The Toothpaste Re-Tubing Challenge

Today’s notice: The White House spins its own spin. Get ready to learn about how a partial government shutdown works. Jerome Powell’s lessons learned. A report from Minneapolis on local law enforcement stuck in the middle. And: A pair of regulars talk about the Outback Steakhouse in Arlington. Btw, you can get this newsletter in your inbox every day by signing up here — it’s free!

THE LATEST

The White House’s spin conundrum: Tom Homan is scheduled for his first press conference from Minneapolis this morning, after days of shifting messages from Donald Trump and top White House officials about the killing of Alex Pretti.

How we got here: Just before midnight Tuesday, the White House sent NOTUS’ Adora Brown an uncommon clarification on Stephen Miller’s statement that the federal agents who killed Pretti may not have been following “protocol.”

What he meant, the White House spox said, was that “officials would be examining why additional force protection assets may not have been present to support the operation.” You know, as opposed to saying that specific federal agents were violating any rules.

This administration is trying to untangle itself from CBP’s enforcement approach. The complication is that the agency’s approach is what the Trump administration said it wanted. Remember: “The mentality is CBP does what they’re told, and the administration thinks ICE isn’t getting the job done,” a DHS official said to NBC News in October. “So CBP will do it.”

“I think ultimately it’s unfair to the agents on the ground,” Tim Quinn, a former top CBP civilian official who left the job in May, told Jasmine. “You have this sort of situation where leadership at all levels is sending conflicting information and seems to be in conflict with each other,” he said of how the administration’s ongoing spin efforts are landing with agents.

Open tabs: Video appears to show Alex Pretti in scuffle with federal agents 11 days before his death (CBS); Backlash from Minnesota immigration actions sets back federal fraud cases (Star-Tribune); Homelessness Appears to Decline, Reversing a Yearslong Trend (NYT); Trump officials met group pushing Alberta independence from Canada (FT)

From the Hill

How’s the Stephen Miller spin effort going over on Capitol Hill? Senate Republicans are not cheering, NOTUS’ Oriana González reports. Asked if they still have confidence in the deputy chief of staff, many of them chose to give the topic a wide berth.

“It’s up to the president to make his decision on his Cabinet,” Sen. Ted Budd said.

(Partial) Shutdown Watch: “I have not heard anything back from Republicans suggesting that they’re willing to embrace all of this and put it into law, but if they don’t, we’re not going to move forward on appropriations,” Sen. Chris Coons said yesterday.

He’s one of the Democrats ready to hold up the minibus over demands that it be rewritten to include new constraints on federal immigration-enforcement tactics, though NOTUS’ Em Luetkemeyer and Ursula Perano report that there is still no serious effort underway to answer those demands. The deadline to figure this out is Friday at midnight.

From the Arlington Outback Steakhouse

Big doggin’ it at the strip mall: Sen. Jim Justice has tried white-cloth establishments around Washington — but his favorite place to take his office and his 60-pound canine companion Babydog out for steak? The Outback Steakhouse in Arlington, Virginia. There, he felt “at home,” Justice said.

An unlikely war room? “Whenever we got some time, and it’s in the evening, and we all just want to get away, laugh a little bit and everything, we go there,” the senator from West Virginia said. One of Justice’s staffers told Emily that his office holds “impromptu staff meetings” to discuss legislation and messaging there.

As for Babydog, Justice said, “Above everything in the world, she loves food.” He said he feeds her bites off his plate.

The restaurant loves him back. Emily spoke with Justice’s favorite server, Ken, who said the senator’s team is “very nice.” A signed portrait of Justice and Babydog now hangs above his regular booth.

From the Fed

Jerome Powell’s advice: “Don’t get pulled into elected politics. Don’t do it,” the Fed chair said yesterday in response to a question by CNN reporter Matt Egan about how his successor should conduct themselves on the job.

“If you want democratic legitimacy, you earn it by your interactions with our elected overseers, and so it’s something you need to work hard at, and I have worked hard at it,” Powell added.

From the campaign trail

Dan Osborn weighs in on DHS funding: Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts’ supporters were excited to note that the independent candidate in Nebraska had not taken a position Monday on the ongoing DHS funding fight (Ricketts said he was ready to vote for the funding.) Osborn’s campaign sent this statement from the candidate:

“At the core of this situation, I want to see Congress focus their attention on a plan for comprehensive immigration reform that works for everybody. I am not in favor of a shutdown. I am in favor of getting out-of-control government spending under control.”

NOTUS INTERVIEW

What should local cops do when federal immigration enforcement gets dangerous? It’s a big topic in Minneapolis, where NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery reports from the ground on local prosecutors wrestling with an until recently unfathomable question. He talked to City Attorney Kristyn Anderson.

“We can’t have a civil war on the streets,” she told him when he asked if Minneapolis police would draw their guns to stop federal agents if they witnessed something like the Pretti killing. She noted that cops were not on the scene for that shooting, or the one that killed Renee Good.

It’s an impossible balance for local officials. The Minneapolis Police Department is not part of activists’ efforts to stop federal law enforcement, and they will clear the scene and make arrests if people break the law while protesting. But federal officials see local police’s actions as complicit with the protestors anyway. Just as some activists see them as complicit with the feds.

Anderson insists that is not the case. “Look at where their toes are pointed,” she told Jose. “They’ll be facing out, protecting people.”

Local officials want help. “We have a place in this. But where is Congress?” she asked.

NEW ON NOTUS

Leave the refugees alone: “These individuals were admitted to the country, have followed the rules, and are waiting to have their status adjusted to lawful permanent residents of the United States,” John R. Tunheim, a Minnesota federal district judge, wrote in a 32-page ruling yesterday barring the Trump administration from arresting any of the state’s more than 5,000 lawful refugees.

More: Rubio Says He Doesn’t Anticipate Use of Force in Venezuela — But He Won’t Rule It Out, by Hamed Ahmadi

NOTUS PERSPECTIVES

What do the events of this year’s World Economic Forum signal about the future of the global order? A NOTUS forum featuring Cole Donovan, Kishore Mahbubani, Paul McCarthy, Ryan Mulholland, Landry Signé and Anne-Marie Slaughter.

NOT US

• As Minneapolis Rages, Legislators Move to Restrict ICE in Their States, by David W. Chen for The New York Times
  
• Tesla bet big on Elon Musk. His politics continue to haunt it. By Faiz Siddiqui for The Washington Post
  
• Inside the Washington Post’s existential meltdown. By Charlotte Klein for New York

BE SOCIAL

Actually a pretty sick burn from Marco Rubio.

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