White House Continues To Up The Pressure On Minnesota Democrats Despite Trump’s Call With Walz

The White House on Monday continued to blame Minnesota Democrats for creating chaos in the state in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti, even as President Donald Trump announced several steps that appeared to be an attempt to ease tensions with local and state officials.

Just two days after Customs and Border Patrol agents shot and killed Pretti in Minneapolis — the second such killing in the city this month — White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt laid the blame for Pretti’s killing squarely at the feet of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.

“This tragedy occurred as a result of a deliberate and hostile resistance by Democrat leaders in Minnesota,” she told reporters during a press briefing.

Representatives for Walz and Frey did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Leavitt’s remarks.

But hours earlier, Trump signaled that the situation in Minneapolis could be heading towards deescalation: Trump said on Truth Social he and Walz “seemed to be on a similar wavelength” on Monday after “a very good call” in which they discussed the need to work together to manage the ongoing surge of federal immigration enforcement officials to Minnesota. His post was a significant pivot from previous messages — including some from the president in the immediate aftermath of the shooting — where Trump had accused Walz and others of corruption and suggested they were responsible for any violence in Minneapolis.

Asked by a reporter in the briefing about the contrast in tone between her remarks and the president’s seemingly optimistic social media post hours earlier, Leavitt repeated her attacks on Walz and Frey.

“I think the criticisms that I laid out … are what led to the moment that we are in today where Gov. Walz and President Trump are having a conversation — a constructive and productive conversation — to end the chaos and lawlessness that has taken place in Gov. Walz’s state,” she said.

Trump also announced Monday morning that he would be sending White House border czar Tom Homan to the state, suggesting a potential shift in strategy that could see the administration scale back the aggressive campaign led by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino which has at times turned violent.

Still, Leavitt denied that the decision to send Homan to the state implied wrongdoing on Noem’s part. She also declined to say whether Bovino would remain in the state as Homan takes over as the main point of contact in Minneapolis, saying only that Bovino “will continue to lead Customs and Border Patrol throughout and across the country.”

Leavitt’s remarks come after administration officials characterized Pretti as a violent agitator in the hours and days after the shooting, contradicting video evidence and witness accounts of the incident: White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called Pretti “a would-be assassin” who “tried to murder federal law enforcement” on Saturday, while Bovino said Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

Asked if those remarks were premature since the administration’s investigation into the incident was not yet completed, Leavitt repeatedly declined to rebuke the comments. The federal probe is being led by the FBI and the Homeland Security Investigations agency, per Leavitt, with CBP conducting a separate internal review.

Regarding Noem’s and Miller's remarks implying Pretti committed an act of “domestic terrorism," Leavitt said: “I have not heard the president characterize Mr. Pretti in that way. However, I have heard the president say he wants to let the facts and the investigation lead itself.”

The press secretary acknowledged, when asked about Americans’ rights to protest, that “all Americans have First Amendment constitutional rights” — but she also criticized observers as “left wing agitators,” accusing Walz and Frey of using their platforms to encourage people “to stalk, record, confront and obstruct federal officers who are just trying to lawfully perform their duties.”

Several administration officials, including Bovino and FBI Director Kash Patel, suggested in the wake of the shooting that Pretti — who had a concealed carry permit in Minnesota, according to local police — did not engage in constitutionally protected behavior when he arrived at the scene with a loaded firearm and subsequently engaged with federal agents.

Video of the incident, verified by the New York Times and other media outlets, appears to show that Pretti was holding a phone in his hands at the time of the incident and did not brandish the weapon. Video examined by the Washington Post also appears to show federal agents had disarmed him just moments before he was shot.

That sentiment drew the ire of the conservative gun lobby, with the influential National Rifle Association decrying comments made by Bill Essayli, the embattled California prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi in April, about the shooting.

"While Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms, Americans do not have a constitutional right to impede lawful immigration enforcement operations,” Leavitt said. “And any gun owner knows that when you are carrying a weapon, when you are bearing arms and you are confronted by law enforcement, you are raising the assumption of risk and the risk of force being used against you.”

Leavitt suggested the Trump administration would pull Customs and Border Patrol out of the state if Walz and Frey agreed to four demands listed out by Trump in a Truth Social post, including turning over unauthorized immigrants held in the state to the federal government for deportation and cooperating on enforcement measures.

But still, Walz struck a defiantly combative tone in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published shortly after his call with Trump, accusing federal officials of “lying” about the extent of non-cooperation between Minnesota officials and federal immigration enforcement agents.

“That isn’t effective law enforcement. It isn’t following the rule of law. It’s chaos. It’s illegal. And it’s un-American,” Walz wrote of the operation in his state.