Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says President Donald Trump and his administration are “on the back foot” following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, highlighting some “very rare” signs during an appearance Wednesday on MS NOW.
Buttigieg joined “The Briefing with Jen Psaki” to discuss the administration’s disastrous response to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Minnesota shooting Pretti on Jan. 24, including White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller calling him a “would-be assassin” on social media.
Pretti, who was shown in eyewitness videos filming an altercation involving federal agents 11 days before his death, was wrestled to the ground, disarmed and fatally shot. Psaki noted that Vice President JD Vance has “been largely silent” on the issue since the incident.
She then asked what Buttigieg hopes people might learn about “who the vice president is.”
“I think the Trump administration is so far on the back foot that you’re seeing two things that are very rare: Donald Trump backing down and JD Vance shutting up,” he said. “When you see those two things happening at the same time, clearly something big is afoot.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minnesota were directed Wednesday to stop engaging with so-called “agitators,” marking a potential departure from the behavior that has fueled fraught tensions between federal agents and local protesters.
Pretti died mere weeks after an ICE officer, identified as Jonathan Ross, shot Renee Good. The 37-year-old Minneapolis woman was trying to turn and move her SUV on a street with ICE officers on it, and as she was appearing to leave, three shots were fired through both the driver’s window and windshield, according to videos from witnesses.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem baselessly claimed after both incidents that Good and Pretti were committing “domestic terrorism” before they were shot. Vance called Good’s death “a tragedy of her own making” for supposedly engaging in “classic terrorism.”
Buttigieg said Wednesday that Vance has “repeatedly” revealed himself as a political opportunist “willing to say anything, do anything” and embrace any narrative that might be advantageous in the moment — as he “wants to be the heir to MAGA” when Trump is gone.
Buttigieg argued that Pretti’s death, however, has turned out not to be one such opportunity.
“But this is something that even he can’t defend, at least not without knowing that it will undermine his chance of ever being taken seriously by anyone outside that bubble in the future,” he told Psaki. “So I think it is telling that he’s gone uncharacteristically silent.”
Watch the full “Briefing” conversation with Buttigieg on his official YouTube account.