Trump Fan Draws Fire on CNN Claiming Alex Pretti ‘Was Obviously Not Murdered’ — Was In ‘Scrum’ That ‘Ended in Bad Shoot’

Trump supporter and NewsNation host Batya Ungar-Sargon drew flak on CNN when she declared that Alex Pretti “was obviously not murdered,” with CNN contributor Cari Champion clapping back “We’re not lying today!”

Chaos and widespread outrage erupted Saturday when Trump Border Patrol agents shot Mr. Pretti in Minneapolis as social media video of the incident circulated.

Trump officials rushed to make outlandish claims about Pretti, the man who was shot — even falsely labeling him an “assassin.”

But Protests erupted immediately, as multiple videos of the killing showed that Pretti was disarmed before he was killed and never drew his legally-permitted weapon.

On Monday night’s edition of CNN NewsNight, anchor Abby Phillip hosted a panel consisting of Paul Mecurio, Batya Ungar-Sargon, Cari Champion, Arthur Aidala, and Congressman Adriano Espaillat (D-NY).

Ungar-Sargon strongly denounced the Trump administration’s attacks on Pretti, but drew objections from Phillip and others with her characterization of the killing as a “scrum that ended in a bad shoot”:

BATYA UNGAR-SARGON: I found Secretary Noem’s comments on Alex Pretti to be unforgivable. Everything I’ve heard about this person suggests that he was a wonderful human being and to desecrate the dead like that, utterly, utterly unjustifiable. And I don’t see how a person should be allowed to remain in public service after lying so blatantly to the American people.

Now, that said, it’s very clear that the president is on a very different page. He refused to say that he supports the ICE agent in the shooting until we have more information. He wants to know what’s on the footage, which I do as well. And I hope that that gets exposed.

That said, Alex Pretti was obviously not murdered. He was in a scrum that ended in a bad shoot. And I think this is a moment that we should all try to find our way back to each other as Americans and come off the edge. And I’m really hoping we can find that common ground here because I think that this is really a moment where the president himself is saying, we’ve gone too far in our separate corners and we have to find a way to work together. And I was so pleased to hear that he had these great conversations with Frey and with Walz.

ABBY PHILLIP: I guess I hear what you’re saying about Noem, but on that last point about how you’re saying he wasn’t murdered, I think a lot of people disagree. I think one of the big issues that a lot of Americans have with how this is handled is this idea that the conduct of the ICE agent can just be chalked up to a mistake and that there are no consequences.

CARI CHAMPION: Yes, and it wasn’t —

PHILLIP: And what are the lessons then for anybody else in that situation? I think there are probably a lot of people who would say it’s not just a mistake. There’s a lot of poor decision-making, maybe even negligent decision-making. That should be —

CHAMPION: He can’t walk back. He being, the president, can’t walk back what he’s already, to your point earlier, what he actually started. They’ve lost the plot. The plot was deportation. The plot was to get rid of violent immigrants who were taking jobs and harming people in this country, et cetera. The plot wasn’t to kill American citizens. He was murdered. It wasn’t a scrum.

He was murdered. We have to start using the words —

UNGAR-SARGON: You literally just saw the scrums.

CHAMPION: No.

UNGAR-SARGON: We all watched it. CHAMPION: We watched him try to protect another woman. And in the process of him trying to protect another protester —

UNGAR-SARGON: He was shot while he was being arrested for having —

CHAMPION: So, I’m not going to argue that with you. But the point of the matter is I’m not — we’re not doing this. We’re not lying. We’re not lying. We’re not lying.

ESPAILLAT: This is a manifestation of —

CHAMPION: We’re not lying today. Hold on one second. They’ve lost the —

(CROSSTALKS)

CHAMPION: I was still talking. I was still talking.

PHILLIP: Let me let Cari finish her thought.

CHAMPION: The reality is that we’ve lost the plot. He said that what they would do, what these ICE agents were supposed to do, they are not doing. They are intimidating people. They are scaring people. They are bullying people because they have been told to do that. Noem got up and lied. Bondi sent a ransom note. We’ll get to all that later. Everyone did what they had been told to do. This is the result of what they had been told to do.

PHILLIP: To that point, it’s the result also of Donald Trump’s policy.

CHAMPION: Of course, that’s what we’re saying.

PHILLIP: Say what you will about what Donald Trump is doing and saying right now, they are carrying out what he ordered. And if he didn’t order it, who did? He’s the president.

CHAMPION: He can’t tell he didn’t know.

PHILLIP: 3,000 federal agents in a city of less than 500,000 people, by comparison, Chicago is 3 million people. There are more ICE agents in Minneapolis than anywhere in the continental United States right now.

CHAMPION: They’ve lost the plot.

PHILLIP: There’s something that’s happening about that particular thing.

Watch above via CNN NewsNight.

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