When DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Trump adviser Stephen Miller dropped bombs on Alex Pretti after he was shot and killed by a Border Patrol officer, you knew it was going to be a problem.
The administration broke the usual PR approach and decided to go on the attack, including Vice President JD Vance reposting Miller’s post calling Pretti an “assassin.”
Vance was recently asked if he would like to apologize for that, and his response stunned everyone.
The one person who went after Pretti hard immediately after the shooting was Miller.
He characterized Pretti as an “assassin, as well as saying he “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
Now, we can argue all day about the foolishness of bringing a weapon with you if you have the intent that Pretti did, but he was a legal citizen with a carry permit, so that was his right.
The issue here was in how quickly administration officials went after him, clearly not having the time to gather all the facts. Vance was among them, having reposted the Miller “assassin” post, which raised a lot of eyebrows.
Trump was asked directly if he agreed that Pretti was an assassin, and he responded, “No.”
Trump then got on the wrong side of the NRA and 2A defenders, saying that protesters “can’t have guns, then added, "it's just a very unfortunate incident."
The rhetoric by the Trump officials on this matter only turned up the heat in Minneapolis, which Trump was trying to turn down.
He eventually pulled DHS Secretary Noem and inserted border czar Tom Homan to try to calm things down a bit.
Vance was recently asked by the Daily Mail if he wanted to apologize to Pretti’s family regarding his post, to which he responded, “For what? If something is determined, that the guy who shot Alex Pretti did something bad, then a lot of consequences are going to flow from that. We’ll let that happen. I don’t think it’s smart to prejudge the investigation.”
Vance later doubled down on that comment, adding, “Let’s do the investigation. Let’s figure out, did these officers have a reasonable fear of Alex Pretti given what happened? Did they engage in lawful conduct or unlawful conduct? Let’s let the investigation determine those things.”
I completely agree with Vance that we need to let this investigation play out first, which is why I have yet to say anything about either shooting.
But I can tell you this… if Vance wants to see the investigation play out, he never should have reposted Miller’s comments. And Miller and Noem should have kept their mouths shut. If this investigation finds fault with the shooting, both of their heads move to the front of the line for the chopping block.
