At multiple points during the Monday morning edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade suggested that President Donald Trump consider sending his border czar Tom Homan into Minneapolis.
“I would love to see Tom Homan just be asked to go in there and settle things down,” Kilmeade said. “He understands the president’s objective, he could come in with a fresh set of eyes.”
“For some reason, he’s been sidelined of late, and I think we could use somebody to come in there and settle everything down from the Trump perspective.”
As noted by CNN’s Brian Stelter, Kilmeade first made the suggestion at 6:15 a.m. before repeating it at 7:15 a.m. and again at 8:10 a.m.
At 8:30 a.m., the president announced on Truth Social that he was sending Tom Homan to Minnesota that evening.
“I am sending Tom Homan to Minnesota tonight,” Trump wrote. “He has not been involved in that area, but knows and likes many of the people there. Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me.”
While it is impossible to say with certainty whether Trump was influenced by Kilmeade’s appeals specifically, Stelter notes that Kilmeade is a known supporter of the president’s, and Trump often watches—and appears on—his program.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and Fox News for comment.
The decision to send Homan to Minneapolis came after another weekend of protests stemming from the killing of 37-year-old Veterans Affairs nurse Alex Pretti at the hands of a Border Patrol agent on Saturday.
Previously, Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino was overseeing operations on the ground and reporting to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
As Homan, who will report directly to the president, was brought in, Bovino was sent packing, reportedly demoted and told to return to his previous role in California.
Insiders with knowledge of the situation told the Atlantic that Noem and her top adviser, Corey Lewandowski, could be facing a similar fate, prompting the pair to arrange a lengthy two-hour meeting with the president in the Oval Office on Monday evening.
The president did not suggest that Noem and Lewandowski—who she is rumored to be engaging in an extramarital affair with, though both deny the rumors—were at risk of losing their jobs, the New York Times reported.
Noem and Homan have previously found themselves at odds, disagreeing over who to target in the Trump administration’s aggressive and sweeping immigration crackdown; Homan has advocated for focusing on “the worst of the worst” criminals and gang members, while Noem favors broad public round-ups of anyone suspected of being an immigrant.
Both Noem and Bovino attempted to justify Pretti’s killing as an act of self-defense, painting him as a “domestic terrorist” who was seeking to harm law enforcement officers. Pretti was shot 10 times after being pepper-sprayed and wrestled to the ground.
Noem’s approach has resulted in ICE’s approval rating plummeting to a low of minus 27 points.
“I’m not really surprised that President Trump is sending Tom Homan in because ICE, DHS, and Kristi Noem have been a political disaster,” CNN data guru Harry Enten told CNN News Central‘s Kate Bolduan on Monday.
“What’s going on Minneapolis is not popular at all. What’s been going on during this second term, under ICE, under the Trump administration, under Kristi Noem, has very much not been popular, and it’s only getting more and more unpopular.”
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