Like the Bible tells us, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
Wait: That’s not in the Bible. (It’s actually from Spiderman.) But anyhoo, it’s still good advice — especially if you’re armed to the gills with guns and ammo.
Guns are powerful, life-and-death tools. They’re not toys for overaged LARPers.
Which means, if you decide to own one, don’t go running around in public with it, instigating violent confrontations!
But that’s exactly what Alex Pretti did shortly before he was killed by ICE agents, in an eye-popping new video that was released yesterday:
🚨 HOLY SMOKES. New video shows leftist rioter Alex Pretti ATTACKING AND SPITTING on federal agents in Minneapolis just a week before his fatal encounter with Border Patrol
That’s not peaceful at all.
He was a KNOWN RIOTER! Media narrative busted. pic.twitter.com/7L2Czrn6Nm
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 28, 2026
Spitting is assault. Kicking ICE vehicles is assault. Kicking ICE vehicles a second time — with so much force, the rear light breaks — is assault. Fighting and wrestling with ICE agents is assault.
At least four different times, in less than a minute, Alex Pretti was guilty of assault.
The penalty under 18 USC 111 for “simple assault” against a federal agent is up to a year in jail. Assault without a weapon is a Class D Felony, punishable by up to 8 years in jail. And assault with a weapon — like the Sig Sauer 9mm gun that Pretti carried — is a Class C Felony, punishable by up to 20 years in jail.
If we were a nation of laws, Pretti would’ve been arrested, as explained here by Cortez Law:
To convict a person of simple assault, DOJ must prove three facts:
- A person forcibly assaulted [or resisted, opposed, impeded, intimidated, or interfered with] a federal officer;
- The federal officer was forcibly assaulted [or resisted, opposed, impeded, intimidated, or interfered with] while engaged in the performance of his official duty or on account of the performance of official duties;
- A person did this intentionally.
In addition, the words in brackets are different ways to commit the crime of simple assault. And this gives prosecutors more leeway on how to prove their case.
Finally, a key point of simple assault is it does not require any physical contact between the suspect and agent. This means a person can commit an assault without ever touching the officer. [emphasis added]
But Pretti wasn’t arrested — and instead, he escalated his violence and continued to physically spar with ICE agents, culminating in his sad, avoidable death a few days later.
I wish he had been arrested, because he’d be alive today. Aggressive policing would’ve saved his life!
The PR fallout of the second Pretti video is a game-changer, because it recontextualizes the core arguments of the left. Before, Pretti was a sympathetic, chivalrous ICU nurse who cared for America’s injured veterans.
(For a lowly white male, that’s about as sympathetic a profile as you can get.)
Plus, he was good-looking. Maybe not in real life, but after MSNOW (formerly MSNBC) touched him up, he had liberal hearts swooning:
It appears MSNBC gave Alex Pretti a tan, a stronger jawline, better teeth, shorter forehead, and a nose job to make him look hotter for the AWFLs. They broadened his shoulders, thickened his neck, and gave him biceps. pic.twitter.com/Kmx2SZ9jzA
— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) January 27, 2026
If you don’t think visuals matter in PR, MSNOW clearly disagrees. Here’s a breakdown of all the cosmetic (fake) improvements:
MSNOW (formerly MSNBC) changed Alex Pretti’s picture in a variety of ways using A.I.
1. They improved the clarity of the picture which is not possible by simply increasing the resolution. There is a phrase called GIGO (garbage in garbage out)… the only way to achieve these… pic.twitter.com/JmlStwzaag
— Anthony Brian Logan (ABL) 🇺🇸 (@ANTHONYBLOGAN) January 27, 2026
Why go to all that effort to pretty-up Pretti? Simple: He who defines the martyr defines the mission.
If Alex Pretti was a kindhearted, hardworking, morally upstanding ICU nurse with dashing good looks, more Americans would be moved by his tragic demise. There’d be more outrage — and thus, more blowback.
It’s a simple equation for leftists: ICU > ICE (with a healthy dose of “pretty privilege”).
But the opposite is also true: If Alex Pretti was an ugly, violent, gun-toting protester with a proven track record of spitting on federal agents, kicking cars, smashing taillights, fighting with ICE agents, and endangering the safety of others, more Americans would conclude, “I’m sad that he died, but c’mon, his own conduct was obviously a contributing factor.”
The left promoted the idea that Pretti was an innocent, blameless martyr of federal violence. Yesterday’s video utterly obliterated that argument. Turns out he was plenty violent, too.
We vividly remember the pushback from our friend on the left (and the tsk-tsk admonitions from the mainstream media) about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s characterization of Pretti’s mens rea.
From CBS News:
Hours after the shooting, Noem alleged Pretti “approached” Border Patrol agents with a gun and “violently resisted” after officers tried to disarm him, and Bovino accused him of trying to “massacre law enforcement.” But videos of the incident do not show Pretti brandishing a gun, and one video appears to show an officer removing a gun from Pretti’s waistband just moments before another agent fired the first shot.
Noem’s initial statement, made in the fog of war, was quickly exploited by the left to undermine the Trump administration’s credibility and integrity. For Noem’s part, it was an unforced error: She should’ve simply said that the initial reports said that ICE shot and killed an armed protester who was wrestling with federal agents, and her office will conduct a comprehensive, open review — instead of assuming Pretti’s intent was to “massacre law enforcement.”
In fact, a big reason why the left focused so heavily on Pretti’s role as an ICU nurse was to lampoon Noem’s argument: Everyone knows ICU nurses are dedicated to saving lives, not massacring them!
Branding Pretti as a noble, attractive, nonviolent ICU nurse was central to their thesis.
And then came the second video. It smashed that carefully-constructed image to smithereens — just as violently as Pretti smashed ICE’s taillights.
Noem’s missteps gave liberals an opportunity to side-eye the Trump administration. This second video does the exact same thing for conservatives, moderates, and independents, but on the other side of the coin. Very clearly, Pretti wasn’t a choir boy, either, and those who claimed otherwise were lying to us.
For hardcore leftists, this changes nothing because their minds aren’t changeable. They’ll either ignore the new footage or insist it was an AI fabrication.
But for everyone else, seeing is believing.
It doesn’t mean Pretti “deserved” to die. Nor does it mean ICE agents were 100% blameless.
What it means is Pretti wasn’t blameless, either.
And had law enforcement agents done their job and arrested an armed, violent instigator who was videoed REPEATEDLY committing assault, Alex Pretti would almost certainly be alive today.
Abdicating their responsibility led to Pretti’s death.
Which is an absolutely disastrous PR angle for the Democrats, because their entire argument hinges on blaming overly-aggressive law enforcement agents. That’s the PR destination they want us to reach: All this violence would go away if ICE agents stopped being so damn aggressive!
But what if the opposite is true: What if Pretti didn’t die because law enforcement was too aggressive?
What if he died because they weren’t aggressive enough?
It’s an unmitigated PR catastrophe for the anti-ICE crowd. Their martyr du jour just went from a handsome, gentle, Noah Wyle clone to an angry, violent, gun-toting lunatic. And that’s not helpful for winning hearts and minds.
But it demonstrates the great PR power of images.
And with great power comes great responsibility. (Whoever actually said it.)
Related: Firing Noem Would Be a PR Catastrophe, and What We Can Learn From the Dems’ Long Game
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First: It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battle lines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
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