Former constitutional lawyer David French has warned that President Donald Trump is hollowing out America—and barely bothering to hide his tactics from foreign enemies.
French, a right-leaning former attorney and opinion columnist for The New York Times, wrote a column on Sunday calling out Trump and Vice President JD Vance for deliberately stoking division in the wake of Wednesday’s fatal shooting by ICE in Minneapolis.
“President Trump is putting on a clinic on how to break the United States,” French, 56, wrote.
“There are few things in American life more divisive than controversies over police violence,” French said, recalling the passionate citizen response to the police killings of George Floyd and Michael Brown Jr.
French then invoked the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles—the last time a sitting president deployed active-duty troops to domestic streets until Trump did in 2025—which he called “a preview of our modern dilemma.”
“How do political leaders respond when video evidence causes the public to make up its own mind — regardless of what any judge or jury might have to say?” the former Republican wrote.
On Wednesday, ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot 37-year-old mother Renee Nicole Good on a residential street in Minneapolis, which was captured by several eyewitness videos. Within hours of the shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made a snap judgment defending Ross’s actions, referring to Good as a “domestic terrorist.”
Trump, Vance, and other administration officials followed suit—referring to Good as a “violent rioter” who “weaponized her vehicle” against the ICE officers surrounding her car, and called the incident an “attack on law enforcement,” despite video evidence presenting the contrary.
“These are professional agitators, and law enforcement should not be in a position where they have to put up with this stuff,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday. “What that woman and what her friend and what their other friends were doing to law enforcement—not just ICE, law enforcement—is outrageous.”
French blasted Trump and the administration’s response as irresponsible and authoritarian, saying that good leaders handle any instance of police violence with “extreme care.”
“You lament the lives lost, you promise a fair and thorough investigation, and you call for calm,” he wrote. “You do not prejudge the case. You do not set up an expectation that justice will be done only if your side’s interests are vindicated. And you definitely don’t send out allies and subordinates to whip up public anger.”
“Trump isn’t a responsible leader, and he’s at his absolute worst in a crisis,” French continued. “He lies. He inflames his base. And — most dangerous of all — he pits the federal government against states and cities, treating them not as partners in constitutional governance but as hostile inferiors that must be brought to heel.”
“The administration’s claims of terrorism are false,” French added, citing the multiple eyewitness videos of the incident. “Absurdly so.”
The lawyer went on to say that a law enforcement shooting should not be “prejudged” and requires a “rigorous investigation”—one he believes the Trump administration is unlikely to conduct.
“Under our constitutional structure of government, the federal sovereign is supreme,” French wrote. “That means federal power can offer a solution to state injustice. But there is no easy state solution for federal oppression.”
“A president hellbent on oppression, reinforced by his pardon power — and effectively immune from conviction even if he is impeached — will be able to get his way, at least for a time,” he continued.
“This produces the kind of tension that can break a nation. When a government oppresses its citizens and cuts off access to justice, it places an unbearable strain on the system.”
The response to the shooting by other MAGA characters, from mouthpieces like conservative commentator Matt Walsh to figureheads like Vance, goes to show the dehumanizing view Trump supporters have against their political opponents, French argues.
On X, Vance called Good’s death “a tragedy of her own making,” while Walsh referred to her killing as the “most disgraceful and humiliating end a person could possibly meet.”
“To the worst parts of MAGA — including people who exert immense power over American life — your worth is defined by your obedience,“ French concluded. ”And those who don’t obey? Well, they deserve to die, and no one should mourn their death.”
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