The Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal sharply criticized Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller for attempting to portray a Veterans Affairs nurse killed by ICE agents as a “domestic terrorist.”
In an editorial, the Journal’s board said the administration’s large-scale 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 board said that, as in the Jan. 7 killing of 37-year-old Minneapolis mother Renee Nicole Good, Noem and Miller quickly labeled Pretti a “would-be assassin” and claimed he was attempting to attack ICE agents — even though video evidence from the scene, the board argued, undercuts that narrative.
Pretti, a VA nurse with no criminal record, was carrying a concealed weapon for which he had a permit. But footage recorded by bystanders shows he did not brandish it. According to that account, he was filming agents with his phone when he was wrestled to the ground, disarmed, and then shot multiple times.
The administration’s version of events, the Journal’s opinion editors wrote, “simply isn’t believable.” They argued that Pretti’s background and what the video appears to show do not align with the depiction of him as a “domestic terrorist.”
“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, the Journal’s editors wrote, immigration has shifted from an issue where Trump held an advantage in 2024 to one that now poses political risk for Republicans.
“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, lower tensions, adopt a more “conciliatory” tone, and pursue a narrower 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, meanwhile, has declined to accept responsibility for the killings in Minnesota. Instead, he blamed familiar targets: former President Joe Biden — whom he falsely accused of allowing in “tens of millions of illegal alien criminals” — and Democratic-led cities and states that he claims “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.
Minnesota city and state leaders have said the Department of Homeland Security has refused to coordinate with them or even inform them about its operations. Minneapolis, they noted, has about 600 police officers compared with roughly 3,000 ICE agents now operating in the city.
Even some senior DHS officials have privately criticized the administration’s claims that Pretti was planning to “massacre” ICE agents, with sources describing the official narrative as “catastrophic” both morally and from a public-relations standpoint, according to a Fox News reporter’s tweet on Sunday.
The Journal’s editorial board echoed that broader point: “Whether he likes it or not, most of the burden now lies with Mr. Trump as the President who controls ICE,” the editors wrote.
