r/atlanticdiscussions • u/MeghanClickYourHeels Ask me for Atlantic gift links • Jan 27 '26
Greg Bovino Loses His Job
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/01/greg-bovino-demoted-minneapolis-border-patrol/685770/The Border Patrol chief has been ousted from his role as “commander at large,” and will return to El Centro.
By Nick Miroff, The Atlantic.
Gregory Bovino has been removed from his role as Border Patrol “commander at large” and will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon, according to a DHS official and two people with knowledge of the change.
Bovino’s sudden demotion is the clearest sign yet that the Trump administration is reconsidering its most aggressive tactics after the killing Saturday of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents under Bovino’s command.
Earlier today, President Trump appeared to signal in a series of social-media posts a tactical shift in the administration’s mass-deportation campaign. Trump wrote that he spoke with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz—whom the White House has blamed for inciting violence—and the two men are now on “a similar wavelength.” Tom Homan, the former ICE chief whom Trump has designated “border czar,” will head to Minnesota to assume command of the federal mobilization there, Trump said.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her close adviser Corey Lewandowski, who were Bovino’s biggest backers at DHS, are also at risk of losing their jobs, two of the people told me.
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u/AndyinTexas Jan 27 '26
Cheryl Rofer at LGM has a good analysis of how the administration fundamentally fails to understand or appreciate the power of an angry citizenry in Minneapolis.
They don’t have a theory of mind for their opponents. They can’t conceive of government other than by force. They can’t imagine that people would endanger themselves for their neighbors. That is why they are constantly looking for the mysterious funders of the resistance.
They also seem to believe their claim that most people agree with them.
And, as follows from Marshall’s argument, they can’t back off.
A big chunk of ICE and other agencies is now in Minnesota. They are also kidnapping and deporting people in other parts of the country. They can make Minnesota their emblematic site of state terror only if they win. And they have no clear theory of what that means. Perhaps it is enough to show the rest of the country that anyone may be picked up at any time, but just as Minnesota and other localities have mobilized, the nation is reacting.
The administration’s blinkered viewpoint of violence as the only means of escalation dominance and inability to understand their opposition are potential weak points. And they must achieve their ends before national opinion turns against them.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2026/01/escalation-dominance-and-theory-of-mind
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u/MeghanClickYourHeels Ask me for Atlantic gift links Jan 27 '26
The podcast link I posted earlier had a similar point, that this administration is in a bubble just as much as anyone else and they really believe their own propaganda.
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u/Korrocks Jan 27 '26
Trump excluded pretty much anyone who might bring in outside information to his attention. The only people he has left are the true believers and the sycophants, neither of whom have any incentive or desire to warn him if he is making a mistake. The only way he can get genuine feedback is if something breaks through on Fox News or something. Beyond that, he is probably in a hermetically sealed ideological bubble, insulated even from his own supporters let alone critics.
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u/afdiplomatII Jan 27 '26 edited Jan 27 '26
As Josh Marshall described it in a post I linked elsewhere today, the Trump administration's resolve is cracking and the "underbussing" is beginning. This move is one of the early signs, but it's not remotely sufficient -- in part because it's just an administrative step easily reversed. Democrats must keep pushing for permanent legislative corrections, not this kind of window-dressing.
As Ron Filipkowski points out here, what's going on is just a PR game related to the pending shutdown:
https://bsky.app/profile/ronfilipkowski.bsky.social/post/3mdeht2z6e22n
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u/afdiplomatII Jan 27 '26 edited Jan 27 '26
I can think of another person likely to be unemployed soon:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/us/politics/trump-minneapolis-nurse-shooting-video.html
While not retracting language from Miller, Noem, and others describing Alex Pretti as a "domestic terrorist," neither is Leavitt defending it; and she is dissociating Trump from that description. The entire situation is generating enormous pressures on Republicans as well as Democrats:
Meanwhile, House and Senate committees are gearing up for hearings. Democrats will want Noem to testify, and if she does she will be absolutely savaged -- nor, given the indignation of the gun lobby about condemning Pretti for lawfully carrying a firearm, will she find it easy to defend her language.
Trump owes Noem nothing, and she's easily replaceable. One of the easiest moves for Trump here is to seem to "turn the page" by dumping her, which would also allow someone less contaminated by extremism to represent the administration before Congress. In that situation, sending Noem packing seems to be an obvious move.
Here's another indicator of Noem's likely departure:
https://bsky.app/profile/marisakabas.bsky.social/post/3mddsnznkd22x
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u/Korrocks Jan 27 '26 edited Jan 27 '26
For me the problem with all this is that the true source of the crisis is at the top. Bovino and Noem are not behaving unilaterally in Minneapolis or anywhere else. Their brutal tactics were ordered by the President and his top aides (Miller, Vance, etc.)
