HEATED RIVALRY: WASHINGTON

Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem are pointing fingers over the debacle in Minneapolis, as backlash over federal agents’ cruelty grows. Who’ll catch the blame?

• How can we tell the White House knows it messed up? Because the key players are trying to spin the press into assigning someone else responsibility for what went down. That’s the state of play between White House ideologue-in-chief Stephen Miller and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, two of President Donald Trump’s closest aides. As the Trump administration’s disastrous immigration operation in Minneapolis continues to unravel, both officials are torching each other in the press — amid questions about who might get fired.

• Miller and Noem are key players in Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown. And they both got caught in a flagrant lie. Immediately after ICU nurse Alex Pretti was gunned down, Miller and Noem peddled the absurd narrative that Pretti was some kind of domestic terrorist bent on massacring federal agents. Video evidence soon destroyed their story. The backlash was so severe that even Miller — one of the most stubborn members of Trumpworld — admitted he made a mistake… while accusing Noem’s team at DHS of giving him bad info about the shooting.

• Miller seems to think he needs to perform damage control to save his master plan. “I know for a fact that Stephen Miller wanted this city to burn,” Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) told Crooked’s Jon Lovett. “I think he saw this [operation] as a blueprint. That’s all out the window now.”

• Noem, meanwhile, is blaming Miller. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen,” Noem told someone, who relayed the comment to Axios. Just following orders, huh? Didn’t someone else famously make that argument? I can’t seem to recall….

• Both aides know they could be in trouble. GOP lawmakers are calling for Noem’s resignation, and Trump publicly rebuked Noem by banishing Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino from Minneapolis. The White House is standing by her for now, however.

• “I think that there may be so much pressure that she will have to step down,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) told Crooked’s Jon Favreau.

• Miller is facing his own issues. One prominent Trump supporter is warning that Miller’s actions will cost Republicans the midterms. “Stephen Miller never fails to live up to my expectations of incompetence,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who is retiring, told CNN.

Noem’s position is shakier than Miller’s.

• Miller is so powerful in MAGAworld that he’s often referred to as Trump’s prime minister. He orchestrates the administration’s immigration agenda, and even directs much of its foreign policy. While Miller is focused on the Western Hemisphere, he even “offers his opinions” on Middle East policy, one senior Trump official recently told me. In other words: His influence is global.

• “I call Stephen ‘Trump’s brain,’” former GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said last year. In Washington, Miller is viewed as one of the most powerful White House aides in history, drawing comparisons to Henry Kissinger.

• What’s more, Noem isn’t in Trump’s inner circle. Ousting Miller would send shockwaves through his administration. Noem, however, is much more expendable.

• “To my colleagues who believe you can convince Donald Trump that Stephen Miller is a liability for him, good luck with that,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News. “When this clock strikes 12 on the Trump era, there will be a few people walking out the door with Donald Trump. Stephen Miller will be in that group.”

• Trump has rarely fired officials in his second term — unlike his first, when aides got the boot with dizzying regularity. There’s a good chance that both advisors’ jobs are safe. In fact, Trump seems to be basking in the chaos, blasting out a fundraising email today with this insane message: “Are you a proud American Citizen or does ICE need to come and track you down?”

Bruce Springsteen just dropped a new song, “Streets of Minneapolis,” with the lyric: “It’s our blood and bones, and these whistles and phones, against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies.”

WHAT ELSE? 👀

Donald Trump threatened Iran with a “far worse” attack than last year’s strikes, if the country doesn’t negotiate a deal to curb its nuclear program. (Y’know, kinda like… that deal Iran already agreed to, which Trump tore up. Why does this man keep trying to notch victories by simply undoing his own mistakes?)

The man who rushed Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) last night, spraying her with an unidentified brown liquid, is a Trump supporter and convicted felon. He’s also a right-wing extremist who hates Somalis, his brother told The Independent. Omar continued speaking for nearly half an hour after the incident: “I don’t let bullies win,” she tweeted.

Amazon announced plans to lay off 16,000 corporate employees today, following 14,000 layoffs in October. The cuts come as the company invests heavily in artificial intelligence. I wish Jeff Bezos would maybe think about keeping some jobs, rather than dumping tens of millions of dollars into that new Melania Trump documentary. But here we are!

Trump’s team is coming under fire after reporters noticed that the White House hung a new photo of the president walking alongside Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. I am sure the former KGB spy will be touched by this kind gesture, and decide to end the war in Ukraine once and for all. Genius move, Donald.

Is Trump… okay? Even one of his allies doesn’t think so: Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico reportedly told diplomats that he was worried about Trump’s “psychological state” after meeting with him at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, describing the president as “dangerous.” Fico and the White House blasted the story as fake news.

The Department of Justice will publicly release a huge new batch of Epstein files “in the near term,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in court filings. Nearly 200 DOJ lawyers have been assigned to look over the documents, a process that’s taking forever. This would’ve been done much quicker if Bondi had actually told the truth and released them early last year!

The Republican National Committee spent nearly $60,000 last year on hair and makeup for media appearances, according to campaign finance records. If I had to guess, at least $30,000 is going toward putting globs of concealer on Trump’s hands.

LIGHT AT THE END… ☀️

The third No Kings protest of Donald Trump’s second presidency is planned for March 28. Organizers are aiming for a turnout of 9 million people nationwide, with a flagship demonstration in Minneapolis.

Nine progressive prosecutors are creating a coalition to help prosecute federal agents who break state laws. The group, named Project for the Fight Against Federal Overreach or (FAFO, *wink wink*) was formed because of “growing concerns about warrantless entries, unlawful detentions, and coercive enforcement tactics by federal agents,” according to a statement.

Former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg has now spent more than $3 billion over the past decade on the “global climate fight.” His continued spending comes as other billionaires, including Jeff Bezos, stopped their climate fight once Trump took office.

The life of Virginia Oliver, known as Maine’s “Lobster Lady” for fishing for crustaceans over the past century, is being honored after she died at age 105. Tributes have poured in from Gov. Janet Mills and actor Mark Hamill. “Despite her fame, friends and family said she remained humble and spirited,” Oliver’s obituary read. “Her personal aesthetic delighted her fans — she wore lipstick and earrings every day she went out on the boat, because, as she said, ‘you never know who you are going to see.’”

One of the National Gallery of Art’s top officials is attempting to draw a younger audience to its centuries-old art by describing it in Gen Z slang. “Chat, I’m about to buss it down Roman Empire style,” Alison Luchs, 77, said in a recent video. “Haters will say this urn is mid, but they don’t know we’ve clocked its tea.” One commenter lauded her efforts: “Honestly, she ate.”