The Trump administration is 'creating conditions for a catastrophe': NYT analysis

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on artificial intelligence at the "Winning the AI Race" Summit in Washington D.C., U.S., July 23, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura

Tensions in Minneapolis continued to escalate on Saturday, January 24 when 37-year-old Alex Pretti — a U.S. citizen and intensive care unit (ICU) nurse at a Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital — was fatally shot by U.S. Border Patrol agents. Trump Administration officials are claiming that the agents shot Pretti in self-defense, stressing that he was carrying a concealed weapon; critics of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Minneapolis, however, are countering that according to videos, Pretti never brandished the gun, had a legal permit to carry a concealed weapon, and was shot multiple times after he was thrown to the ground and disarmed.

Pretti's death follows the fatal shooting of another Minneapolis resident, unarmed motorist Renee Nicole Good, by ICE agents.

Three New York Times columnists —David French, Michelle Goldberg and Lydia Polgreen — discuss Pretti's death and its implications in a conversation published in Q&A form on Monday morning, January 26.

French and Goldberg, both frequent guests on MS NOW, have their political differences. While Goldberg is a liberal, French is a Never Trump conservative. But they agree that Pretti's death shows how prone to violence the Trump Administration is.

French warned that Trump officials are "creating the conditions for a catastrophe."

The conservative columnist told Goldberg and Polgreen, "We are witnessing the total breakdown of any meaningful system of accountability for federal officials. The combination of Trump's January 6 pardons, his ongoing campaign of pardoning friends and allies, his politicized prosecutions and now his administration's assurances that federal officers have immunity are creating a new legal reality in the United States. The national government is becoming functionally lawless, and the legal system is struggling to contain his corruption. We're tasting the bitter fruit of Trump's dreadful policies, to be sure, but it's worse than that."

French continued, "He's exploiting years of legal developments that have helped insulate federal officials from both criminal and civil accountability…. The Trump Administration breaks the law, and also ruthlessly exploits all the immunities it's granted by law. The situation is unsustainable for a constitutional republic…. Good and Pretti both had calm demeanors. They may have been annoying federal officers, but nothing about their posture indicated the slightest threat."

Goldberg agreed with French, arguing that the Trump Administration "is very consciously reinforcing that sense of impunity."

The liberal columnist told French and Polgreen, "First there was (Trump adviser) Stephen Miller addressing the security forces after one of them killed Renee Good: 'To all ICE officers: You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties.' On Sunday, Greg Bovino, the self-consciously villainous Border Patrol commander, praised the agents who executed Alex Pretti."

Polgreen noted that she has covered "civil wars in places like Congo, Sudan, Sri Lanka and more" and added, "Watching the video of Pretti's killing, I thought: If this was happening on the streets of any of those places, I would not hesitate to call it an extrajudicial execution by security forces. This is where we are: armed agents of the state killing civilians with an apparent belief in their total impunity."

Read the full New York Times opinion article at this link (subscription required).

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