JD Vance is refusing to apologize for his comments about Alex Pretti.
Last month, Pretti was shot by federal agents in Minneapolis. Videos show that the veteran ICU nurse was seemingly trying to help a civilian before he was disarmed (he had a license to carry) and shot at least 10 times.
The day that Pretti was killed, Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller quickly posted that Pretti was an “assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents” — which Vance reposted.
The following day, Vance blamed “state and local officials [who] refuse to cooperate with immigration enforcement,” claiming, “They have created the chaos so they can have moments like yesterday, where someone tragically dies and politicians get to grandstand about the evils of enforcing the border.”
Vance’s words were met with swift criticism, from politicians and civilians alike:
In a new interview with the Daily Mail, Vance was asked if he thought the agents who killed Pretti should face criminal consequences if an investigation were to find that they violated his civil rights. “I think we should follow the law,” Vance replied. “You’re asking me to engage in a hypothetical. I’m not going to pre-judge these guys.”
“I think that everybody is deserved the presumption of innocence in the American system of justice. That’s how it’s going to work. They’re going to investigate. If they find out that he violated the law, of course, you should face consequences for violating the law. But I’m not going to engage in conjecture,” Vance continued, calling for the investigation to determine whether the agents had “reasonable fear” of Pretti.
Vance was then asked outright whether he’d apologized to Pretti’s family. Vance replied, “For what?” He followed the question with a small smile.
The interviewer specified “labelling him an assassin with ill intent” as a potential cause for apology. In response, Vance said, “Again, I just described to you what I said about Alex Pretti, which is that he’s a guy who showed up with ill intent to an ICE protest.”
The interviewer pressed again as to whether Vance would apologize if an investigation found that Pretti’s civil rights were violated. Vance said, “So if this hypothetical leads to that hypothetical leads to another hypothetical, will I do a thing? And again, like I said, we’re going to let the investigation determine.”
“If something is determined, that the guy who shot Alex Pretti did something bad, then a lot of consequences are going to flow from that. We’ll let that happen. But again, I don’t think it’s smart to prejudge the investigation, I don’t think it’s fair to those ICE officers,” he added.
People pointed out the obvious flaw in this logic:
And responded to the clip more broadly:
You can watch the full interview here.
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