They were lies. Not honest errors in the fog of war. Not spin. Lies.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem lied when she said of the Alex Pretti incident, “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.”
Noem also lied by saying that Pretti had been “brandishing” a gun.
Scores of video evidence don’t just “contradict” these claims, they expose them as fiction. Pretti was holding a cell phone. He was attempting to help a woman who had been shoved to the pavement. A licensed gun owner, he brought his pistol to the scene, but it remained holstered until a federal agent pulled it from his waistband after he had been tackled.
Gregory Bovino, Border Patrol commander at large, repeated Noem’s lie, saying that it looked “like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
Deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, who by all accounts sets the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda and messaging, posted the lie on X that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” who had “tried to assassinate federal law enforcement,” and later that he was a “would-be assassin” who intended a “massacre.”
Vice President JD Vance reposted both of Miller’s lies.
No one has amended their remarks or apologized to Pretti’s family for falsely accusing him of plotting or threatening to execute a “massacre.” Neither Miller nor Vance have removed their lies from X.
This is an indelible stain on the department’s moral authority to execute its core mandate: removing the dangerous illegal immigrants who actually threaten our communities. Should the larger mission fail, the Pretti lie will be remembered as the pivot point where the administration squandered its mandate and its public trust.
Indeed, this lie has political legs. It provides a ready-made arsenal of campaign ads for this year’s midterm elections to an otherwise incoherent and unattractive Democratic Party. It gives validity to their worst accusations about the administration, that it really is callous, arrogant, and fascistic.
Unearthed videos of Pretti spitting at federal agents and kicking at government vehicles 11 days earlier do not lessen the toxicity of this lie. If anything, they sharpen the contrast and make the fabrication more egregious. Those prior videos establish Pretti as an aggressive, repeat agitator who had already clashed with federal officers and shown willingness to get physical. Yet on the day in question, the evidence remains clear: he wasn’t “brandishing” a weapon, wasn’t charging to “inflict maximum damage” or stage a “massacre,” and wasn’t acting as a “would-be assassin.”
Trump’s decision to sideline Noem and Bovino in favor of Tom Homan in Minnesota is good and wise — clearly, the first two weren’t capable of conducting themselves in an honorable or effective manner.
But much more needs to be done to restore confidence in the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts. Trump’s approval ratings on immigration enforcement are dropping like a cinder block in the aftermath of the Pretti incident. This is supposed to be one of the administration’s strengths.
TRUMP SPLITS REPUBLICANS WITH ABOUT-FACE ON ALEX PRETTI SHOOTING
And it can be again. Americans understand too well the problems caused by Joe Biden’s open border policy. But they will not trust an administration that lies so brazenly over such grave matters.
More changes are needed.