Top Trump Official Goes Against Kristi Noem’s Comments on Alex Pretti
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche went on Fox News Monday morning to attempt to walk back the baseless and absurd claims from many top officials in the Trump administration that Alex Pretti was committing an act of “domestic terrorism” before he was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis.
Blanche was questioned during a segment about the internal strife within federal law enforcement ranks over how the Trump administration has responded to Pretti’s shooting.
“This is coming to a head, Todd. I ask you, based on the DOJ’s purview: Do the actions of Alex Pretti amount to domestic terrorism?” Fox & Friends co-host Griff Jenkins asked.
“Look we’re—it’s an investigation. So I’m not going to prejudge what his actions were or were not,” Blanche said, in stark contrast to the rest of President Trump’s Cabinet. “There’s two things that have to be part of this narrative.… Number one is the reason why that happened on Saturday is because we get zero cooperation from police.” Blanche went on to blame local law enforcement before the anchor interrupted him.
“With all due respect sir, my question is more pointed. Do you believe your colleagues may have gone farther? You are an attorney at DOJ. 18 U.S. code 2331 has a legal definition of domestic terrorism, and it doesn’t appear to most of the country that watched the available video … it does not appear to have met that definition of domestic terrorism. So I’m just sort of wondering how you in the DOJ are viewing whether your colleagues may have gone too far.”
“Look I don’t think anybody thinks that they were comparing what happened on Saturday to domestic terrorism,” Blanche said. “What we saw was a very violent altercation.… I am not going to prejudge the facts.”
FOX & FRIENDS: Do the actions of Alex Pretti amount to domestic terrorism?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 26, 2026
BLANCHE: Look, it's an investigation, so I'm not going to prejudge
FOX: It doesn't appear to most of the country to have met that definition
BLANCHE: I don't think anybody thinks they were comparing… pic.twitter.com/kkHFADtukS
That’s exactly what Blanche’s colleagues did in the immediate aftermath of Pretti’s killing. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino each came out and told us that Pretti meant to do violence and incite terror, deciding that their own warped version of events was the truth before any kind of investigation started.
“A domestic terrorist tried to assassinate federal law enforcement, and this is your response?” Miller wrote Saturday on X, responding to Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar condemning the killing. “You and the state’s entire Democrat leadership team have been flaming the flames of insurrection for the singular purpose of stopping the deportation of illegals who invaded the country.”
“This individual went and impeded their law enforcement operations, attacked those officers, had a weapon on him and multiple dozens of rounds of ammunition, wishing to inflict harm on these officers, coming, brandishing like that,” Noem said Saturday.
“He brought a semiautomatic weapon to a riot, assaulted federal officers, and at some point, they saw that weapon,” Bovino said. “So, I do believe [Secretary Noem] is 100% spot-on in what she said.”
It’s hard to believe anything that Blanche says here when this false narrative has already been established.