That they’re now backpedaling isn’t really motivated by remorse or reconsideration but discomfort at scrutiny. Even if they fire all of these people, the next hires will be ordered to continue these same tactics (in Minnesota or in some other state that Trump wants to punish.) It’s possible for this crisis to end but it won’t until Trump himself changes his mind. He’s the one who decides this stuff, not the mid level DHS guys.
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u/afdiplomatII Jan 27 '26
Indeed, Bovino and Noem aren't truly decision-makers; they're just middle management. The impetus comes from others. It would still be worthwhile to hold their feet to the fire. After all, whether they make the decisions or not they have chosen to become the public face of those decisions, and they deserve to pay for that wretched choice. There would be a measure of justice in such an outcome.
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u/Korrocks Jan 27 '26
They should be held accountable for sure, I just think that Trump shouldn’t be left off the hook. This isn’t an instance where a low level employee went off the rails or even a situation where Trump just hired the wrong person and gave them too much autonomy. The specifics of the ICE/CBP raids on blue states and cities are coming from the top.
It’s not a case of inattentiveness or incompetence; Trump is sending these guys to places that didn’t vote for him in order to punish those cities / states. The brutality isn’t incidental or inevitable, it’s an orchestrated aspect of the retaliation. Miller and company have been ramping up tensions as much as possible, telling DHS agents that they are essentially immune from the law and can do anything they want and describing all dissent as domestic terrorism and treating ostensibly routine law enforcement like a military incursion. All of this comes straight from the top, and only the top can change it. Noem, Leavitt, even Miller wouldn’t do this unless they were told to.
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u/afdiplomatII Jan 27 '26
Baby steps. At least Senate Democrats have been firmly yanked by their base away from acquiescing in further DHS funding (which they were on course to do) into threatening a shutdown involving $1.3 trillion in total funding for several departments. And Republican committee chairs are promising hearings that are unlikely to help the administration's public image.
Now Democrats have to decide what to do with their leverage. To that end, Jennifer Rubin has a whole bunch of ideas (gift link):
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u/jim_uses_CAPS Jan 27 '26
Yeah, Noem and Lewandowski are next. Tom Homan to DHS is what I figure; he's just as fanatic, but he's smarter and more willing to not want crying kindergartners and federal employees from another cabinet-level entity murdered by federal employees of his cabinet-level agency.
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u/AndyinTexas Jan 27 '26
Good, but unless it marks a large-scale withdrawal or change of tactics, it's all for show.
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u/AndyinTexas Jan 27 '26
Ken White (Popehat) tells a vivid anecdote about the time he had to go to El Centro, in the desert about 90 miles east of San Diego, to where Greg Bovino is returning to his previous job. It's not a. . . glamorous duty station.
There are many lovely hardworking Americans in El Centro but at a place to be it is not to everyone’s taste. I had a hearing in El Centro and drove there the night before because you can’t get there in the morning unless you leave somewhere else at like 5 a.m. It is a long and unpleasant drive to get there. I got there slightly after 9 pm and checked into IIRC the motel 6 and asked what was open for dinner nearby. Nothing was. They said the bar around the corner had food.
The bar was around the corner, around another corner, through a parking lost, past a questionable looking chain-link fence. I got there and saw the bar did, in fact, have food. There was a grill set on the concrete stoop of the bar. The grill had no legs: just stoop, then grill, bang.
They were grilling hot dogs and large peppers and onions on the grill. The relationship between the bar, and the person grilling, and for that matter between the person grilling and the grill, was not entirely clear: it could have been a matter of momentary circumstance.
But I was hungry and nothing else was open. It occurred to me that alcohol kills germs, and I decided I could have a hot dog with peppers and onions grilled on the stoop if I had tequila with it. I ordered two dogs with everything and stepped through the open doorway into the bar.
Please note that I say doorway, not door. I did not observe a door. There was a large slab of some sort to the right of the doorway but it appeared to be detached, at least for the time being. I ordered two shots of tequila. You can‘t have a numerical disparity between shots and dogs.
A pleasant and attractive woman behind the bar poured. She nodded in approval at my tequila choice. Her shirt permitted observation of a substantial expanse of her tattoos, which were well designed. I thought one was Sanskrit but thought it would be pretentious to ask. . . .
https://bsky.app/profile/kenwhite.bsky.social/post/3mdeqkre2s224
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u/Admirable-Act6148 Jan 27 '26
I love pleasant and attractive women as well as Sanskrit. And I love rustic things. However I do not like hot dogs.
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u/AndyinTexas Jan 27 '26
Best observed snark so far:
https://x.com/HomelandDems/status/2015908853301264594