Trump's response to Pretti killing upends Second Amendment politics

Here & Now Anytime

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4.1 • 953 Ratings

🗓️ 28 January 2026

⏱️ 22 minutes

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Summary

Alex Pretti was legally carrying a gun when a federal agent shot and killed him in Minneapolis last weekend. President Trump and other federal officials blamed his death on the fact that he had a gun, but Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus chair Bryan Strawser explains why he disagrees.

And, after leading immigration operations in Minneapolis, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino has returned to his previous job in California. CalMatters investigative reporter Sergio Olmos talks about Bovino’s record in California.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for here and now anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software for technical computing and model-based design.
0:09.2	MathWorks accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com.
0:17.6	WBUR Podcasts, Boston.
0:22.5	It doesn't matter if you're carrying multiple magazines or even multiple firearms.
0:27.7	All of that is legal under Minnesota law.
0:30.3	Gun owners react to the killing of Alex Pretty and the Trump administration's equivocation on the Second Amendment.
0:51.3	It's Wednesday, January 28th, and this is here and now anytime from NPR and WBUR.
0:52.4	I'm Chris Bentley.
1:01.2	Today on the show, as Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bevino leaves Minneapolis,
1:06.7	we look at how he ramped up his tactics in the months leading up to the killing of Alex Prety.
1:07.2	Bevino seemed to be auditioning for a bigger role, and he got that later in Los Angeles.
1:10.8	He did the exact same thing on a much bigger scale in Los Angeles, and later again in Chicago and Minneapolis.
1:15.4	Bovino may be out of Minneapolis, but his legacy at Border Patrol lives on. Before we get to that,
1:21.9	though, a preliminary government review out last night of the shooting death of Alex Preddy in Minneapolis last Saturday makes no mention of claims from the Trump administration that he attacked immigration agents or threatened them with his gun, which he legally carried, and which did not appear to be visible in any of the videos we've all seen of their encounter.
1:45.7	After federal agents shot Predattie dead in the street, Homeland Security Secretary Christy Knoem and White House
1:51.2	advisor Stephen Miller were quick to say that Prattie brandished his gun at officers, that he
1:57.5	intended to massacre agents, that he was a domestic terrorist, and that agents killed him in self-defense, despite video evidence to the contrary.
2:07.7	FBI director Cash Patel later walked that back to he shouldn't have brought a gun, even licensed, to a protest.
2:15.9	Last night, President Trump doubled down on that speaking about Alex
2:19.7	Prattie on Fox News.
2:21.0	I don't like the fact that he was carrying a gun that was fully loaded and he had two
2:25.7	magazines with him, and it's pretty unusual. But nobody knows when they saw the gun,
	...

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