Donald Trump calls Alex Pretti an “agitator”

(Minneapolis) Donald Trump on Friday described as an “agitator” the nurse killed in Minneapolis a week ago by federal agents, the day after his envoy’s promises to reduce the number of immigration police there.

The American president continues to blow hot and cold on the death, by the bullets of federal agents, of two American citizens – Alex Pretti and Renee Good – since the beginning of January. Two tragedies which divide Americans and have plunged this Midwestern city into fear.

In his message published just before 2 a.m. in Washington (2 a.m. Eastern time), Donald Trump returned to a viral video showing Alex Pretti, 11 days before his death, rebelling during an arrest by police officers.

“Agitator and, perhaps, insurgent, Alex Pretti’s rating has fallen sharply” with this video, Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social network. “We see him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and self-possessed ICE agent.”

Alex Pretti “frantically kicked a new and very expensive government vehicle with such force and violence that the taillight broke into pieces,” the president said in his message.

“It was a real display of violence and anger, visible to all, unleashed and out of control. The ICE agent remained calm and collected, which is not easy in such circumstances! LET’S MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

At the start of the week, Donald Trump had promised a “small de-escalation” and a partial withdrawal of the masked men who crisscross Minneapolis. Before returning to his incendiary rhetoric and attacking Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey, who continues to stand up to him.

The subject is sparking heated debates all the way to Washington, where Democrats are fighting over the budget for the Department of Homeland Security. The Senate must vote on a new text during the day on Friday, after Donald Trump’s announcement that a compromise had been found.

Rarely, a figure from Silicon Valley even took up the subject.

“More of us need to stop viewing Trumpist chaos as mere political theater from which we can stay away. It’s time for all of us to do and say more,” wrote Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, Thursday in an op-ed at San Francisco Standard. “A large majority of us disapprove of the ostentatious brutality of the Trump regime.”

“Demonstration of violence”

On Thursday, the special presidential envoy to Minneapolis, Tom Homan, promised to “soon” reduce the number of immigration police deployed in the city, while repeating the president’s desire to continue its operations there.

Some 3,000 agents responsible for the fight against illegal immigration have been dispatched. “We are in no way renouncing our mission. We’re just doing it smarter,” said Tom Homan.

The envoy admitted the need for “certain improvements” in operations. If agents do not act professionally, “they will be treated like any other federal agency.” We have standards of conduct.”

Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, was shot and killed by members of the Border Patrol (CBP) on Saturday. Renee Good, a mother of the same age, was killed less than three weeks earlier, on January 7, by an immigration enforcement agent (ICE).

And tensions remain high in Minnesota’s largest city, whose residents take the administration’s promises with a distance.

“We’ll believe it when we see it.” This administration has proven time and time again that it is only lying to us,” responded to AFP Steven Gagner, 41, member of a citizen network who reports and films ICE interventions in his neighborhood.

According to him, operations “have intensified in the last three days”.

The subject also comes as Donald Trump increases his declarations of support for Republican candidates in the mid-term legislative elections in November.

He “is caught in the crossfire, between his loyal electoral base who elected him on the promise of “mass expulsions” and a broader electorate who are increasingly uncomfortable” with the methods of federal agents, commented Friday Washington Post.