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THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION is facing considerable bipartisan blowback, after eyewitness testimony and smartphone footage contradicted State agency claims that a man shot dead by border control at a protest on Saturday was brandishing a gun.
In their rush to blame Pretti for his death, and to exonerate the agents involved in his killing, the administration has angered one of the long-time key allies of the Republican Party – the gun lobbies.
Trump himself and other members of his camp have attempted to shift emphasis towards the fact that Pretti attended a protest with a handgun, but he was licensed, and the evidence to date has not shown that he used it to threaten officers in any way before an agent removed the weapon from his holster, and he was subsequently shot dead.
Their remarks have raised questions over whether simply carrying a licensed firearm could justifiably make you a target in the eyes of US law enforcement – which is exactly what gun lobbies have worked to prevent for decades.
Those gun rights groups and some Republican party politicians have now called for a full investigation into the shooting.
Trump’s camp rushed to paint Pretti as being at-fault over the weekend, with top advisor Stephen Miller labelling him as a “would-be assassin” and Homeland Security Secretary Kirsti Noem saying she did not know “of any peaceful protestor who shows up with a gun and ammunition”.
Bill Essayli – the Trump appointed US Attorney for the Central District of California – wrote on X: “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.”
Although other key figures have out-and-out vilified Pretti, any statement about gun ownership has drawn sharp pushback, most notably from the NRA (National Rifle Association), an organisation which has always acted in step with Trump.
At 9:05 AM CT, as DHS law enforcement officers were conducting a targeted operation in Minneapolis against an illegal alien wanted for violent assault, an individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun, seen here.
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) January 24, 2026
The officers attempted to… pic.twitter.com/5Y50mYONGH
The lobby called Essayli’s comments “dangerous and wrong”.
“Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens”, the NRA said.
The previous day the NRA had been denouncing Democratic leaders. It accused Democratic governor of Minnesota Tim Walz of inciting “violence against law enforcement officers who are simply trying to do their jobs”, adding that it is unsurprising that “calls to dangerously interject oneself” into enforcement operations have ended in “injuries and fatalities”.
Today’s criticism marks a shift as a growing group of Republicans have issued similar statements.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy said that the events in Minneapolis were “incredibly disturbing”.
“The credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake. There must be a full joint federal and state investigation,” he said.
Cassidy is facing a Trump-backed challenger in his re-election bid.
Former House representative Marjorie Taylor Greene – who has already struck out against Trump on other matters – said that while she believes in “border security and deporting criminal illegal aliens” she also believes that “legally carrying a firearm is not the same as brandishing a firearm”.
House Republican and Trump ally James Comer said on Fox News that Trump should consider conceding to calls to remove Ice agents from Minneapolis and sending them elsewhere.
“If the mayor and the governor are going to put our Ice officials in harm’s way, and there’s a chance of losing more innocent lives or whatever, then maybe go to another city and let the people of Minneapolis decide, ‘Do we want to continue to have all of these illegals?” he said.
As the chair of the House oversight committee, his words will hold sway within the party.
Elsewhere, the Republican chair of the homeland security committee Andrew Garbarino has requested testimony from Ice leaders, Customs and Border Protection, and US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
How is the MAGA camp reacting?
Vice President JD Vance was fast to label Renee Good, another protestor fatally shot by a border patrol agent in the same city just a few weeks ago, as “brainwashed” and someone who was using “domestic terrorism techniques”.
He’s amplified comments made by others in Trump’s camp about Pretti by re-posting them, but has been less vocal than in the aftermath of Good’s killing.
Rather than directly demonising Pretti, he’s written about how the “far-left” have “engineered chaos”.
Prior to Pretti’s killing, Vance appeared to walk back his comments about Ice agents having “absolute immunity”, he clarified that he didn’t mean that officers who engaged in wrongdoing “would enjoy immunity”.
Online MAGA personalities have largely doubled down on the narrative that Pretti was killed for threatening agents.
The MAGA-supporting account ‘Libs of TikTok’ called Pretti a “lunatic” and an “assassin”.
Which narrative is winning out in the media?
While CNN, CBS, NBC and the New York Times have published analysis of the video of Pretti’s killing, and reported that footage contradicts claims made by state agencies, Fox News, the top-rated cable network in the States, has largely repeated the officials’ telling of the incident.
At the time of writing, the top story on its website is titled “The far-left network that helped put Alex Pretti in harm’s way, then made him a martyr”.
In the top line they call Pretti “an agitator” and say that an investigation carried out by the news organisation has uncovered how the events that led to his death were “driven by a complex network of far-left organisations”.
The piece details how “a national network of socialist, communist and Marxist cells” were communicating over Signal to leverage Pretti’s death “into a nationwide protest”.
The piece doesn’t claim that Pretti was involved in any of the online organisation of protests prior to his death, but it also doesn’t repeat claims that he brandished a gun at agents.
On air, however, commentators were quick to put the blame for Pretti’s death on Pretti himself.
“Only one person could have prevented this from happening and it’s Alex Pretti,” Charlie Hurt, one of the hosts of Fox & Friends Weekend said the day after the shooting.
However presenter Maria Bartiromo struck a different tone.
She questioned “how he was threatening Border Patrol” when he “had his camera” and “was filming it”.
The Wall Street Journal today reported that Trump would not directly answer whether the officer who had shot Pretti had done the right thing or not, and that he said “we’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination”.
However he also questioned Pretti attending the protest with a concealed handgun (which he reportedly had a permit to carry).
“I don’t like any shooting. I don’t like it. But I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest and he’s got a very powerful, fully loaded gun with two magazines loaded up with bullets also. That doesn’t play good either,” Trump said.
His comments on Pretti carrying a gun at the time of his death are likely to incite further criticism from gun rights groups.
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