Anonymous Reveals: The Protest That Broke Trump’s Illusion

A prominent conservative analyst ripped President Donald Trump's administration on Monday for its "dorkiest" attempt to bully one of its political foes.

On Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the Department of Defense was reducing Sen. Mark Kelly's (D-AZ) retirement pay as punishment for participating in a video with five other Democrats in which they told military personnel to be suspicious of orders from the Trump administration. Trump described Kelly's comments as "seditious" in a Truth Social post.

Bill Kristol, the editor at large for The Bulwark, discussed the administration's move on a new episode of "The Bulwark Podcast" on Monday.

"Just how disgusting it is what they're doing," Kristol said. "Mark Kelly is a United States Senator serving with distinction, and he happened to make a correct argument that you don't have to obey unlawful orders, and you should be wary of some of the orders coming from this administration."

Kristol also warned that there could be unintended consequences of the move against Kelly.

"It's dorky, and it's stupid, and Mark Kelly doesn't care," Kristol said. "There are a lot of retired military and ... not all of them are famous like Mark Kelly, and some of them are living off their retirement and whatever, and don't want to be publicly humiliated and knocked down a rank."

"I worry always about the intimidation effects of these things even when they're done in the dorkiest bullying way," he continued.

An evasive Trump told reporters on Thursday that the American citizen shot and killed by ICE "behaved horribly," but stumbled when reporters pressed him harder.

As news of the fatal shooting of an observer by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis began to spark outrage and protests, President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform to defend the officers' actions and falsely claim that the victim, Renee Nicole Good, was driving toward officers or even that an officer was hospitalized, none of which appears to be true from reporting or video footage.

New York Times reporters went on to confront Trump about these discrepancies on Thursday morning, and when put on the spot, he became evasive.

“She behaved horribly,” said Trump. “And then she ran him over. She didn’t try to run him over. She ran him over. I’ll play the tape for you right now.” Trump then had his assistant Natalie Harp bring over a laptop that played a slow-motion video of the shooting.

“With all of it being said, no, I don’t like that happening,” Trump added before the video played.

After Times reporters noted that the video didn't show any ICE officer being run over, Trump stumbled over his words, saying, “Well, I — the way I look at it — It’s a terrible scene. I think it’s horrible to watch. No, I hate to see it.”

Trump's claims that the shooting was justified have been echoed by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who said the officer “used his training to save his own life and that of his colleagues” from a woman who was "stalking" them.

The exact nature of what caused the officer to fire his weapon is not the only criticism ICE is facing; other reports have indicated the officers blocked a doctor who was on scene from rendering medical assistance after the shooting.