Jan. 7, 2026, 8:04 PM EST

ByJason Page

The Baltimore Ravens’ decision to fire Super Bowl-winning head Coach John Harbaugh after Sunday’s season-ending loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers kept them out of the playoffs wasn’t surprising to those of us who closely follow the NFL. Harbaugh had coached the team for 18 years, the Ravens had underperformed, and sometimes a new voice is needed in the locker room.

Sports teams have often had to choose between a coach who’s been successful in the past and a superstar player they need to be successful now. In this case, the Ravens had to choose between Harbaugh, who won Super Bowl XLVII in 2012 and quarterback Lamar Jackson, a two-time NFL MVP.

If changes are to come, then the Ravens’ salary constraints necessitated Harbaugh that Harbaugh be the one to go. Harbaugh knows the industry as well as anyone and surely understands why the Ravens decided as they did. And because he’s still under contract for two more seasons, he’ll still be getting paid.

What a crew — the Harbaugh brothers and Nvidia CEO hanging with Trump today in the Oval Office. pic.twitter.com/i4K7p6cTSB

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) July 11, 2025

Trump is infamously transactional.  Was his social media post simply him returning the favor after Harbaugh had kind words about his visit to the White House? Probably. Can anybody recall another instance where the President has weighed in on a professional head coach’s firing?

But Trump needn’t have bothered trying to sell the NFL on Harbaugh. Teams already know who he is. And he has plenty options.

In fact, his agent Bryan Harlan said that 7 different teams reached out expressing their interest within 45 minutes of Harbaugh’s firing. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that two NFL teams that don’t even have open head coaching positions were among those that inquired. Who knows how many more teams have reached out since then.

The Cardinals, Falcons, Titans and Raiders all have openings as well. The Cardinals and Falcons have questions about the starting quarterback position that are unresolved. The Titans have 2025’s No. 1-pick Cam Ward but a less than appetizing cast around him. The Raiders are the Raiders. Or are they? Minority Owner Tom Brady is taking a more assertive role in the teams activities. Could they make a huge play for Harbaugh? More importantly, could he be tempted by the opportunity to lead the Raiders out of what seems like an eternity of darkness?

Despite Trump’s push for Harbaugh’s immediate hiring, there is one last option for the 63-year-old coach. He could do nothing. He could take time off. Or — like Super Bowl-winning Coach Sean Payton did between leaving the New Orleans Saints and signing with the Denver Broncos — Harbaugh could jump into the broadcast booth.

He’ll be a hot commodity this year and, if he wanted to take a break, then he can rest assured knowing  he’d be just as hot of a commodity a year from now.

But that seems to me to be the least likely option. Harbaugh is uber-competitive, and there are teams that need a coach. And they don’t need any prodding from Trump to reach out.

Jan. 7, 2026, 7:55 PM EST

ByAlan Elrod

In a MS NOW column last May, I wrote that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions were becoming so reckless that a fatal encounter was all but inevitable. On Wednesday, my prediction sadly came true, as an agent shot a woman at close range in Minneapolis during an immigration enforcement action, killing her.

President Trump posted on social media that the woman was a “professional agitator” who “ran over” the agent (which video plainly shows is not true), while members of the Trump administration are already calling her a “domestic terrorist.” Accounts like Libs of TikTok leapt to argue that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were acting in self-defense and that the driver had attempted to “ram” them.

We don’t know what transpired before the multiple videos of the incident begin, but, several camera angles seem to indicate that the use of force was unnecessary. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif. posted to X“Enough. This is murder. Local officials must prosecute ICE. And Congress should strip them of their immunity.”

This moment was always going to come. It is the logical result of Trumpism and MAGA extremism, both in theory and practice.

First, ICE’s application of lethal violence is the natural product of an administration animated by violence as a core feature of its politics. Trump has repeatedly called for people to “beat the hell” out of his opponents. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has put the spectacle of violence at the center of her propaganda efforts, even posing in front of CECOT prisoners in a photo op that I compared at the time to a lynching postcard. Violence and the performance of violence are everywhere.

