What Trump officials claimed about Alex Pretti — and what the evidence actually shows

By Daniel Dale, CNN

(CNN) — Top officials in President Donald Trump’s administration have responded to the killing of Alex Pretti by the Border Patrol in Minneapolis on Saturday with a torrent of claims that are either contradicted by video footage or unsupported by any evidence presented so far.

• Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed Pretti “attacked” officers, an assertion echoed by FBI Director Kash Patel, but no footage available as of Sunday afternoon shows Pretti committing any attack.
• Noem claimed Pretti was “brandishing” a gun, but no available footage shows Pretti even holding a weapon in his hand at the scene; a concealed gun appeared to be taken from his waistband area by a federal agent moments before he was shot.
• White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller referred to Pretti as “an assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents,” Vice President JD Vance reposted this claim, and Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino (and the Department of Homeland Security in a social media post) said it “looks like” Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” But nobody has shown any evidence that Pretti sought to kill anyone, let alone perpetrate a massacre.
• Patel suggested that Pretti broke the law by carrying a concealed gun at a protest, but the Minneapolis police chief said Pretti had a permit to carry the gun and was allowed to have it on him as he was protesting in a public place.

Pretti’s parents issued a statement on Saturday saying, “The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting.” And in television interviews on Sunday, the administration declined to repeat some of its most incendiary allegations from Saturday about Pretti, who was a registered nurse in an intensive care unit at a Veterans Affairs facility.

Here is a look at how the Trump team’s shifting rhetoric squares with what is known about Pretti and the circumstances around his death.

The administration claimed that Pretti ‘attacked’ officers. But videos don’t show Pretti committing any attack

Noem told reporters Saturday: “This individual impeded the law enforcement officers and attacked them,” repeating the phrase “attacked them” moments later for emphasis. When Patel was asked about the shooting in a Sunday interview on Fox News, he responded, “You do not get to attack law enforcement officials in this country without any repercussions.”

No video of the incident available as of Sunday afternoon showed Pretti attacking officers.

Various footage shows him directing traffic at the site of an immigration enforcement operation, yelling at a federal agent who was interacting with other bystanders to “not push them into the traffic,” holding up a cell phone appearing to record agents, and stepping in front of an agent to intervene as the agent shoved a woman to the ground; Pretti appeared to make momentary contact with the agent with his right arm and left hand.

The agent then sprayed him with a chemical irritant and dragged him to the ground; other officers joined in the confrontation as Pretti appeared to resist, and one agent appeared to strike him repeatedly as he was on the ground.

In a Sunday interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Bovino claimed Pretti “assaulted federal officers.” But when Bash pressed Bovino to explain what moment in the video showed Pretti committing such an assault, Bovino would not provide any specifics.

Noem used noticeably softer language in a Fox News interview on Sunday morning than she had Saturday. This time, instead of saying Pretti “attacked” law enforcement, she said Pretti was “laying hands on law enforcement.”

Videos contradict Noem’s Saturday suggestion that Pretti was ‘brandishing’ a gun – and other officials wouldn’t repeat that claim on Sunday

Noem claimed Saturday that Pretti “had a weapon on him, and multiple – dozens – of rounds of ammunition; wishing to inflict harm on these officers, coming, brandishing like that.”

Temporarily leaving aside the claim about Pretti’s supposed intention to inflict harm, which we’ll address below, Noem’s claim that Pretti was “brandishing” a gun is contradicted by videos of the incident. At no point in the available footage was Pretti holding a gun in his hand, let alone waving it or trying to intimidate someone with it.

“I don’t have any evidence that I’ve seen that suggests that the weapon was brandished,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in a Sunday interview on CBS.

Footage taken of Pretti walking around prior to the shooting showed him carrying a cell phone in one hand and nothing in the other. Subsequent footage appears to show a federal agent removing a gun from Pretti’s waistband area when Pretti was on the ground just moments before being shot.

Notably, administration officials would not repeat or defend Noem’s “brandishing” claim in interviews on Sunday morning.

When Patel was asked on Fox how Pretti was supposedly using the gun to threaten Border Patrol given that Pretti was only holding a phone, Patel did not explain, saying he would defer to “DHS and the prosecutors – because they are the ones investigating that case.” Asked in an interview on NBC whether Pretti brandished a gun at any point, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche also declined to make a firm comment, saying “there is obviously an investigation that’s ongoing.”

The administration has provided no evidence for its claims Pretti was ‘an assassin’ or planned to ‘massacre’ officers

Top administration officials tried Saturday to portray Pretti as a would-be mass murderer.

In a Saturday post on social media platform X, Miller referred to Pretti as “an assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents.” Miller’s comment – a reply to a Democratic senator who called for ICE to leave Minneapolis and for Congress to refuse to fund ICE in its current form – was reposted by Vance.

Bovino claimed to reporters, “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement;” the Department of Homeland Security used the same language in a post on X. And Noem similarly told reporters: “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.”

But nobody has presented evidence that Pretti was trying to assassinate anyone or commit a murder, let alone a mass killing. Pretti’s father told the Associated Press that Pretti had been participating in protests of the administration’s immigration actions since another Minneapolis protester, Renee Good, was killed by an ICE agent earlier in January.

In the Sunday interviews, none among Noem, Patel, Blanche or Bovino repeated the administration’s Saturday claims about Pretti’s supposed intention to murder.

Minnesota gun owners’ group says Patel was ‘completely incorrect on Minnesota law’ about carrying a gun at a protest

O’Hara, the Minneapolis police chief, said on CBS on Sunday that Pretti, a US citizen, had a permit to carry a concealed firearm and was legally armed at the scene of his killing on Saturday.

But Patel claimed Sunday on Fox News while discussing the incident: “You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple.” At another point in the interview, Patel said, “No one who wants to be peaceful shows up at a protest with a firearm that is loaded with two full magazines.”

There is no Minnesota or federal law barring participation in peaceful protest while carrying a concealed weapon. O’Hara said: “It appears that he was present, exercising his First Amendment rights to record law enforcement activity, and also exercising his Second Amendment rights to lawfully be armed in a public space in the city,”

The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, a gun rights organization in the state, wrote on X on Sunday in response to Patel’s claim: “This is completely incorrect on Minnesota law. There is no prohibition on a permit holder carrying a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines at a protest or rally in Minnesota.” And the national organization Gun Owners of America posted on X on Saturday: “The Second Amendment protects Americans’ right to bear arms while protesting – a right the federal government must not infringe upon.”

Noem claimed Sunday on Fox that Pretti had been improperly carrying the gun with “no ID.” If that were true, it would be a petty misdemeanor in Minnesota, not a crime, punishable by a fine of up to $25.

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