MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” refuted the Trump administration’s characterization of the killing of Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis over the weekend, arguing that the ICU nurse was killed “because he was a good samaritan.”
“This is the second time that [this] has happened in just a few weeks in Minneapolis,” host Mika Brzezinski said Monday morning. “A U.S. citizen shot dead, point blank range, and DHS and Border Patrol immediately blaming the victim and calling that person a domestic terrorist.”
Brzezinski and “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough went on to lambast multiple Trump administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, for painting Pretti as a domestic terrorist.
“He was actually killed for being a good samaritan,” Scarborough noted. “That’s what the Wall Street Journal said, that’s what our expert just said. He got involved and he was killed because he was a good samaritan.” He also disputed Noem, Bessent and other government officials’ weekend remarks that Pretti’s death was justified because he was carrying a (legally registered) firearm during his confrontation with ICE agents.
“This, after we have spent the past five, six years watching MAGA supporters march to state capitols across America with AR-15s strapped across their chests?” Scarborough asked. “Imagine if one of those citizens had been shot dead because, well, because Gretchen Whitmer used the same standard that Scott Bessent, the FBI director and Kristi Noem said they should have used.”
“You justify killing somebody if they bring a gun that’s legally registered to a protest?” he reiterated. “That’s how twisted it’s gotten in this administration.”
Former U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske appeared on “Morning Joe” Monday to discuss Pretti’s killing and criticize the behavior of the ICE agents involved in the shooting. “Well-trained police officers would not engage that way,” Kerlikowske said. “What we’re seeing is that when they do make arrests, which seem to be few and far between, the courts are not buying it, the juries are not buying it. So they immediately turn to using tear gas, pepper balls, soft nose rounds, etc.”
For his part, fellow “Morning Joe” guest and MS NOW Senior National Security Reporter David Rohde said the killings of both Pretti and fellow Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good this past month have brought President Trump to “the most important domestic policy decision of his second term.”
“Is this going to be the Donald Trump administration or the Stephen Miller administration? It is Stephen Miller who has pushed these incredibly aggressive tactics across the country,” Rohde explained. “There’s an opportunity for President Trump to say, ‘Look, a tragic mistake happened here.’”
“It’s terrible tactics. I spoke to two former FBI agents. One of them has been at protests where militia members have long guns, assault rifles, and there’s ways you handle this situation that don’t lead to this,” Rohde concluded. “They both agreed that these ICE agents or border patrol agents initiated this confrontation and this was completely avoidable. The key question here is the tone of the president himself.”
