It’s quite possible that the Trump administration has finally flown too close to the sun, regarding its latest narrative of observably false propaganda against the latest victim of a killing by immigration cops in Minnesota.
When 37-year-old Alex Pretti was gunned down by ICE agents while trying to protect a woman an agent had pushed to the ground and started pepper-spraying for no discernible reason, the Trump administration began its usual routine of trying its best to get ahead of the media by smearing the victim and claiming the agents were in imminent danger and in fear of their lives.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who has falsely claimed that immigration agents have “immunity” from prosecution, called Pretti a “domestic terrorist” and an “assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents” in a tweet that was re-tweeted by Vice President JD Vance, according to CNN.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters Saturday that Pretti “impeded the law enforcement officers and attacked them,” and that he “had a weapon on him, and multiple dozens of rounds of ammunition; wishing to inflict harm on these officers, coming, brandishing like that.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara refuted Noem’s claim about Pretti “brandishing” his gun — which he carried legally, and which video clearly shows that he never even touched, let alone brandished — saying, “I don’t have any evidence that I’ve seen that suggests that the weapon was brandished.” Noem also said in a Fox News interview Sunday that Pretti was “laying hands on law enforcement,” which video footage also shows is simply untrue.
Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino — who has been at the center of clashes between immigration cops and protesters almost everywhere agents have been deployed, and has been ripped to shreds multiple times by federal judges for violating their orders restricting certain uses of force and for lying about protest violence to justify it — claimed it “looks like” Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” He also claimed Pretti “assaulted federal officers” during an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, but when asked where in the viral video footage that happened, Bovino had no answers.
Make no mistake, they lied on Renee Nicole Good the same way, expecting us to ignore video footage that showed her attempting to drive away from ICE agents before she was shot and killed by one, in favor of nonsense about her attempting to weaponize her vehicle against ICE, which is the same lie DHS told after agents shot Marimar Martinez as she sat in her vehicle, and after agents shot Richard LA, the TikTok influencer who documents ICE activities, in Los Angeles. In both cases, criminal charges against the victims were dropped because evidence proved the government was lying.
This time, the Trump administration has gotten so desperate to smear Pretti the same way that it’s even going against conservative America’s sacred pro-Second Amendment doctrine by essentially claiming Pretti had no right to be armed.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sought to justify the killing by asserting at a news conference that Pretti “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 and impeding their work that they were doing.” No evidence has been provided to back up this account.
Noem argued that his possession of a firearm demonstrated that he did not intend to remain peaceful.
“I don’t know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign,” Noem said on Saturday.
On Sunday, when asked on Fox News if it is protocol to use deadly force on a disarmed person, Noem said, “That’s all part of this investigation.”
The attempt to explain Pretti’s killing by noting that he had a gun has also been mentioned by Trump, FBI Director Kash Patel, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others.
In a few moments, Pretti’s killing turned some Trump supporters, including members of his administration, against generations of conservative orthodoxy on the Second Amendment. At the same time, it appeared to serve as a wake-up call for gun-rights activists that a Republican-run government, not just a Democratic-run one, could infringe on the Second Amendment.
An instructive exchange played out on X. Bill Essayli, a federal prosecutor in California appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, infuriated gun-rights activists with a series of posts expressing similar sentiments to Noem’s — “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you” — and accusing critics of being members of antifa.
See what I mean when I say they flew too close to the sun? The Trump administration is so desperate to control the narrative around their violent federal thugs that they’re undermining decades of right-wing “you can pry my gun from my cold, dead hands” doctorine.
Has any administration ever been the cause of all of its own issues the way this one has? It just keeps shooting itself in the foot and blaming everyone else.