The Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal blasted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller for trying to paint a Veterans Affairs nurse killed by ICE agents as a “domestic terrorist.”
The administration’s massive deployment of ICE agents to Minnesota has become “a moral and political debacle” for President Donald Trump after a second U.S. citizen, 37-year-old Alex Pretti, was shot and killed while trying to help a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by federal agents, the Journal’s editorial board wrote.
Just as in the Jan. 7 ICE killing of 37-year-old Minneapolis mother Renee Nicole Good, Noem and Miller immediately branded Pretti a “would-be assassin” and claimed he was trying to attack ICE agents, despite video evidence to the contrary.
Pretti was carrying a concealed weapon, which he had a permit for, but bystander footage from the scene shows he never brandished it. He was filming agents with his phone when they wrestled him to the ground, took away his concealed weapon, and then shot him multiple times.
The administration’s spin “simply isn’t believable,” the Journal’s opinion editors wrote. Far from being a “domestic terrorist,” Pretti was a nurse without a criminal record.
“Ms. Noem and Mr. Miller aren’t credible spokesmen,” the board wrote. “Their social-media and cable-TV strategy is to own the libs, rather than to persuade Americans. This is backfiring against Republicans.”
The Daily Beast has dubbed Noem “ICE Barbie” because of her habit of cosplaying as an immigration agent during her frequent on-camera appearances.
Thanks to Miller’s mass deportation drive, immigration has gone from an issue that Trump led on in 2024 to a liability for the GOP, the Journal’s opinion editors wrote.
“Americans don’t want to see law enforcement shooting people in the street or arresting five-year-old boys,” they added.
The editorial urged Trump to pause the ICE surge in Minnesota, ease tensions, adopt a more “conciliatory” tone, and launch a more targeted immigration strategy “aimed at criminals, not at hotel maids and gardeners.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and DHS for comment.
Trump has so far refused to accept responsibility for the killings in Minnesota, instead blaming his favorite targets: former President Joe Biden, who he falsely claimed let in “tens of millions of illegal alien criminals,” and Democratic cities and states that he says “are REFUSING to cooperate with ICE.”
“Tragically, two American Citizens have lost their lives as a result of this Democrat ensued chaos,” he wrote on social media over the weekend.
City and state leaders in Minnesota have said the Department of Homeland Security has refused to coordinate with them or even inform them of its operations. Minneapolis has just 600 police officers compared to 3,000 ICE agents who have flooded the city.
Even senior DHS officials have blasted the administration’s claims that Pretti was planning to “massacre” ICE agents, with sources calling the official party line “catastrophic” from both a moral and public relations perspective, a Fox News reporter tweeted on Sunday.
The conservative editorial board of the Journal agreed.
“Whether he likes it or not, most of the burden now lies with Mr. Trump as the President who controls ICE,” the editors wrote.
