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Trump, unbowed by backlash to Minneapolis shooting, blames Democrats for ‘chaos’

WASHINGTON (AP) — The fatal shooting of a Minneapolis protester by a federal immigration officer touched off a fierce national debate and prompted some fellow Republicans to question President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration crackdown, but the president on Sunday night continued to blame Democratic officials.

After remaining relatively quiet on Sunday, the Republican president in two lengthy social media posts said that Democrats had encouraged people to obstruct law enforcement operations. He also called on officials in Minnesota to work with immigration officers and “turn over” people who were in the U.S. illegally.

“Tragically, two American Citizens have lost their lives as a result of this Democrat ensued chaos,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media network.

Trump’s refusal to back away from his pledge to carry out the largest deportation program in history and the surge of immigration officers to heavily Democratic cities came as more Republicans began calling for a deeper investigation and expressing unease with some of the administration’s tactics.

Trump also told The Wall Street Journal in an interview Sunday that his administration was “reviewing everything,” but he refused to say whether the officer who shot 37-year-old Alex Pretti acted appropriately.

“We’re looking, we’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination,” Trump said.

The White House did not answer questions about whether Trump watched the videos of the shooting in Minnesota, which seemed to contradict the account of what happened by members of his administration, or whether he planned to speak to Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who had appealed to the president to help bring calm to the city.

Instead, Trump on Sunday night said he would call on Congress to pass legislation banning so-called sanctuary cities. His administration has sought to apply the label to communities based on their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement efforts, among other factors.

His push for action by lawmakers comes even as outrage over the shooting has raised the possibility of a partial government shutdown in a week because of a standoff over additional funding for immigration enforcement.

Trump’s initial reaction to the shooting of Pretti came hours after it took place on Saturday. In a post on his Truth Social network, he questioned why Pretti had a firearm and accused Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey of inciting “Insurrection, with their pompous, dangerous, and arrogant rhetoric.”

But throughout the weekend, Trump, who rarely lets a major moment go without comment, did not make any public appearances or express any dismay over Pretti’s death.

Instead, he posted online complaining about Canada and efforts to stop him from building an expansive ballroom at the White House, calling a lawsuit to block its construction “devastating to the White House, our Country, and all concerned.”

He also posted messages praising U.K. troops after his comments about them earlier in the week were widely interpreted as a grave insult and praising guests appearing on Fox News Channel.

When he finally weighed in again Sunday night as criticism grew, Trump was unbowed.

He called on Walz and Frey, also a Democrat, to turn over for deportation anyone in the country illegally who was held in state prisons or local jails, along with anyone who has a warrant out for their arrest or a criminal history.

In his comments to The Wall Street Journal, Trump criticized Pretti for carrying a gun.

“I don’t like any shooting. I don’t like it,” Trump said. “But I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest and he’s got a very powerful, fully loaded gun with two magazines loaded up with bullets also. That doesn’t play good either.”

He said that immigration enforcement officers will leave Minneapolis “at some point” but did not offer a time frame.

Members of his administration, meanwhile, were quick to say the shooting, the second killing of a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis by immigration officers in recent weeks, was a case of an armed man provoking violence.

Deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller said in a post on social media, without offering any evidence, that Pretti was “an assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents.”

Vice President JD Vance shared Miller’s post. He issued other ones blaming local officials and describing what was happening in Minneapolis as “engineered chaos” that was “the direct consequence of far left agitators, working with local authorities.”

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01/25/2026
‘Worst in living memory’ say those rescued from rising waters

EPA/Shutterstock

Tens of thousands of people in Mozambique are being rescued as rising waters continue to devastate the southern African nation – the worst flooding in a generation.

Teams from Brazil, South Africa and the UK have been helping with life-saving rescue operations.

“For me, this is the first time I have experienced a calamity of this magnitude. Elders say a similar disaster took place in the 1990s,” 24-year-old mechanic Tomaz Antonio Mlau says.

EPA/Shutterstock

Many areas of south and central Mozambique are under water after two weeks of continuous downpours

Mlau and his family, who live near Marracuene – a town 30km (19 miles) north of the capital, Maputo – woke up to find their house inundated after the Inkomati River burst its banks.

“When a rescue boat came a few hours afterwards, we did not hesitate to board it and come to safety in Marracuene town,” he said, adding they had to abandon all their belongings and only managed to bring a change of clothes.

Mlau, his wife and two children have found refuge at one of six centres – schools and churches – that are so far sheltering about 4,000 people.

Many of those gathered at Gwazamutini Secondary School are farmers from the low-lying areas with livestock and rice fields.

“We lost everything in the floodwaters, including houses, TV sets, fridges, clothing and livestock – cattle, goats and pigs. Our farms are under water. I am a farmer. I grow quality rice,” 67-year-old Francisco Fernando Chivindzi told me.

His home is in Hobjana, one of several flooded neighbourhoods between the left bank of the Incomati River and the coastal tourism resort of Macaneta. Marracuene town is on the river’s right bank.

EPA/Shutterstock

More than 650,000 people have been affected by the rising water

“The floodwaters reached heights we weren’t expecting. We have never experienced this level of flooding in my lifetime,” Chivindzi said.

“We are happy to be here on higher ground. However, we are very worried that all our belongings were left behind.”

The farmer expressed his gratitude to the boat owners who came to assist him and his neighbours free of charge – and he urged others to save themselves.

“We hear that there are still some people resisting – clinging to treetops and on roofs. I wish they would heed the rescuers and join us here in this temporary shelter. We should value life more than the goods,” the father of nine said.

Reuters

Some people are reluctant to leave their property even though the water is continuing to rise

This was a view echoed by Shafee Sidat, the mayor of the Marracuene municipality, as he visited Gwazamutini Secondary School on Saturday.

