{"id":149238,"date":"2026-01-25T20:35:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T20:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/149238\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T20:35:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T20:35:23","slug":"trumps-playbook-falters-in-crisis-response-to-minneapolis-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/149238\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s playbook falters in crisis response to Minneapolis shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Trump administration has blamed the death of an American citizen at the hands of immigration agents in Minnesota on the victim within hours of their killing for the second time this month, calling the late Alex Jeffrey Pretti<\/a> an \u201cassassin\u201d and \u201cdomestic terrorist\u201d without opening an independent investigation.<\/p>\n

The crisis response from President Trump\u2019s top Homeland Security officials followed a familiar playbook from an administration eager to project grit and resolve, particularly on immigration, in the face of inconvenient facts. Despite their efforts, damage from the incident continued to reverberate Sunday, creating political jeopardy for the president. <\/p>\n

Videos that emerged of Pretti\u2019s killing enraged the public<\/a>. Government lines justifying the use of lethal force prompted blowback among staunch Republican supporters and conservative groups. Negotiations in Congress to thwart another shutdown were upended over Immigration and Customs Enforcement funding. And a Trump-appointed judge blocked the administration from attempting to destroy evidence in the case, lending weight to fears of a cover-up.<\/p>\n

It is new terrain for Trump, whose handling of immigration had been a rare bright spot in polling of his job performance throughout his first year back in office. Now, for the first time, surveys show a plurality of Americans disapprove of the administration\u2019s enforcement tactics, with one in three Republicans expressing concern they have grown too harsh.<\/p>\n

Pretti, 37, an intensive care nurse at a hospital for veterans in Minneapolis, was shot 10 times at close range by two ICE agents. Multiple videos of the incident appear to show Pretti attempting to aid a fellow civilian who had been pushed by an ICE officer, before he himself was wrestled to the ground by agents.<\/p>\n

He had been carrying a firearm that Minneapolis police said was lawfully purchased and registered. The videos that circulated on social media do not indicate that he had brandished, or was attempting to reach for, his weapon, despite Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accusing Pretti of attending the protest with the aim of committing violence.<\/p>\n

Bill Essayli, the assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, warned that approaching law enforcement while armed created \u201ca high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.\u201d But the administration\u2019s decision to blame Pretti\u2019s death on his decision to bear arms drew harsh rebuke<\/a> from 2nd Amendment advocates across the Republican Party.<\/p>\n

\u201cResponsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens,\u201d the National Rifle Assn. said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Erick Erickson, a prominent conservative commentator, accused Noem and Greg Bovino, Trump\u2019s head of the U.S. Border Patrol, of making matters \u201cfar worse by being unrestrained in how they proceed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President is a great marketer and PR guy,\u201d Erickson wrote on X. \u201cWhile those around him may not realize it, I\u2019m pretty sure he understands another dead American with his team rushing to undermine second amendment arguments and define the dead guy with a lot of facts still unknown is a bad look.\u201d<\/p>\n

The general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security during Trump\u2019s first term said he was \u201cenraged and embarrassed\u201d by the agency\u2019s \u201clawlessness, fascism, and cruelty,\u201d and called for the president\u2019s impeachment and removal. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have had enough,\u201d Brian O\u2019Hara, Minneapolis\u2019 police chief, told CBS News\u2019 \u201cFace the Nation.\u201d \u201cThe Minneapolis Police Department went the entire year, last year, recovering about 900 guns from the street, arresting hundreds and hundreds of violent offenders, and we didn\u2019t shoot anyone. And now this is the second American citizen that\u2019s been killed, it\u2019s the third shooting within three weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Renee Nicole Good, also 37 and a mother of three, was shot to death by an ICE agent<\/a> while driving her car, shortly after dropping her son off at school. Just as in Pretti\u2019s case, Noem and other senior administration officials justified the incident within hours of her death by impugning the victim\u2019s motives without producing substantive evidence.<\/p>\n

The aggressive response comes as the administration has faced accusations of misrepresenting other facts to the public. <\/p>\n

After the president confused Greenland with the separate island nation of Iceland four times in a speech last week in Switzerland, Trump\u2019s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, flatly denied<\/a> he had made the mix-up.<\/p>\n

And on the same trip, Trump dismissed the role of NATO\u2019s allies in the war in Afghanistan, where partner nations lost more than 1,000 soldiers over the course of the war, falsely claiming they \u201cstayed a little back, a little off the front lines.\u201d The remark has infuriated some of Washington\u2019s closest allies.<\/p>\n

Only when Noem was questioned by a conservative reporter on Fox News about the circumstances of Pretti\u2019s death did she suggest error may have been at fault.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis happened in seconds,\u201d Noem said, asked whether Pretti had been shot and killed after being disarmed of a weapon he hadn\u2019t brandished in the first place. \u201cThey clearly feared for their lives and took action to defend themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration has blamed the death of an American citizen at the hands of immigration agents in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[69905,339,9831,15721,21225,4456,48,52,51,47,50,49,65890,4011,46082,6283,73937,73977,1519,1695,5050],"class_list":["post-149238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-crisis-response","tag-death","tag-first-time","tag-ice-agent","tag-immigration-agent","tag-incident","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-minneapolis-shooting","tag-noem","tag-playbook","tag-president","tag-pretti","tag-top-homeland-security-official","tag-trump","tag-trump-administration","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}