A former adviser to President Donald Trump warned that his overly aggressive pursuit of a key campaign promise was hurting him politically.
CNN's David Urban, who advised Trump on all three of his presidential campaigns, said voters were repulsed by the violent images coming out of Minneapolis, where the administration has surged around 2,000 federal agents as part of a sweeping mass deportation campaign and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer killed 37-year-old Renee Good last week.
"Americans overwhelmingly voted one of the president's strongest suits, Americans overwhelmingly voted for this president," Urban said. "If you look at the numbers and reasons given to secure the border and crack down on kind of the sieve that was the border under the Biden administration, and this administration effectively sealed that border up and did that, and then the president promised to go after the bad hombres and the drug dealers and get those people out of America, and, you know, there's a lot of support for that in America. What there isn't support for, and the polling bears this out – this isn't David Urban's opinion – this is the polling that bears out that people do not want to see what you're seeing on your screen right now."
Popular podcaster Joe Rogan, who had supported Trump in the 2024 election, spoke out against the administration's crackdown in Minneapolis, where federal agents have been pulling people from their vehicles, slamming them onto the ground and violently detaining them in brutal interactions recorded on video.
"They do not want to hear what Joe Rogan is saying," Urban said. "They don't want to see masked men geared up like Delta Force walking down the streets of America asking people for their papers, throwing them on the ground, zip-tying people who are doing sheetrock, you know, gardeners, nannies. They don't want to see that, right? That's not what they voted for, and so it is really hurting this president in the numbers on an area where he was strongest on immigration, strongest – now it's becoming a weaker point."
Polls show strong majorities do not believe the ICE agent was justified in shooting Good, but the Department of Justice has declared the case closed without further investigation and refuses to share evidence with local authorities, and Urban said the president needs to de-escalate the situation.
"I think this needs to start at the top," Urban said. "I think the president needs to be aware or made more aware that maybe the numbers are going to play it out, but continue to have polling that shows that the American people don't like this. Listen, when you lose Joe Rogan, right, you've got a problem, and I hope the White House takes us to heart that people don't want to see this type of behavior from ICE."
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