Trump committed to 'bigger and more sinister' plot despite small retreat

Donald Trump may appear to be retreating from his operations in Minnesota, but according to an analysis from The i Paper, it is only a small move, and he remains committed to a "bigger and more sinister" plan for the coming elections.

On Wednesday, Tom Homan, Trump's leading adviser on border security and immigration matters, announced that 700 federal agents from ICE and CBP would be withdrawing from Minnesota. This followed weeks of a massive deportation operation in the state's Twin Cities that terrorized and harassed residents, and resulted in two U.S. citizens getting killed by federal agents on camera. The ongoing operation has been widely credited with further tanking public approval of federal immigration officers, and Trump's overall handling of the issue.

Despite this move, political reporter James Ball, writing for The i Paper on Thursday, said this was a relatively small reduction in force, as there were 3,000 agents deployed to the state to begin with. Reports from residents on the ground in the Twin Cities have also indicated that ICE and CBP tactics have not changed much, even as the Trump administration built the narrative of softening its approach.

Ball further argued that no matter what Trump is doing about his immigration operation in Minnesota, he remains committed to a much more worrisome plot involving these federal immigration officers: using them to interfere with future elections and cling to power.

"There are signs, too, of a bigger and more sinister plan in motion than simply using the machinery of the federal government to ramp up deportations," Ball wrote. "More than one figure close to Trump has connected these ICE raids to bids by the President and the Republican machinery around him to cling on to power at the midterms and other future elections."

He continued: "Trump’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, appeared to give this game away in a letter to Minnesota’s Governor, Tim Walz, in which she seemingly demanded access to the state’s voter records, asking for the power to purge voters she saw as ineligible. Under the U.S. Constitution, elections are managed by the states, not the federal government."

This letter from Bondi was followed this week by comments the president made during an appearance on a right-wing podcast, in which he asserted that elections ought to be "nationalized" in certain states, raising alarms among many lawmakers and experts that he intends to go further with his desire to control the outcomes of future elections.

Steve Bannon, the former Trump aide who maintains a prominent voice in MAGA politics, also said this week that the administration plans to deploy ICE agents to polling locations in upcoming elections. He characterized this idea as an effort to prevent election rigging — an echo of Trump's false claims about the 2020 race — while others argued that this tactic would instead be used to suppress voter turnout via intimidation. Not directly affiliated with the administration, Bannon has in recent months made several outlandish claims about Trump's future plans, including that he intends to run for an illegal third term.

"The White House has, for now, disavowed Bannon’s proposal, but that means little," Ball wrote. "Trump himself spent much of the 2024 election campaign disavowing 'Project 2025' – the radical nationalist blueprint for his second administration – only to hire one of its chief architects into his White House, and enact the plan almost in full. The President’s opponents are right to view Bannon’s plan as a very real possibility."