Border Patrol Agent Bragged in Texts About Shooting U.S. Citizen

A federal agent enforcing Donald Trump’s violent mass deportations in Chicago bragged about shooting a woman in text messages to his fellow agents.

The texts were presented at a hearing in federal court Wednesday, where the woman, a U.S. citizen named Marimar Martinez, and another man, Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, faced charges of impeding a federal officer with a deadly weapon. In reality, as captured on video, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent Charles Exum shot Martinez after their cars collided in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood October 4. (The deadly weapon Martinez is accused of brandishing is the car she was driving when Exum crashed into her.)

Martinez said that Exum’s car rammed hers after she was warning the neighborhood’s residents about the presence of federal immigrant agents. Federal prosecutors are claiming that Exum’s actions, including his shooting at Martinez, were done in self-defense. Martinez and Ruiz were indicted October 10.

At the hearing, Exum’s messages from a Signal chat with other agents were shown, in which he said, “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.” He also sent a news article about the incident to a different recipient with the message, “Read it. 5 shots, 7 holes.”

When Martinez’s lawyer Christopher Parente asked Exum in court what he meant, the agent said, “I’m a firearms instructor and I take pride in my shooting skills.”

After the crash and shooting, Exum drove the damaged car, a government-issued Chevrolet Tahoe, to Maine, where his Border Patrol unit is posted, for repairs to be made by a Border Patrol mechanic. The trip took place before any investigation could take place or the defense could examine the damage. Exum allegedly told an FBI interviewer that he had asked for the repairs, while prosecutors later claimed that his supervisor, Kevin Kellenberger, approved them.

To an outside observer, these events seem to show federal agents trying to cover up their own wrongdoing. The events of October 4 resulted in protesters immediately showing up only to be met with tear gas from the agents. Since then, federal agents in Chicago have continued to violently attempt to carry out Trump’s agenda, even ramming more cars in the process and directing their weapons at any protesters who show up.

President Donald Trump can’t convince voters that he’s making life more affordable, so now he’s resorted to lying to Americans about how much Thanksgiving dinner will cost. 

Following sweeping election losses for Republicans Tuesday, it’s never been more clear that the GOP has lost sight of issues that actually matter to Americans—namely, affordability. But rather than address constituents’ actual concerns, Trump took to Truth Social Thursday morning to plug Walmart’s 2025 Holiday Meal as a sign that voters were mistaken about wanting lower prices.

“2025 Thanksgiving dinner under Trump is 25% lower than 2024 Thanksgiving dinner under Biden, according to Walmart. My cost are lower than the Democrats on everything, especially oil and gas! So the Democrats ‘affordability’ issue is DEAD! STOP LYING!!!” Trump wrote. 

But Trump’s claim wasn’t the whole truth, not even sort of. 

Walmart’s 2025 Holiday Meal contains only 15 items, while the company’s 2024 Holiday Meal included 29 items. This year’s basket nixes multiple Thanksgiving staples, including pecan pie, cranberry sauce, whipped cream, mini marshmallows, corn muffin mix, as well as fresh sweet potatoes, celery, and onions. Additionally, many of the name-brand items have been replaced by Walmart’s Great Value items. 

A quick trip to Walmart’s website revealed that while the price of Walmart’s Holiday Meal has decreased due to the removal of items, the actual grocery prices have remained pretty much the same.  

Walmart’s 2024 Holiday Meal served eight people for less than $7 per person, placing the total cost at around $55. According to the retail giant’s website, last year’s haul with this year’s prices would actually cost about $52.43 before sales tax, which totals to about $6.50 per person. 

Walmart CEO John Furner wrote in a statement that Walmart’s 2025 Holiday Meal, which costs a total of $35.51, was 25 percent less than the cost of the 2024 Holiday Meal. The company’s new seasonal offering claims to serve 10 people for less than $4 per person. 

In a meeting with Republican lawmakers Wednesday, Trump reportedly underscored that if they wanted to win elections, they needed to emphasize his economic accomplishments. In his own address about the economy later that day, though, Trump repeatedly strayed off this topic. 

It is hard to believe that the Trump administration actually cares about feeding vulnerable Americans, as the White House has threatened to upend SNAP benefits amid the ongoing government shutdown, agreeing to pay only half for November. 

