The attack makes the troops’ Washington DC exit less likely and offers a convenient data point for rightwing narratives

Trump accused his predecessor of allowing millions of violent criminals into the US and launched a xenophobic attack on Somalis in Minnesota: “Hundreds of thousands of Somalians are ripping off our country, and ripping apart that once great state.” Notably, the previous evening, his aide Stephen Miller had decried “the Somalification of America”, telling Fox News: “Look how powerful the Democrat Party became in Minnesota once they flooded it with 100,000 Somalians!”

Then Trump announced a review of the status Afghan nationals in the US. “We must now reexamine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden, and we must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here or add benefit to our country.”

Raising the spectre of a newly aggressive crackdown by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), the remarks came as little surprise from a president who has made illegal immigration central to his political identity. The White House regularly sends out lists and images of undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes and could not resist playing up the suspect’s nationality.

Such red meat spectacles are, the administration hopes, a powerful distraction for a Trump base recently fracturing over rising prices and the non-release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. It also goes hand in hand with the president’s authoritarian impulse to militarise US cities.