Life
Editorial Note: Assuming the power is on and the roads are passable, I’ll be on with Mark Halperin at 9:00 a.m. this morning.
The March for Life concluded on Friday, and on Sunday, federal agents took a life in Minneapolis.
Had Minnesota cooperated with immigration officials, Mr. Pretti would still be alive. Had Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino chosen a less in-your-face way of operating, Mr. Pretti would still be alive. Had Noem and Bovino listened to Tom Homan, Michael Banks, the head of the border patrol, and Todd Lyons, the head of ICE, instead of marginalizing and bypassing them, this would not have happened. Homan, Banks, and Lyons have internally opposed the mass, very public roundups that Noem and Bovino have decided to do for the very reason that the public could get whipped up and bad things could happen.
Regrettably, I spent a lot of time on Sunday reviewing the footage and I’ll tell you what I see, knowing so many are seeing what they want to see — contrary to the Trump Administration’s claims that Mr. Pretti wanted a mass casualty event or was a domestic terrorist, and contrary to my own earlier statement that Mr. Pretti was an “agitator” and not just a protestor, Mr. Pretti was not the aggressor. Unlike Renee Good, who spent her day stalking agents and used her car to obstruct them before striking an agent with her car, Mr. Pretti was filming their activities.
The altercation with Mr. Pretti came when he went into the street to video agents roughing up a different protestor, who had turned into an agitator. Mr. Pretti extracted that person and, with another person, walked away. But border patrol agents followed, shoved one of the people, and Mr. Pretti attempted to help that person up. The agent began spraying them with a chemical, and Mr. Pretti attempted to put himself between the agent and the other person. That is when the scuffle ensued.
I’m willing to stand my ground on Renee Good hitting the officer. I know a lot of voices on the right will echo the Administration’s attacks on Mr. Pretti here. But after watching too many clips from too many angles, he does not appear to be the aggressor or instigator. And I think the rush by Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino to malign him as quickly as possible and before a proper review of the facts suggests they know it. A very senior White House official tells me President Trump understands this is different from the Renee Good situation and bothers him.
Marc Caputo, who is one of this Administration’s preferred reporters, notes Kristi Noem made a lot of misleading statements. Bill Melugin of Fox News notes there is “extreme frustration” with how DHS is handling this and reiterates something I have been saying for a while. ICE is getting blamed for things that are caused by Border Patrol and Greg Bovino. Tom Homan has specifically opposed these sorts of broad and public efforts that Bovino and Kristi Noem prefer.
A Wall Street Journal analysis of all the footage indicates Mr. Pretti did not brandish his gun, pull his gun, or otherwise attempt to defend himself with or target immigration agents with his gun. In the tense situation and struggle as Mr. Pretti was helping someone else off the ground, the Wall Street Journal concludes agents most likely found Mr. Pretti’s gun, and the current speculation — and it is speculation, but informed by eyewitnesses and video — is that an agent shouted “gun” upon finding the gun, thereby provoking another agent to open fire. There is also some speculation that the gun discharged after agents had taken it. There is, at this time, no evidence that Mr. Pretti pointed his gun at agents or otherwise brandished it.
Both sides have rushed to define the situation before facts could be pieced together. There is still much to review. I must admit, given both Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino’s statements in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, I’m hesitant to trust much of what comes from them unless it can be truly backed by evidence and affidavit. We have an affidavit from a doctor at the scene that agents both acknowledged they did not know if Mr. Pretti was still alive and, despite that, refused to allow medical attention at the scene from the doctor who offered to assist.
Mr. Pretti had every right to have a gun with him and he had every right to protest the border patrol and film their activities. He had no right to obstruct or impede immigration agents, but it really does not appear he was doing anything other than filming them. He is dead through a series of escalations from Democrats and Trump Administration officials, who, as I noted yesterday, wanted a more aggressive public spectacle related to deportations, sidelining both the heads of ICE and the Border Patrol for suggesting otherwise.
I refuse to play the game of it all being one side’s fault or the other because, as I noted yesterday, Kristi Noem decided to ignore the advice of the leaders of both Immigration and Customs Enforcement and of Border Patrol, choosing to elevate others around their own leaders internally to maximize the spectacle and escalate tensions.
Tim Walz and Jacob Frey have done the same, urging on protestors to engage in “good trouble,” and declaring themselves “at war” with the federal government. Now, Walz is comparing the situation to Anne Frank hiding from the Nazis. We now also know that at least two Tim Walz political strategists have been involved in a Signal chat used to coordinate the agitator’s response to immigration enforcement. We also know the ICE Watch group has been training to physically disrupt federal agents, including using physical assaults against the officers. As of this morning, there is growing evidence that multiple Minnesota politicians are in the above-referenced Signal chat, and they have been planning physical altercations with immigration agents — something beyond mere protest.