“We still have people to rescue, some of whom refuse to abandon the risk areas. That’s a challenge. We reckon that more than 10,000 people are affected in Marracuene as a whole,” he told me.

At least 642,122 people have been affected since 7 January by flooding – particularly in southern and central regions, with 12 deaths recorded so far, according to provisional data from the National Institute for Disaster Risk Management and Reduction.

Jose Tembe/BBC

The worry is that Inkomati River will be deluged with more waters released from a dam in South Africa

In total 125 people have died in Mozambique since the rainy season began in October.

Mayor Sidat fears the situation is likely to get worse because of heavy rain in neighbouring South Africa, the source of the Inkomati River.

“We are worried about discharges of a South African dam on the Inkomati River. Our town is the last one downstream,” the mayor said.

“Before the waters flow into the Indian Ocean, they flood the ‘machambas’ (farmlands), homes and grazing areas here in the low-lying zones.”

Reuters

The military has been overseeing rescue efforts

Some aerial views show water as far as the eye can see. Hundreds of families remain cut off.

All vehicles have now been banned from roads between the provinces of Maputo and Gaza to the north.

AFP/Getty Images

Main roads have been cut off in the south of the country

Transport Minister João Matlombe said it was because main roads, in particular the N1 highway which runs the whole length of the country and is the only link to the north, were flooded.

The suspension is already leading to shortages and price hikes, including of basic foodstuffs, coconut and fuel – even as far away as the north-western city of Tete, more than 1,500km from Maputo.

EPA/Shutterstock

Many of those rescued have only only been able to bring a small bag of belongings with them

For those at shelters in Marracuene, food is also a challenge.

“There isn’t yet enough food to eat,” said Aninha Vicente Mivinga, whose two children are aged two and five.

“On the first day this Friday, there was almost nothing to eat. It was painful to see children sleeping without anything to eat, except biscuits. Today things improved,” she said.

Mivinga, who is a police officer and farms in her spare time, described how she was at work in Marracuene town when the floods hit at her home in Hobjana.

The 32-year-old had taken the precaution of taking her children to stay with family members who lived on higher ground because of the continuous rain, but even they were affected by the rising waters.

“To learn that my children and other members of the family were on floodwaters and at risk of dying was horrific. I was devastated and completely shaken,” the officer said.

“Eventually my relatives were brought to safety.

Reuters

Some people are not sure whether to return to their homes when the waters subside

“It is the first time since I was born that we’ve been affected by flooding of this dimension.”

Mivinga said that students were meant to resume classes soon – and she would like the authorities to find permanent alternative accommodation for them.

Hundreds of people are currently camping down in the classrooms using a traditional wrap cloth as bedding on which to lie down.

Jose Tembe/BBC

Mayor Shafee Sidat, in a green T-shirt, visited Gwazamutini Secondary School on Saturday to oversee aid efforts

“When floodwaters subside, I believe everyone would love to go back home, but it’s too risky. If only the authorities could give us another place on safer ground. We would go back to the risky area only for farming purposes but live on safer ground,” the police officer said.

Education Minister Samaria Tovela has already hinted that the cabinet is to consider rescheduling the start of the 2026 academic year, originally planned to begin next week, “to allow flood victims to continue using them as accommodation centres, especially in the provinces of Maputo and Gaza, the most affected at the moment”.

EPA/Shutterstock

Areas of the capital, Maputo, are also under water

Chivindzi, who is not sure that the floodwaters will recede before schools resume, is determined to return home.

“We’ll restart life from scratch,” the farmer says.

Mlau, who is unable to get to the garage where he works, is less sure of the future and the risks of starting again in the same place.

“Even if waters subside, I am not sure I’ll go back there.”

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Getty Images/BBC

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01/25/2026
Phishing Attack Uses Stolen Credentials to Install LogMeIn RMM for Persistent Access

Ravie LakshmananJan 23, 2026Email Security / Endpoint Security

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new dual-vector campaign that leverages stolen credentials to deploy legitimate Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) software for persistent remote access to compromised hosts.

“Instead of deploying custom viruses, attackers are bypassing security perimeters by weaponizing the necessary IT tools that administrators trust,” KnowBe4 Threat Labs researchers Jeewan Singh Jalal, Prabhakaran Ravichandhiran, and Anand Bodke said. “By stealing a ‘skeleton key’ to the system, they turn legitimate Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) software into a persistent backdoor.”

The attack unfolds in two distinct waves, where the threat actors leverage fake invitation notifications to steal victim credentials, and then leverage those pilfered credentials to deploy RMM tools to establish persistent access.

The bogus emails are disguised as an invitation from a legitimate platform called Greenvelope, and aim to trick recipients into clicking on a phishing URL that’s designed to harvest their Microsoft Outlook, Yahoo!, AOL.com login information. Once this information is obtained, the attack moves to the next phase.

Specifically, this involves the threat actor registering with LogMeIn using the compromised email to generate RMM access tokens, which are then deployed in a follow-on attack through an executable named “GreenVelopeCard.exe” to establish persistent remote access to victim systems.

The binary, signed with a valid certificate, contains a JSON configuration that acts as a conduit to silently install LogMeIn Resolve (formerly GoTo Resolve) and connect to an attacker-controlled URL without the victim’s knowledge.

With the RMM tool now deployed, the threat actors weaponize the remote access to alter its service settings so that it runs with unrestricted access on Windows. The attack also establishes hidden scheduled tasks to automatically launch the RMM program even if it’s manually terminated by the user.

To counter the threat, it’s advised that organizations monitor for unauthorized RMM installations and usage patterns.

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01/25/2026