What did Donald Trump do today?

He doubled down on what his staffers are telling him to say about the latest killing in his Minnesota terror campaign.

After mostly ignoring the crisis yesterday in favor of a movie screening, Trump was forced to address the killing of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents. He toed the line set down by CPB and his own cabinet officials, telling the Wall Street Journal that—in effect—it was everyone's fault but his. In that interview and subsequent posts to his microblogging service, he blamed "Democrat run Sanctuary Cities," "Leftwing Agitators," state and local officials, immigrants in general. He also attacked Pretti himself, who was legally carrying a firearm when the Border Patrol raid began attracting the attention of observers, for being armed. (Needless to say, Trump takes a different view of what he calls "Second Amendment people" when he thinks they support him.) 

He also tried to float the idea that the specific model of gun Pretti was carrying was prone to accidental discharges—which would offer some theoretical justification for why Border Patrol officers opened fire on Pretti after he had already been disarmed, restrained, and rendered completely helpless. There's no evidence whatsoever that Pretti's gun discharged for any reason.

Trump also said the White House is "reviewing everything" about the shooting, which likely means it is trying to find a way to frame Pretti as the "domestic terrorist" and "would-be assassin" his staff has already tried to label him. That is precisely what it has tried to do with the murder of Renee Good by an ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, going so far as to file a meaningless criminal complaint against her that was immediately tossed out by a magistrate judge. But the administration has circled the wagons around Ross, insisting against all law and reason that federal agents have "absolute immunity" to kill Americans in the line of duty.

Pretti's killers have still not been named, and—according to the Border Patrol official that has become the face of the terror operation in Minnesota, Greg Bovino—the agents who shot him are supposedly still on active duty today. That is unheard of even in line-of-duty shootings where there is no question that a law enforcement officer acted correctly. 

As countless analyses have already shown, Trump is lying about what the video of Pretti's murder shows—assuming anyone has shown it to him. In the hours immediately following the killing of Renee Good, Trump followed the lead of administration officials in spreading lies about what had happened, only to abruptly change his tone later after he'd actually seen the video. 

It's no longer clear to what extent Trump is in control of his administration's terror campaign in Minnesota. By most accounts, the buck stops with Trump's aide and political operative Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff. Miller is a fixture in the permanent power struggles within the ranks of the Trump administration and a reliable source of palace intrigue and drama. His white supremacist and anti-immigrant leanings are a matter of record going back to his high school days (despite being the descendant of penniless Jewish refugees) and he has a proven track record of pushing Trump even further into scorched-earth territory on immigration matters.

Why does this matter?  

• Americans' right to safety from their own government is more important than Donald Trump's ego. 

• Nobody who sees the American people as the enemy is fit to serve in government. 

• A president who can't control his own staff is too weak to serve.