Amid this backdrop of bloodlust, ICE has waged a recruitment drive drenched in war metaphors and martial imagery. The type of person sought by DHS to perform immigration enforcement is someone with a fervor for guns and an eagerness to apply violence.

As Drew Harwell and Joyce Sohyun Lee recently reported for the Washington Postthis has become an explicit tactic within the agency, circulated in what DHS calls its “wartime recruitment” strategy. They note that DHS’ strategy was to direct recruitment to “people with an interest in ‘military and veterans’ affairs,’ ‘physical training,’ or ‘conservative news and politics,’ and would target people whose lifestyles are ‘patriotic’ or ‘conservative-leaning.’” DHS also sought to target conservative radio show listeners, and users with interests in “conservative thought leaders, gun rights organizations [and] tactical gear brands.”

This is an administration built on a fundamentally violent worldview, nourishing violent impulses within the national community and seeking out the most brutish among us to implement its draconian policies.

But all the cultivation and direction of violence against both immigrants and American citizens is possible because of a second feature of Trumpism: the friend/enemy distinction. This idea, which comes from Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt, has become, as Zack Beauchamp has argued, an energizing logic on the right. Beauchamp summarizes“Schmitt’s chief insight into democracy was seeing how the politics of illiberal groupism, of replacing ‘all men are created equal’ with ‘friend and enemy,’ could justify a brand of authoritarian politics in seemingly democratic terms.”

In essence, some people belong to favored “friend” groups. Everyone else is an enemy, outside the normal presumptions and protections of the state.

Major MAGA influencers like Robby Starbuck and Nick Sortor have already linked the ICE shooting incident to the police murder of George Floyd, suggesting Democrats intend to lie about the shooting to foment unrest. Sortor even called for the jailing of Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, accusing him of “trying to spark a riot.”

The MAGA view is that ICE’s actions — like all state actions against unprotected groups — must be presumed to be always already legitimate. Opposition to those actions must consequently be presumed to be illegitimate and dangerous.

This is not a formula for state accountability. It’s a recipe for authoritarianism.

The cumulative implication of all this is simple: immigrants and those who want to see them treated humanely are not subject to the same rights and protections as MAGA Americans. This also explains the demands of commentators like The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh that New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani be stripped of his U.S. citizenship. It explains the extrapolation of the fraud scandal in Minnesota into an excuse to deport Somali-Americans.

ICE, as it exists, is about the raw application of Trumpist authoritarianism. And they’re seeking the most violent and illiberal among us to implement its mission. This was always going to happen. And it is almost certainly going to happen again.

Jan. 7, 2026, 6:45 PM EST

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a woman Wednesday during an operation in Minneapolis, immediately escalating tensions over the Trump administration’s decision to send some 2,000 immigration agents into the city.

“We’ve dreaded this moment since the early stages of this ICE presence in Minneapolis,” an angry Mayor Jacob Frey said at an afternoon news conference. Federal agents, he said, are “sowing chaos on our streets, and in this case, quite literally killing people.”

The Minnesota Star Tribuneidentified the woman as 37-year old Renee Nicole Good. Good’s mother, Donna Ganger, told the outlet that her daughter was “loving, forgiving and affectionate” and that she was “probably terrified” during the encounter.

The incident, coming on the heels of the Trump administration’s expanded immigration operations in blue states and cities, immediately became politicized. After watching video of the encounter, President Donald Trump claimed the woman who was shot “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense.” He also said it was “hard to believe” that the ICE agent is alive and added that he is recovering at a hospital.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a Wednesday evening news conference that the woman was “blocking” officers who were attempting to dislodge their vehicle from the snow.

“ICE agents repeatedly ordered her to get out of the car and to stop obstructing law enforcement. But she refused to obey their commands,” Noem said. “She then proceeded to weaponize her vehicle and she attempted to run a law enforcement officer over.”

