Republican Sen. Thom Tillis pushed back on President Donald Trump’s characterization of Alex Pretti as an “insurrectionist” and “agitator,” saying that he wanted the investigation to play out.
Trump posted on Truth Social about a video filmed 11 days before Customs and Border Protection officials in Minneapolis shot and killed Pretti. The video showed Pretti kicking an Immigration and Customs Enforcement SUV, breaking its taillight before being tackled to the ground.
“Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces,” Trump posted on Truth Social Friday morning. “It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances!”
Tillis, who is retiring at the end of the year, said that there was evidence that Pretti likely agitated.
“If you look at the video the week before, he was agitating, by definition,” he told The Independent. “You don't go in and kick anybody's car, let alone a truck full of ICE agents, and not view that as an agitating event.”
At the same time, he criticized Trump for saying Pretti’s “stock” went down.
“Stock going down?! My God, we're talking about a man who died on the street, which, you know, we'll let the investigation come out,” the Republican said. “It's just no place for that. I don't think the American people are going to like that. “
Tillis said many Americans remain compassionate.
“We’re a little bit edgy, but we're a pretty kind population, and I just don't think they like bullies in that image up there,” he said.
Tillis was among the first Republicans to call for a federal investigation into the killing of Pretti after video footage showed his death.
He criticized Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem calling Pretti a “domestic terrorist,” and–along with Sen. Lisa Murkowski–was one of two Republican senators who said she needed to leave her position.
That caused Trump to call Tillis aand Murkowski’s “losers” and that Tillis lost his “voice.”
Tillis has also criticized the Department of Justice’s probe into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. He previously said he would not support his replacement on the Senate Banking Committee unless the department put a halt to the investigation.
Tillis maintained that when Trump announced Kevin Warsh to replace Powell.
“I communicated to the [resident, I think of the ones that were on the short list, I think he was one of the best, and he had good options,” he told The Independent. “But process precedes people, and this process of prosecution has to end before I'm willing to vote to confirm anybody, even somebody as good as Warsh.”
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