(NewsNation) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should be fired for the inaccurate comments she made immediately after Alex Pretti’s death in Minneapolis last weekend, Batya Ungar-Sargon tells “NewsNation Prime.”
Noem claimed Pretti had brandished a firearm and was intending to harm Border Patrol agents before they fatally shot him. Videos showed several agents taking Pretti to the ground, with one agent appearing to pull a gun from his person and withdrawing before the gunshots. The 37-year-old was legally carrying the weapon, local authorities said.
“She lied to our faces. She defamed the dead. She called Alex Pretti a terrorist and said that he had brandished his gun,” Ungar-Sargon said of Noem. “It took her a week to backtrack on that … We saw the footage hours after she made that claim.”
Ungar-Sargon has pushed back on efforts to lionize Pretti, a VA nurse. Last week, she noted, a video surfaced showing him in an earlier encounter with federal agents where he acted aggressively, as if “radicalized.”
As for the deadly Jan. 24 incident, Ungar-Sargon added, “He was not acting violently. He was resisting arrest. I don’t think he was murdered, but to say that he was brandishing his gun about a very, very delicate, contentious issue, I think that’s horrendous. … I think she should be fired.”
Ungar-Sargon praised the Trump administration for at least sending border czar Tom Homan, “a consummate professional,” to Minnesota following Pretti’s death. She credited Democratic Gov. Tim Walz for appearing as if he’ll try to meet Homan “halfway.”
Federal authorities killed Pretti and another American citizen, Renee Good, last month during the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Critics say the White House is no longer targeting the “worst of the worst” — undocumented immigrants with deep criminal histories — as the feds attempt to meet roundup quotas.
