Top Trump administration officials continue to defend the brazen murder of VA nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by a gang of CBP officers, despite the release of numerous videos shot by observers which show the officers beating him to the ground, removing his personal firearm, for which he had a legal permit, and then riddling the unarmed man with at least 10 shots at close range.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem branded Pretti a “domestic terrorist” Saturday, even before his identity had been made public, and slandered the victim of government violence repeatedly, claiming he had attacked CBP officers with a weapon. 

Trump’s top fascist aide, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, went even further, calling Pretti “an assassin” who tried to murder federal agents. Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, who is in direct charge of the CBP forces in Minneapolis, claimed that Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

Alex Pretti’s parents, Michael and Susan Pretti, issued a statement declaring, “The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting.” They wrote, “Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world.”

In the face of this heartfelt statement, and the widespread public anger and outrage provoked by this state killing, representatives of the Trump administration continued to repeat their lies on the Sunday network television interview programs.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche—formerly Trump’s personal lawyer in a series of criminal cases—blamed those protesting the influx of federal agents into the Minneapolis metro area, although he denied that there were any protests, only interference with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and CBP. He said on NBC’s “Meet the Press”:

It is very hard when they’re walking, trying to do their job, and there are agitators and rioters everywhere. These men and women are not protesting. They are not peacefully protesting. They are trying to impede and obstruct ICE, and it makes the job that our men and women have to do virtually impossible to do without interactions like that.

In other words, according to Blanche, the continuing immigration operations require the types of killings in broad daylight that took place January 7, when Renée Good was shot three times by an ICE officer, and January 24, when Alex Pretti was shot 10 times by several CBP officers.

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” CBP commander Bovino maintained an adamant defense of the actions of Border Patrol agents, describing them as “victims” of an assault by Alex Pretti, who was using his cellphone to record their actions as they attacked a woman protester and knocked her to the ground.

The following exchange took place between Bovino and the evidently flabbergasted interviewer, Dana Bash:

BASH: Where do you see in the video that he was assaulting law enforcement? Because, from everything we have seen, law enforcement was assaulting him when he was there trying to help another individual. 

BOVINO: Dana, law enforcement doesn’t assault anyone. Follow directions of law enforcement. Follow directions of law enforcement in an active crime scene. It was very evident he didn’t want to do that. Very evident that the other individuals didn’t want to do that. And it’s too bad the consequences had to be paid...

BASH: OK. And before I let you go, I just want to button up one point that you were making about what Alex Pretti was doing there. Do you accept that it is the law that an individual has a right to film what law enforcement is doing? 

BOVINO: I believe that all citizens of the United States have those First and Fourth Amendment rights, as long as they do so peacefully and don’t delay, obstruct, or assault anyone in doing that. And that’s the issue here because he was not peacefully doing anything. 

BASH: All right. And just for the record—and we have seen this video multiple times from multiple angles—there is no evidence that he was doing anything other than being peaceful until the altercation began. 

Speaking on Fox, FBI Director Kash Patel claimed Alex Pretti’s actions were criminal in character, saying, “You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest.” This amounts to the repudiation of both the First Amendment and the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

Several of the Sunday interview programs discussed the letter sent by Attorney General Pam Bondi to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, in which she suggested that the crisis in Minneapolis could be resolved by three acts of surrender by the state: handing over all state data on recipients of food stamps and other federal benefits for the poor (to help identify immigrants and fuel the ongoing witch-hunt over supposed fraud); repealing all state and local “sanctuary” laws, which bar certain forms of direct police collaboration with ICE; and turning over the state’s voter rolls to the Department of Justice, as part of the “election security” drive initiated by the Trump administration in an effort to rig the 2026 and 2028 elections (assuming elections are even held).

Walz has not yet responded to the Bondi letter, but Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon issued a statement declaring, “It is deeply disturbing that the U.S. Attorney General would make this unlawful request a part of an apparent ransom to pay for our state’s peace and security.” 

Speaking on CNN, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said, “Donald Trump has made it clear that he intends to try to interfere in the upcoming 2026 election. He says that his one regret from 2020 was that he didn’t take the voting machines. And it is really alarming that, in this letter, Bondi says, well, we will get the ICE officers out of Minneapolis if you give us control of your voter lists. … And this letter seems pretty definitive proof that they are trying to trade the presence of ICE and the murder and mayhem that they are causing for control of Minnesota’s elections.” 

In the face of this open threat to democratic rights, Democratic Party leaders are proposing nothing more than impotent gestures. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer declared that the Democrats would block passage of legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security, set to be voted on this coming week, unless new restrictions were placed on ICE and CBP operations.

“What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling—and unacceptable in any American city. Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE. I will vote no,” Schumer said in a statement. “Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included.”

While the Democrats could block the bill, which requires a 60-vote margin to overcome a filibuster, this would have no effect on the funding of ICE and CBP, which was provided a four-year bonanza in last year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Senator Adam Schiff of California acknowledged the hollowness of the threat, but said on “Meet the Press” that at least it would prevent any future increase in ICE and CBP funding.

The ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Patty Murray of Washington, wrote on X, “Federal agents cannot murder people in broad daylight and face zero consequences. The DHS bill needs to be split off from the larger funding package before the Senate—Republicans must work with us to do that. I will continue fighting to rein in DHS and ICE.” Murray said she could no longer support the Homeland Security funding bill—which up to then she had advocated, even after the murder of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis three weeks ago.

As for the supposed “left” wing of the Democratic Party, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, during a long appearance on CNN Saturday, denounced the killing of Alex Pretti and contrasted Trump’s demonization of peaceful anti-ICE protesters in Minneapolis with his pardons of his own right-wing supporters who violently attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

But when asked why Trump was intensifying the anti-immigrant raids and preparing to use troops in major cities, if he invoked the Insurrection Act, Ocasio-Cortez evaded the issue of Trump’s preparation of a presidential dictatorship, and claimed that the raids were an attempt to divert public attention away from presidential scandals such as the Epstein documents and Trump’s own profiteering from his office.