President Trump has lashed out against Minneapolis protesters who interrupted a church service, claiming they were paid professionals who should be imprisoned or deported.
“No person acts the way they act. They are highly trained to scream, rant, and rave, like lunatics, in a certain manner, just like they are doing,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social, in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Trump described the protesters as “agitators and insurrectionists” after watching footage of the incident at a Minnesota church on Sunday, January 18, in which demonstrators interrupted its services to oppose ICE’s presence in their state.
The group stormed into Cities Church in St Paul to demand that federal immigration forces leave the state and to call for justice for Renee Nicole Good, the 37-year-old mother-of-three shot dead by agent Jonathan Ross on the streets of Minneapolis earlier this month.
The church in question was targeted by protesters because one of its pastors, David Easterwood, is the acting director of ICE’s St. Paul field office.
Former CNN broadcaster turned independent journalist Don Lemon shared a livestream of interviews and footage from the event, following the group inside as they chanted “ICE out”.
“This will not stand, they cannot pretend to be a house of God, while harboring someone who is commanding ICE agents to terrorize our communities,” protester Nekima Levy Armstrong told Lemon.
Worshippers were angered by the interruption, with one churchgoer saying: “These people have come into our house and they’ve interrupted our worship. Everybody’s gone home, their point has been proven worthless and so, in the end, I think they lose. I feel violated, I feel interrupted, I feel angry.”
Clips of the event caused outrage among MAGA conservatives, with calls for Lemon to be investigated by the Department of Justice and FBI, and influencer Benny Johnson claiming that the journalist’s actions amounted to “not just an obscene violation of the FACE Act – it’s likely a hate crime.”
The FACE Act of 1994, Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, created legal protections for reproductive health clinics and places of worship, making it a crime to use force, obstruct, or attempt to intimidate anyone operating in such venues.
Rapper Nicki Minaj, who has become a full-throated MAGA supporter in recent months, was among those calling for Lemon’s arrest.
Lemon fired back, saying in a statement to TMZ that Minaj “does not understand journalism”, later describing her on social media as “unhinged and homophobic”.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon has announced the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division is “investigating the potential violations of the federal FACE Act by these people desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers.”
In turn, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt warned: “President Trump will not tolerate the intimidation and harassment of Christians in their sacred places of worship.”
In his post on Truth Social, Trump accused those involved of being “troublemakers who should be thrown in jail, or thrown out of the Country”, directing particular ire at Democratic lawmakers who have opposed his immigration crackdown in the state.
“The first to go should be [Minnesota Governor Tim] Walz, and Fake Sleazebag, [Representative] Ilhan Omar, who is supposedly worth over $30 Million Dollars, even though she’s never had anything but a Government job. Investigate these Corrupt Politicians, and do it now!”
The White House was approached for additional clarification on his remarks.
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