Minnesota’s Lieutenant Governor, a far-left radical who has previously urged violence to support trans rights, has been calling on protestors to put their “bodies on the line” to stop immigration arrests.
Unfortunately, the left has put the Trump Administration in a position where it cannot stop enforcement because to do so would be to surrender to mob rule. Unfortunately, Department of Homeland Security officials have placed the President in a position where, should he change tactics now to carry out the mission, but minimize the spectacle, it will look like the President caved to a mob.
Here is what I find really notable in all of this.
The Trump Administration, for now, insists it is going to keep doing the same thing. The dead Americans brought it on themselves.
Even as the public grows more concerned with the tactics the Trump Administration is using to support a deportation policy Americans otherwise support, the Trump Administration shows no signs of altering its course. They’re going to double down, regardless of backlash, because they think it is right and do not want to appear to surrender to a mob. I very much support deporting illegal aliens and fear the Trump Administration’s own personnel are going to jeopardize the policy through a public backlash.
But then there are the policies related to abortion.
The Trump Administration, which insists it is ardently pro-life, has sidelined pro-life activists and voices and refused to rein in the use of the abortion drug. They have walked away from the Hyde Amendment, going so far as to advance a healthcare policy that does not even include the Hyde Amendment. And, under the radar, they have stopped vetting judges on their views of abortion, choosing instead to focus on potential loyalty to Trump over core ideological issues — one reason the Federalist Society, with arguably the most committed and principled ideologically pro-life nominees, has been sidelined from the judicial vetting process.
It’s just very notable that the Trump Administration is willing to double down on an immigration enforcement stance many Americans are bothered by and are willing to risk everything politically because of it, but will so easily sell out the pro-life movement, claiming they have to consider the politics.
The only thing consistent between these positions, at this moment, is the loss of life.
On Kristi Noem’s Handling of Immigration
If you want another example of Kristi Noem’s decision to exert maximum pressure in deportations, causing a headache for the Trump Administration, consider a case that is not getting any notice. Sonik Manaserian, a 70-year-old woman from Iran who fled Iran to avoid being killed by the Iranian regime. No one disputes this. In 1999, a federal immigration judge in California ordered Mrs. Manaserian deported, but then federal immigration officials agreed she could stay so long as she regularly checked in with immigration agents. In 2008, federal authorities gave Mrs. Manaserian the right to work, provided she regularly checked in with immigration officials, which she has done.
In February, when she checked in pursuant to the federal orders, immigration agents arrested her at her regularly scheduled check-in. The George W. Bush appointed judge reviewing the matter, in his order releasing Mrs. Manaserian, notes,
[I]t appears that [the government] arrested a chronically ill, 70-year-old woman, who came to this country to avoid religious persecution and applied for asylum, who has lived here peacefully for 26 years and complied with all check-in requirements and other conditions of release, who has no known criminal record and poses no threat to anyone, without notice or the process required by their own regulations and without any plan for removing her from this country, then kept her in detention for months without sufficient medical care—and they do not have any argument to offer to even try to justify these actions.
By the way, before you get defensive or conclude the judge is just a lib, you should note the government does not dispute anything in this paragraph — they did not arrange her deportation, they did not give her medical care, and, in fact, lost her heart medicine, and are now offering no argument in court to keep Mrs. Manaserian detained. The judge has ordered her released. Again, and to emphasize the key point, the government is not fighting Mrs. Manaserian’s release and does not dispute that immigration agents violated their own rules and had no deportation plan before the arrest. But they would not release Mrs. Manaserian, despite that, without a court order.
Side Note
Though Renee Good’s death did not build momentum for halting the DHS appropriations legislation in Congress, Mr. Pretti’s death is doing just that. It is very likely now that we get another government shutdown as the Democrats seek to shut down funding for Homeland Security.
Ironically, the President’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act provided separate funding for border patrol and ICE, so a shutdown of Homeland Security will not actually stop deportations. Immigration and deportation efforts are fully funded through 2028, so the impact would be to FEMA, TSA, and the Coast Guard, while deportations continue.
Additionally, while we are all distracted by the events of Minnesota, you should know a bipartisan group in the House and Senate has undone most of the spending cuts implemented by DOGE. All the savings is now undone. Republicans and Democrats together funded the National Institutes of Health, among other programs.
My wife always says when some government story is occupying the news cycle, look for the other big story going on that we are missing. Looks like the restoration for funding of government agencies that DOGE decremented is just that. Thanks Erick for letting us know Republicans and Democrats are working together to keep that government spending train healthy and contributing their part to making the government deficit grow faster.
Of all this, the one that absolutely disgusts me is how our "conservative" republicans failed again at cutting spending even though I heard them saying that they did. They have sat around all year holding hearings on nonsense or knowing that nothing was going to happen even if it wasn't nonsense and haven't codified into law a single serious cut. We have no control over our "elected servants" at all. Democrat policies are in full control.