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WASHINGTON — <\/span>WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a> shifted toward a more conciliatory approach with Democratic leaders in Minnesota on Monday, a sudden change in tack following an outcry over the second fatal shooting<\/a> by federal agents in the state this month during the administration’s nationwide crackdown on undocumented immigrants.<\/p>\n The about-face comes after Saturday\u2019s shooting death of Alex Pretti<\/a> by federal agents raised doubts \u2014 including from some Republicans \u2014 over how the Trump administration has gone about aggressively deporting migrants and confronting protesters opposed to the policy.<\/p>\n But it’s just the latest in a string of moments where Trump has first taken a maximalist position only to appear to later retreat.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, Trump repeatedly threatened Iran with military action if his administration found the Islamic Republic was using deadly force to squelch recent antigovernment protests. Human rights groups said thousands were killed, but Trump says he\u2019s holding off on acting<\/a> after he received assurances Tehran was suspending hundreds of planned executions.<\/p>\n Last week, Trump first announced plans to impose new tariffs on European allies that refused<\/a> to go along with his calls for the U.S. to take control of the Arctic territory of Greenland \u2014 only to abruptly cancel the tariffs<\/a> after saying he\u2019d come to terms of the \u201cframework\u201d of an agreement. The White House offered scant details about the deal, which Trump announced the day after the stock market saw one of its worst days in months<\/a> in response to his tariff threat.<\/p>\n Then on Monday, Trump’s administration changed up oversight of his immigration operation in Minnesota, and the typically bombastic Trump offered a warmer tone toward Gov. Tim Walz after speaking with the Democrat, saying he and Walz were now on a \u201csimilar wavelength.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n It was a particularly jarring turnabout for Trump, who had promised to be uncompromising on carrying out mass deportations of undocumented migrants during his 2024 campaign \u2014 and because Trump has repeatedly scorched Walz and other Minnesota Democrats<\/a> in personal terms for resisting his policies.<\/p>\n Trump said he had dispatched border czar Tom Homan<\/a> to take charge. Meanwhile, senior Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino and some agents were expected to leave Minneapolis<\/a> as early as Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter. <\/p>\n Trump declared on social media that Walz \u201cwas happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I!\u201d Later, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey confirmed that some agents would be leaving the city after he spoke with Trump \u2014 and suggested that the president seemed to be coming to the conclusion that the current state of federal operations was unsustainable. Homan and Frey were expected to meet Tuesday.<\/p>\n Trump’s change-up in Minnesota came after some Republicans questioned federal agents’ tactics in Saturday’s shooting as well as the White House’s response. Some high-ranking administration officials had branded Pretti<\/a> a domestic terrorist even as videos of the encounter contradicted their narrative.<\/a><\/p>\n Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Chris Madel, a Minneapolis attorney, ended his GOP campaign<\/a> in a surprise video announcement Monday, calling the recent immigration enforcement operation in the Twin Cities an \u201cunmitigated disaster\u201d and saying he no longer wanted to be a member of the party because of it.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has been a strong supporter of Trump\u2019s crackdown on immigration, offered measured criticism in an interview with conservative radio host Mark Davis, saying the White House needs to \u201crecalibrate\u201d what it was doing in Minnesota. Vermont’s Republican Gov. Phil Scott called on Trump to reset and de-escalate.<\/p>\n \u201cAt best, these federal immigration operations are a complete failure of coordination of acceptable public safety and law enforcement practices training, and leadership,\u201d Scott said. \u201cAt worst, it\u2019s a deliberate federal intimidation and incitement of American citizens that\u2019s resulting in the murder of Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n The president’s approach toward Walz, who served as Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024, amounted to a sharp U-turn.<\/p>\n Just a day earlier, Trump\u2019s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, had derided Walz on social media as trying to \u201cincite attacks on” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The White House social media team in a series of posts called the governor \u201ca truly disturbed, unstable individual\u201d and an \u201cunhinged lunatic\u201d who \u201crants and raves and lies.\u201d<\/p>\n Miller also referred to Pretti, a nurse who worked at a Veterans Affairs hospital, as a \u201cwould-be assassin\u201d<\/a> while Homeland Security Kristi Noem labeled the ICU nurse as committing an act of domestic terrorism.<\/p>\n The White House sidestepped whether Trump agreed with his senior aides’ rhetoric or whether the administration would apologize for it.<\/p>\n \u201cThis incident remains under investigation,\u201d press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.<\/a> \u201cAnd nobody here at the White House, including the president of the United States, wants to see Americans hurt or killed and losing their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s response to the deaths of the two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis has been much more muted than reactions to political violence that he’s portrayed as targeting his own political movement.<\/p>\n After conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September, the president spoke to the nation from the Oval Office and called Kirk\u2019s death \u201ca dark moment for America.\u201d <\/p>\n In November, Trump gave a national address after two National Guard members were shot in Washington by an Afghan national, one fatally. The guard members had been deployed to the nation’s capital as part of a federal mission to assist with local policing, and the president called the shooting \u201can act of evil, an act of hatred and an act of terror.\u201d<\/p>\n