. security guarantees are agreed but not yet announced. Those guarantees may not be enough to even get a ceasefire because Russian President Vladimir Putin is not interested in peace. Trump’s new “Board of Peace” meets Putin, who is bored of peace.

John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Survey and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His latest book, Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read Polls and Why We Should, was just released. His podcast with son and managing partner and pollster Jeremy Zogby can be heard here. Follow him on X @ZogbyStrategies.

Jed Babbin is a Washington Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of former President George H.W. Bush. Follow him on X @jedbabbin.

Lunchtime reading

Trump Picks Kevin Warsh as Fed Chairman: Warsh will have to satisfy a president who has made clear he expects rates to fall — and who has shown no patience for Fed chairs who disappoint him. Trump showered praise on Powell after nominating him in 2017, only to lash out regularly when the Fed bucked his demands for lower rates. 

Is the U.S. about to go to war with Iran over nuclear weapons? Besides the aircraft carrier Lincoln, the U.S. has positioned at least eight other warships in the region. “We have a lot of very big, very powerful ships sailing to Iran right now, and it would be great if we didn’t have to use them,” Trump said last night.

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