Tuesday’s elections saw big Democratic wins in a lot of small towns: In 29 Connecticut cities and towns, residents flipped local leadership from red to blue.

Governor Ned Lamont and Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves celebrated the wins as a blue wave.

“That is remarkable. That is historic, and we did it with a broad spectrum of folks in the electorate,” said Alves to the CT Mirror. “We had moderate candidates, we have progressive candidates. We are the big-tent party.”

In Connecticut, Democrats now control local government in 102 of the state’s 169 cities and towns, as well as two-third of the seats in the General Assembly, and every constitutional office like governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general.

Chris Anderson, the local Democratic chair of a district that flipped blue, said this was a sign the electorate was rejecting what’s happening nationally. “This was an absolute referendum on the direction that the city and country is going. New Britain voters, for the first time in a very long time, elected Democrats to represent every single seat in the city,” Anderson said.

Connecticut’s races point to the broader pattern observed in the recent off-year elections across the country: Voters are rejecting Trumpism. This leftward course correction from the 2024 elections isn’t altogether unexpected; usually, the out-of-power party gains back ground in the midterms. But with a rightward shift observed across the United States in 2024, Democrats are hungry for confirmation that they could take back power in Congress in 2026.

Democrats’ blue wave this week swelled into areas of the country that haven’t voted liberal in more than a century.

Beaver County elected Democrat Lincoln Kretchmar as its new mayor Tuesday, ending a 113-year losing streak in the Pennsylvania commonwealth.

The shock win followed a national trend, as people across the country voted blue on Election Day, securing major wins in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia, and Georgia. The massive turnout—and the pro-Democrat results—have been interpreted as a nationwide reaction to Donald Trump’s second-term policies.

In Beaver County, local anti-Republican sentiment was just strong enough to oust Republican incumbent Thomas Todd Hamilton by a margin of 13 votes. In the end, Kretchmar received 917 votes compared to Hamilton’s 904. Incredibly, the mayor before Hamilton—Robert Linn—served a whopping 58 years in office, first entering City Hall in 1946.

It remains to be seen whether Beaver County’s twisting political perspectives could be a bellwether for the larger state of Pennsylvania, which has become an unpredictable swing state in presidential elections since Trump won over its electorate in 2016.

Democrats in the borough were ecstatic by the sudden shift in fate for their local party.

“We were very excited with all our wins up and down the ticket on Tuesday evening,” Erin Gabriel, chair of the Beaver County Democratic Committee, told Newsweek. “Voters were certainly responding to the high cost of living and increasing affordability crisis. Our new Mayor-Elect was especially effective in his response to a recent tax increase in Beaver Boro and voters really responded to his calls for more transparency in government.

“At a time when Republicans are focused on tearing things down it’s been Democrats lifting up our neighbors and communities. Voters can see that clearly and responded emphatically on Tuesday across the country,” Gabriel added.

The Trump administration has “found more room” in the SNAP contingency fund and will only be cutting benefits by 35 percent, the Agriculture Department said Wednesday.

The USDA had previously announced a plan to cut the food stamp program by 50 percent—so why did it suddenly change its tune? The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report Wednesday that concluded that the Trump administration, based on its spending plan, planned to release two-thirds of the contingency fund—only about $3 billion, compared to the $4.65 billion available.

The CBPP quickly filed its findings in court, and the USDA then said it would fix the “error.”

“Further analysis found more room in the contingency,” a USDA spokesperson told Axios. “All of this would be solved if Senate Democrats vote to reopen the government.”

The USDA had initially said, after being ordered by a court, that it would only fund 50 percent of SNAP benefits for November and that the benefits could take months to be paid out. Then, adding to the confusion, President Trump went on Truth Social to say that benefits wouldn’t be paid out at all, which White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was quick to write off as a misunderstanding.

There’s no way to know whether the USDA made a genuine mistake or purposefully tried to shortchange families. But when it comes to how the money is paid out, some states believe that the administration is delaying payouts unnecessarily. In a letter to the agency, Pennsylvania said USDA had chosen the “most complex and labor-intensive approach possible” to issue the benefits, according to CNN.

What’s more, the courts have already affirmed that there’s no legal reason for the USDA to cut benefits at all: It could transfer funds from other food assistance programs, like it did earlier this month with WIC, the child nutrition program, to provide families with their full November payments.