Noem said the ICE officer, “fearing for his life and the other officers around him and the safety of the public,” fired shots defensively.

Noem said the officer had been released from the hospital and was with family. “Any loss of life is a tragedy…all of us agree in this situation, it was preventable,” she said.

Democrats, however — including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, with whom Noem said she spoke — questioned Trump and Noem’s accounting of the events. Walz warned in his own press conference that Trump “would make this about me” and that the shooting was “so, so preventable” and “so unnecessary.”

Walz called on Minnesotans to remain calm and said he is prepared to activate the National Guard if needed. Police Chief Brian O’Hara toldMinneapolis his officers last month to intervene if they see ICE agents using excessive force against residents or risk losing their jobs.

Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said officers were “conducting targeted operations when rioters began blocking ICE officers and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them — an act of domestic terrorism.”

McLaughlin said the officer feared for his life and “the safety of the public.”

“He used his training and saved his own life and that of his fellow officers,” she said. “The alleged perpetrator was hit and is deceased. Thankfully, the ICE officers who were hurt are expected to make full recoveries.”

And Stephen Millera senior presidential aide and architect of Trump’s mass deportation strategy, called video he posted of the incident “domestic terrorism.”

Local Minneapolis officials, however, feel differently.

According to Frey’s office, Minneapolis police officers responded to the reports of shots fired “just after 9:30 a.m., and found a woman with life-threatening gunshot wounds. Minneapolis firefighters removed the woman from the vehicle and immediately began lifesaving measures until paramedics could respond.” She was transported to a local hospital, where she eventually died.

Frey accused the Trump administration of trying to “spin this as an action of self-defense.”

“Having seen the video … myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is bullshit,” the mayor said. “This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., was similarly skeptical.

“There is no evidence that has been presented to justify this killing. [DHS] Secretary Kristi Noem is a stone-cold liar and has zero credibility. The masked ICE agent who pulled the trigger should be criminally investigated to the full extent of the law for acting with depraved indifference to human life,” Jeffries said.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris called the incident “shocking,” and said the video “makes it clear that the Trump administration’s explanation of this shooting is pure gaslighting.”

O’Hara said the woman was not the target of the law enforcement investigation, was unarmed and was shot in the head.

Bystander video verified by MS NOW clearly contradicts key parts of Trump’s description. It shows the car partially blocking a two-lane street in a snowy residential neighborhood.

The footage, which begins moments before the shooting, shows a handful of people milling about, filming the agents as they walk around and toward the vehicle. Whistles — a tactic used by “ICE observers” to warn people that agents are in the area — can be heard.

One of the officers puts his hand on the driver’s door handle and loudly repeats, “Get out of the car!”

The car briefly moves in reverse, then starts to drive off when three gunshots ring out, and the car crashes into a parked vehicle. The officer who fired his gun was standing in the street in the direction the car was facing.

The agent holding the door handle stumbles but stays on his feet as the car drives off. None of the other officers comes in contact with the car, and none appears significantly injured, if at all.

Several people at the scene are heard yelling expletives right after the shots were fired.

Residents who spoke to MS NOW at the scene said they saw what appeared to be blood on the deployed airbag on the driver’s side.

Shortly after the shooting, residents gathered around federal agents in vehicles, shouting at them and calling the location a crime scene.

The Trump administration launched a massive immigration enforcement operation in the Minneapolis area this week, deploying approximately 2,000 federal agents to the state.

Federal law enforcement officials have been sent to other Democratic-led cities over the past year, sparking fierce criticism from local lawmakers.

In October, a federal agent shot a woman five times during an immigration crackdown in Chicago in what the administration similarly characterized as a defensive act. Federal prosecutors brought assault charges against her, but moved to dismissthem after the agent’s text messages bragging about the shootingwere presented in court.

At the news conference, Frey addressed the federal immigration enforcement agency directly.

“I have a message for ICE: Get the fuck out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here,” he said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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Nnamdi Egwuonwu contributed to this report.